Chapter Three: The Ratway (Turdas/Fridas/Loredas; Sixth/Seventh/Eighth of Sun's Dusk)

Aela, Elain, and Nesta waited within the main room of the Sleeping Giant while Aerenwen met with Delphine in the basement.

"I'm still surprised you didn't have me rushing to Riften right away to see if this man is really who the Thalmor believe him to be," Aerenwen commented as she watched Delphine pace around her war room.

"It wouldn't have been the first time that the Thalmor had used a supposed Blade in hiding as a way to lure others out," the older woman answered with a sigh, "but you're right. We can't chance letting the Thalmor get to Esbern if it really is him. We need to find him first."

"Who is this Esbern?" Aerenwen asked. "Is he actually important to the business of dragons, or am I now just helping you find your friend and making sure the Thalmor don't gain another prisoner?"

"He is important," Delphine replied. "He was our archivist, our historian," she further explained. "If anyone knows of why it is the dragons are returning, it would be Esbern. I can only hope that the Thalmor were right and it is him, and that my paranoia hasn't delayed us to the point where we're too late."

Aerenwen nodded. "If he is as paranoid as you . . ."

Delphine interrupted with a snorted laugh. "Even more so."

"Alright. Then if he is even more paranoid than you, how can I get him to trust me? He doesn't know me, and I'm an Altmer. He'll probably think I'm with the Thalmor," Aerenwen stated.

"Just ask him where he was on the 30th of Frostfall," Delphine offered. "He'll know what it means."


It was just a few hours before dawn when the three sisters and Aela arrived in Riften. Aerenwen glanced around the darkened city in curiosity as Nesta led them through the abandoned streets. The buildings were different than any others she had encountered in Skyrim in their style, and the streets bridged over canals built within the city's infrastructure. Riften, though a basis of commerce in Skyrim, had a bad reputation thanks to the Thieves' Guild and corrupt leadership, but Nesta seemed quite at home there as she led them down a set of stairs along the canal.

Through a gate and a wooden door and down a torch-lit hallway, they followed Nesta through sewers and across a bridge until they reached a second wooden door. A sign above the door read 'The Ragged Flagon'.

"This is an underground tavern," Nesta explained. "It's open to the public, but it attracts unsavory types, aside from the Guild, of course," she added with a wink.

They followed her inside. The tavern seemed to be located on the opposite side of a large pool of stagnant water and was reached by a wooden ramp crossing it. A stone walkway surrounded the pool and two merchants, a blacksmith and an alchemist, were set up in small caverns along it.

"They weren't here when I first arrived," Nesta informed them as they walked toward the bar. "Once upon a time, this place was a city beneath a city, or so I'm told. Then our bad luck led to most of the merchants leaving. It's only been with our success in Windhelm that the blacksmith set up shop here. The alchemist must be a result from my business in Markarth."

They climbed the ramp and Nesta nodded at the rough-looking Nord who stood guard. He appraised the others accompanying Nesta with narrowed eyes but smirked at her in greeting.

"Well, well, well, would you look at what the skeever dragged in?" a middle-aged Breton commented as the group approached the bar. "Welcome back, Nesta."

She grinned at the man. "Delvin. Good to see you." She then turned toward a large man with reddish hair who sat upon one of the stools. "Heya, handsome."

He chuckled and smiled at Nesta. "You're a sight for sore eyes," he commented. He then nodded at Elain and greeted her by name. "Who are your friends?"

"This is my sister Aerenwen, and this is Aela," Nesta introduced. "Ladies, this is Brynjolf."

Aerenwen studied the man, recognizing his name from Nesta's Guild talk, but she gathered by the glances he was exchanging with her sister that there was more going on between them than simple business.

"Good to meet you ladies," he commented with a friendly smile. "This may be a first, having Companions present in our humble Flagon. What brings you to the Ratway?"

"We're looking for someone," Aerenwen replied.

"An old man named Esbern," Nesta added. "I think he may be the one that pays the beggars to bring him food."

Brynjolf nodded. "Could be," he replied. "You're not the first to come looking for him lately. We had some unusual guests just a few hours ago. Be careful, Nes."

Aerenwen was immediately on edge and exchanged glances with her siblings as she felt Aela stiffen at her side. The Thalmor were there.

"We didn't give them any help," Brynjolf added, "but they went into the sewers anyway. The man you're looking for is holed up somewhere in the Warrens. This lad over here may be of more help. He's been asking for you."

They followed the direction of his nod to see the man they had rescued from the Thalmor sitting at a table.

"He's been here for a few days," Brynjolf explained. "Won't talk to anyone but you, Nes. But I recognize him as one who used to deliver food to the old man."

"Etienne," Aerenwen supplied. "He was captured and tortured by the Thalmor for information. We freed him and told him to come back here and tell you I'd sent him."

Nesta nodded. She approached the man, and Aerenwen watched as she spoke quietly with him for a few moments, handing over a bit of coin after the discussion and giving him a friendly pat on the back.

"Give him a introductory job," Nesta stated when she had returned to Brynjolf's side. "See if he's got what it takes to be one of us."

Brynjolf nodded, and Delvin glanced in almost comical surprise between Nesta and the outsiders amongst them.

"Relax, Del," she said with a roll of her eyes. "There is little about me my sisters don't know, and they're trustworthy. Elain is the one who helped us in Windhelm, and Aerenwen may be the Harbinger of the Companions, but she's not going to cause any trouble for us. She could actually be of some help when we hit Whiterun, in fact, and besides. She's the Dragonborn, and she needs our help."

Delvin frowned but nodded after glancing at Brynjolf and seeing that he was not at all disturbed by these particular outsiders being present for Guild talk.

A blonