Shell took a deep, cleansing breath like she'd seen her mother do countless times, forehead resting on her folded arms on the table. The children were out back—everyone was out back—playing something called "duck, duck, goose" that actually had them sitting still for a moment, and she'd excused herself and went inside for a much-needed moment of solitude.

Anu help her, but this was exhausting. Not the playing part—she could do that all day—but the constantly making sure they didn't hurt themselves part, the dodging questions of a particular kind part, and the wondering if she was doing this right part. The other adults seemed to juggle the whole discipline and play thing, but twice now she'd thought they had gotten away with something only to learn that the scolding or time out they had gotten was punishment.

A very large part of her mind was insisting that it was a trick, though the logical part knew it was no such thing. She wouldn't hurt one of them for all the gold in Cyrodiil, but she dreaded the moment she caught one of them doing something when one of the other adults wasn't around to suggest a proper response. All the punishments she'd learned by their age had involved pain, or at least tears. Faloniril had once locked her in a small clothes chest for half a day and told her she was getting off easy. She was, in a way. He usually cast Fear on whoever was in there.

Oh, Auriel, what if she really was too warped for this?

"Momma Shell? Are you okay?" Big brown eyes full of concern were staring at Shell from about table height. Sofie had come to check on her. "You were shivering, so I brunged you the blanket I made you. Well, Luci helped, but I did most of it." She held up a rather lopsided and colorful crocheted blanket, made from soft wool that still smelled of lanolin.

"You made me something?" Shell asked, astonished.

"Yeah, the adults were talking, and I made you a hat, because they were talking about you having to change your hair, and I like your hair, and if you were having to change your hair because it's cold, or having to share a bed 'cause you're cold, and I still had a whole skein of wool, and Lucia said she'd help me make you a blanket too." Sofie gently tucked her rainbow offering into Shell's lap. "Momma Telki even got me more wool when it ran out too short."

Dumbfounded, Shell unfolded the colorful, clumsily made blanket, throat feeling weirdly tight. "I don't know what to say. Thank you, Sofie."

"You're welcome. Hope it keeps you warm!" Sofie chirped and waved as she skipped back outside.

Shell gazed after her a long moment before looking back to the blanket in her hands, simply staring at it and running her fingers lightly over the uneven stitches. After a minute or so, she hugged it to her, burying her face in the wool.

Strong arms wrapped around her, lifting her and then placing her in a familiar lap. "You look like you're thinking heavy thoughts." Gideon cradled her close, his hand running familiar patterns on her back.

"That's the nicest thing anyone's done for me since you knocked Uncle off me," she said, words muffled by the blanket. "I mean, a lot of people have been nice, and Rommy made sure I wasn't turning into a weird copy of Ilmiyon, but Gideon, she doesn't even know me! And she was worried about me enough to do this!"

Gideon gently rocked Shell while he thought of a good response. "We found Sofie here in Windhelm. One of the many overlooked by the damned 'Civil War.' Her mother died of sickness, and her father died fighting the Imperials. She was making shift as she could selling flowers and sleeping on the floor at the New Gnisis. She'd still find time to make sure Silda had a warm place before she went to sleep herself."

Shell went very still. "How old was she?"

"Quite young. We're still not sure how she managed."

Pushing herself up, she hopped up and strode toward the door. "Excuse me, I have to go stab Windhelm."

Gideon laughed and grabbed her back to him. "It was taken care long ago, Shell. It was one of the many reasons Ulfric spent a night as a Dunmer." He rubbed up and down her arms. "Now, what had you beating your head on the table before Sofie sidetracked you?"

"I…" she trailed off, looking down at the blanket cradled in her arms. "Have you ever looked directly at the sun?"

"Only accidentally. I don't recommend it." Gideon winced, "Especially when coming out of a dungeon."

"You know those afterimages that stay on your eyes? Where you can see the darkness even in the middle of all that light?"

"Yes."

"I feel like I'm going to leave those spots all over all these little bright lights," she confessed glumly. "Like my past is going to come out and affect them no matter what. I feel like a disease, or a rune waiting to be triggered."

Gideon sighed, still gently rubbing her arms. "Do you know what reassures me the most that won't happen?"

"There's a Daedric Prince that can see mental warping that will swat me if I go too far down that path?" she guessed.

"No," Gideon snorted. He made himself a mental note to have a talk with Rommy. Apparently, Things Were Discussed without him. "That you're worried about it. No one will guard your actions more than your own concerns."

Sagging against him slightly, she sighed. "That's the thing—I don't always know what's right or wrong. I was late for training and got used as the target in Sparks practice. I haven't even seen any of them spanked."

Gideon propped his chin on her head. "What would you consider an offense that required spanking?"

"I haven't the fuzziest idea," she confessed.

"Well, generally, it involves something dangerous that they've already been warned not to do. Blaise got his little backside blistered over the alchemy towers, well, after the second one, anyway. He still had to help clean up the first one." Gideon gently rocked her. "Most cases, the punishment fits the crime. If they mess something up, they have to clean and repair it. If they hurt a sibling's feelings, they have to make that sibling feel better." Gideon leaned around to place a kiss on her cheek. "However, it might also help you to know we're mostly just winging it ourselves. There is no book 'Mara's Best Parenting Tips', because no two families work the same way."

"I am going to be asking for a lot of advice. I may give up and take a page from Talon's book and simply make them run or do a hundred jumps or something," Shell worried her lip, thinking aloud. "I mean, that was sort of what you did to Haffod."

"It is." Gideon smiled as she thought her worries through. "So many things decide how a person will respond. Age, temperament, even intelligence figures into it." Lightly kissing the top of her head, he added, "And I will eat Eorlund's best anvil if you aren't smart enough to be running circles around these yahoos of ours within a month."

Shell blushed and finally looked up at him, wrinkling her nose. "I'd best get back to analyzing them, then. And they're hooligans," she reminded him, twisting in his arms to reach up and tap the tip of his nose. "Hooligans are young yahoos."

Gideon's smile widened, standing and setting her on her feet. "Of course, how could I forget?"

Pausing, she tilted her head, simply smiling up at him and enjoying the way his eyes were twinkling, and the things his smile did to her heart and stomach that from time to time she still wondered was some kind of sickness. His skin was warm against the layers of cloth she wore against the cold, and the steady thrumming of his heart under her right hand was a reassuring, grounding sensation. She considered leaning her cheek against it, but that would mean she had to stop looking at him.

Gideon bent forward enough to gently rub noses with her. "And what are you thinking, to put that look on your face? I wouldn't mind seeing it more often."

"Have you ever done that butterfly thing with Rommy? Where he turns you into a bunch of them and you fly around so fast everything is a dizzy blur, but in a good way, like when you were a child and spinning around just for the joy of it?"

"Rommy's transported me that way once or twice. I am familiar with that feeling. What has you feeling that way right now?"

"That way? Nothing really, but it's the closest I can think of," she grinned ruefully, eyes bright.

"Stop that right now, or there'll be consequences." Gideon playfully tapped her nose. "We're supposed to be helping watch the children."

Honestly confused, she drew back a little, "I didn't do anything," she protested.

"You weren't looking at me with bright eyes and a gorgeous smile begging to be kissed?" Gideon raised one skeptical brow.

"Says the man that proclaims 'come hither' with every breath?" she sassed, linking her fingers behind his neck. She had to stand on her toes to do it. "I've been being good all day."

Gideon slid an eye out the open door, to where the children had moved on from duck duck goose to some game that involved a lot of running and shrieking. It looked like a game of freeze tag, with snowballs. "Me? No. I'm just a simple paladin of Shor that your dazzling smiles and brilliant eyes are trying to tempt into going back to bed, instead of fulfilling my parental duty riding herd on my progeny."

Tilting her head to glance out the window, she asked idly, "How do you feel about closets?"

"Very cosy, especially with good company." Gideon had just gathered her back up and headed for the nearest closet when there came a knock on the front door. Gideon buried his face in Shell's ample bosom and groaned.

"You better not be starting that again!" Shell remonstrated in the general direction of the ceiling. Her only answer was the knock coming again, a little more forcefully.

Gideon reluctantly set Shell on her feet, kissing her stormy expression one more time before heading to the door. "Who's there?"

"Windhelm guard. Open up!" called a gruff voice through the wood.

"Truly?" Gideon raised his eyebrows at Shell. "Who's sent you, and why?"

"Please open up before they arrest me," Heron called politely.

"Much better." Gideon opened the door, to see a rather unamused Heron standing between two guards. "Heron, what've you done?"

"Still trying to figure that out myself," he replied.

Gideon looked to the guard on Heron's right for an explanation. "What's the boy done?"

"Harassing townsfolk, skulking about, and lollygagging," the guard replied.

"What's lollygagging?" Shell asked, eyes bouncing from the guards to Gideon and back again.

"I didn't 'harass' anyone!" Heron put in heatedly, "I asked for directions. I got as far as 'hello, do you know where,' before I was detained."

Gideon raised an eyebrow at the guard. "Who's bringing a complaint against the boy?"

"No one, yet. That's why we escorted him here," the first guard said.

"Didn't actually think he lived here," the other put in, still with a hand full of Heron's cuff, "but you never know with the Dragonborn."

"Aye. This is one of her Rescues. He's here looking for his parents among the Alinor prisoners." Gideon gave them his paladin glare, "We'd be very put out if he's harassed just for trying to learn the town to find them."

"He stays inside the law and keeps to himself, he's fine," the guard didn't back down.

Shell rolled her eyes and reached out, twisting the one's hand from the boy's clothing and jerking him inside. "Daughter or niece?" she asked the first guard.

"I don't stand for anyone harassing any young girl," he began, then paused at the look she shot him.

"He's no danger to your daughter," she said softly, a hint of steel in her eyes that implied she might be a danger to him if he continued.

The second guard elbowed him, "Best lock up your son."

Gideon pinched his nose, begging Shor for patience. "Heron will be leaving the moment we locate his parents and living with them. He will not be chasing anyone's anything. He wants to find his parents. That's all. If you gentlemen actually aided in this search, he'd be away from your children that much faster."

"Can't say I've seen anyone he reminds me of," the second guard said, tilting his head to examine Heron, who glared right back.

Gideon sighed. "Aye, that's what we've been running into, and has sent Heron out looking for himself. Thank you for bringing him home. Next time, we'll have someone with him, so nobody has to be harassed." Gideon nodded politely to the guards before closing the door, turning immediately to catch Heron's sulk. Given the circumstances, he couldn't really hold that against him.

"And that is why you need someone with you, so the guards don't have fits, especially guards with daughters your age." Gideon leaned against the door, face in his hand, caught between frustration and hilarity. "I am sorry your first foray into Windhelm was so eventful."

"What, with apparently the entire city thinking I'm sent by Sanguine to corrupt their youth?" he asked angrily, bristling.

"Believe it or not, I know the feeling." Gideon tilted his head to look at him. "It took donning paladin armor before anyone saw anything but the next Domanio."

"Don't look at me," Shell raised her hands in surrender. "I probably was there to corrupt the youth." Dropping them to her sides, she frowned at Heron. "What were you doing, anyway?"

He sighed, running his hand over his head as if his hair was much longer than it was, making Shell think that he had needed to cut it very recently. "I know this might take a long time," he said, walking over to the table and sinking onto the bench, facing outward. "I don't want to impose on you all. I want to do something myself. I thought, maybe if I found the Alchemy shop, they might see what I can do and give me a job. I mean, I can't make amazing stuff, but I'm really good at Health and Stamina potions—Sura made this trick where you can actually charge it with a small amount of magicka to make it stronger. If I could get a job and finance myself, I'll…look better? Less like a crazy, Thalmor-raised child unable to do anything but flirt and kill, anyway."

Gideon had folded his arms as he listened, the clouds on his face darkening as Heron's speech continued. "Heron, your parents already know you've been through hell and back. You have nothing you need to prove to them. That you've survived, and are whole enough you can even worry about that means you're far stronger, and a far better person, than they have any right to hope survived being raised by Thalmor.

"If you want to get a job at the alchemy shop, that's fine, but we could honestly use you here. You've surely noticed we can always use an extra hand with the kids here, and not only do we have a fully stocked alchemist workshop, we're constantly running through heals. Telki might even take you on as an apprentice so she can keep Sam in his mead. You'd be earning your keep and a bit more besides, without having to worry about guards giving you grief on the street."

Heron thought about this a long moment. "I'd be grateful," he finally said, genuine humility in his voice. Shell's eyebrows shot up, then lowered with a slightly worried look. Young Ones of Heron's type generally weren't known for being humble unless they'd had the arrogance forcefully knocked out of them.

Gideon smiled widely at the boy. "Good, because I had no wish to deal with Telki's pout when she came home and you're gone."

Looking slightly strained, Heron added, "I really need to get out of this house sometimes, though. I'm used to people my own age, and it just gets a little…loud?"

Gideon's chuckle rolled like a friendly rumble of thunder. "Oh, they can get a lot loud. I can see about Galmar working you with the young recruits? Hell, you're probably experienced enough you could be training recruits. Or would working with Wuunferth the mage be more to your liking, or a mix of the two? Wuunferth for the quiet, Galmar for the company?"

"I'd rather avoid the Stormcloaks, if it's all the same to you," he said firmly. "Before my face started doing that weird attractive thing, they were grooming me to join them and spy."

Gideon's brows lowered. "I'm sorry they put you through that. I rather wonder how far off the mark their 'training' to be a Stormcloak was, given their pathological dislike of all things Nord."

"Oh, I got to yell 'Skyrim's for the Nords!' while being scowled at," he said, smiling a little. "It was sort of fun to throw that kind of rhetoric right back at them."

Gideon's hand was back on his face, "Oh Shor, it's worse than I thought."

"They used to pit me against recently captured fighters to see how I'd do in battle conditions. I was getting pretty good with a greatsword," he said, a little wistfully. His face darkened briefly, and his shook his head. "Still, I like putting people together a lot better than taking them apart."

"Sura says you're good with Restoration magic," Shell put in, examining him pensively. "Have you ever thought of developing that?"

The boy perked up slightly. "Not really. I like the sound of it though. Do you think Talon would mind showing me some things? He scares the shit out of me, but the residuals I saw on Sura's ankle were from things I didn't even know could be done."

"I think, Heron, you asking Talon for healing lessons would literally brighten his day," Gideon smiled. "But you'd have to share, he's already got quite the roster."

"I have no problem just watching next time he works on Sura," the young Nord replied, leaning back a little, then pausing as if something had occurred to him. "Um, about Sura," he started.

Gideon felt his stomach drop, already running through ways to break the news to Haffod and Alesan that Sura was as good as taken. "You've nothing to fear here, Heron. Ask whatever you need or want. If we can, we'll answer."

"Well," his cheeks turned slightly pink, and he looked horribly embarrassed. "Myself and another of our team were trained in certain areas differently. We were given a very explicit education in some ways." He winced, "But this morning I overheard the cute little redhead kid ask her where Telki's baby was going to come from and she said she thought the Thalmor brought them. I am pretty sure the talk of 'this happens, don't do it unless you're told to' was the only talk they got on that subject before we left."

Oh, Shor, that was almost worse. Gideon's other hand joined the first on his face. "She needs the Talk, then. Shell? Paladin training did not cover this."

She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "Exactly how explicit am I not supposed to be, because I'm pretty sure I got the same type of training as Heron."

Gideon laid his head back and groaned. "Sura's of an age, and she's pretty. She needs to know when someone is making an advance on her, and she needs to know the consequences if she says yes. I don't really know what all she'd need to know to keep herself safe if she does decide to…I'm not ready for this. Shor's bones."

"Alright, plan B," Heron took a deep breath. "Ask Murril to follow her around with the atronach."

Gideon chuckled weakly, "No, I just realized Lucia's not that much younger than Sura. She needs to know these things, too." Gideon felt his shoulders relax as emotions flitted across Heron's face. It was clear there was no interest on Heron's part where Lucia was concerned. From puzzlement to acknowledgment, there was nothing there to make the protective caveman in the back of his head react. In fact, it looked as if it hadn't even occurred to Heron that Lucia was also nearly of age.

From the look Shell was giving him, she knew exactly what he was thinking. "We'll take care of it, Heron. In the meantime, why don't you take Sura or Alesan or one of the older ones with you when you go out? That way, at least you're lost together." She shrugged, "I admit, I usually take to the roofs when I get lost in this city."

Gideon's smirk slid into place watching her. "Stay with whoever you decide to escort. All of the kids are familiar enough you won't get lost, no matter where you go."

Cocking a hip, she gave him a somewhat aggrieved look, "And how exactly am I supposed to rob someone under those conditions?"

Gideon leaned back, arms folded. "Why would you need or want to rob someone in this city now? If you must," Gideon gives her his best stern glare, "scope the place out. Arrange a meeting place with one of the kids, go rob, then meet the kid at the prearranged place, though anyone you think needs stealing from probably needs an audience with Ulfric's jailors."

She dimpled, eyes shining mischievously. "If you ever wonder why I love you, that's one of the reasons."

Gideon gave her a puzzled look, eyebrow raised. "You do remember I follow a trickster god, yes?" He tapped his fox medallion for good measure.

Heron took one look at the impish look on the woman's face and stood. "I'm going to go now. Right now. Good bye."

Shell waited about three seconds from when he left to purr, "And how do followers of the Trickster feel about closets?"

A wide predatory grin and a heft over his shoulder later answered her. "Closet. Now." Shell giggled.

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The acolytes at the Temple of Auriel were good at being inconspicuous. They moved about, lighting lamps in the gathering gloom, bestowing vague blessings on the passersby before heading into the temple proper for sundown service. The stained glass of the main window brightened even as the sky dimmed, sending golden rays of filtered candlelight through the colored panes of glass comprising Auriel's sun. Singing echoed faintly across the rooftops, and pigeons took flight momentarily at the sound, only to land once again on the temple.

"There are moments when you are stunningly predictable."

Talon sighed, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the chimney he'd chosen as a backrest. "What are you doing here?"

"Strangest thing happened today," Blythe said, settling herself a safe distance from him and shaking out her skirts. Roof-running aside, she had been raised in a decent Breton family, and wasn't about to show her calves and knees a moment longer than was necessary. "One of my customers likes to share all the juicy gossip, and it seems one of the professors at the Imperial University is cavorting with one of the students. An apprentice found them necking in the rare book room, and of course only professors can get in there," she drawled.

"How is this interesting?" he asked, eyes flicking back to the glowing glass window.

"Only that I know you and that hyper-focused mage sister of the Dragonborn were going to raid the University library, and now she's searching the house for you, looking more lost kitten than Khajiit mage." The woman lifted her braid off her neck, letting the cool night air dry the sweat from it. "So, way I have it figured, you kissed, discovered you aren't quite the Frost Atronach you thought you were, and now you're planning to ruin every chance of happiness you might have with this woman by colossally overthinking things."

"I do not see how any of this is your affair," he stated coolly, face as much a mask as he'd kept it under Faloniril.

"I'm hurt. Here I thought we were all a big dysfunctional extended family," Blythe pouted mockingly at him, exaggerating the expression so that her round face looked positively pugish. "And my 'affair' is back in Windhelm, which is where I'd much rather be, but there was a sad Khajiit asking me if I knew where you were in front of the portal."

"How did you know where I was?" he asked, glancing at her.

She shrugged. "I read your full dossier, remember? Your mother was a priestess of Auriel. Where do men go when they're feeling uncertain? It's not like you're about to seek your father out."

"As you sought out yours?" Talon challenged mildly, eyes golden as the bubbly leaded glass rays flickering over to regard her.

"He's better off thinking me dead," Blythe repeated firmly, turning her own eyes to the painted sky beyond the rooftops. It was tinted lavender, but quickly darkening. The first few stars of the Atronach were peeking through.

"Unlike my father, yours has nothing left, Sorcha," he said, watching her flinch. "I think it would help him a great deal to know you live."

"Why are you so interested in this?" she cried, hiding her whirling emotions under a thick layer of exasperation.

"Big dysfunctional family," he reminded her, earning a scowl. He let that rest for a moment before adding. "I felt guilty, sometimes. I knew that you were strong enough to survive, but you would be miserable for a long time. I consoled myself that it would be better than letting them soul trap and kill you. At least this way, you could work to find a way out."

"Soul trap didn't work on me anyway," she grumbled, eyes averted as she processed this. "I was already god-bound."

"Then perhaps I should apologize," Talon said softly.

"Nah. You were right. I managed," Blythe said gruffly, brushing off her skirt. "Besides, I'm useful here. I'm useful to Shell and the others, and despite my boss I do enjoy my work at the depot."

Turning his gaze from the window, he studied her, remembering finding her with the bodies of her older sisters, wounded and covered with blood, still holding an Akaviri shortsword to try to keep the Thalmor soldiers playing with her at bay. They'd razed the entire town that day, simply for garrisoning so many Blade families. She'd seen it all, and still had been ready to go down fighting. She hadn't stopped fighting, resisting all through her training even while everyone assumed from her docile acceptance that she'd capitulated. "I've never known you to be a coward," he finally said.

She stared at him, shocked, then her gaze hardened. "And you? Aren't you actively running from something you want? Don't deny it, either. There is hardly a moment you're with her that you're not smiling. You, the man with a face of granite."

"I will speak to her of my thoughts," he revealed, "I simply needed to sort out what they were, first."

"Oh," she blinked, then flushed a bit, lips puckered in annoyance. "You were using me trying to draw you out to draw me out, weren't you?"

"I think you are very unhappy here," Talon said, shifting a bit more comfortably on the roof tile. "You have a father that would be overjoyed to know you're alive, a man wanting to be a lover, and a Name to reclaim. You do yourself a disservice moldering away here."

"You have all those things yourself," she rejoined, a touch waspishly. "Father, lover, name. Molag's hairy balls, you could even go back to Alinor and live with your son."

"That will be the last you speak on that," he said firmly, giving her a warning look.

Blythe twitched, the fear of Trainers too ingrained to ignore the implied threat. "Fine," she said curtly, standing. "I'll be in Windhelm if you need me. If you see my Overseer skulking about, do kill him, would you? I might actually get a proper vacation before they get someone else in place."

"I'll consider it," he promised, not watching as she left. The stylized clouds of the glass window were dimming as the service came to a close, the panes of sky around them taking up the hues of magelights, reminding him of softly gleaming blue eyes in the darkness.

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I'm excited! I get to dogsit Diesel this week! He's such a sweet baby. ^_^ Kinda dreading what the house is going to look like by the time I come home, though...

I had a bit of a scare this week. My father had to go to the hospital. He's in another state, so I couldn't join them, but I managed to call just as the doctor was coming out of surgery, so I got to hear the results. He should be alright, but he has some recovery time he's going to grouse through.

Got four duck eggs this week. :D

Running the Asylum is still on-going, but is winding up toward the end, if any of you haven't checked it out yet.

Thank you everyone that read and reviewed!

GalacticHalfling: The other option was yellow, and that makes Blossom look sallow. Really, though, she'll try whatever she needs to help Blossom find her inner girly-girl. Blossom has, so far, resisted heroically. There are more Young Ones than people think, but Dessnia's largest group of YOs are really just agents. They don't have the training and specializations that we usually associate with YOs, though they're still soul trapped. Lee is definitely trouble, but to whom really depends on the circumstance.

The Celtic Dragon: Amaryllis might prove more flexible than you think. Dar is starting to remind me of Sera from DA: I. They ain't got no trousers!

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Next week: A quiet dinner with the family turns into a scene from a teenage drama and an episode of Maury.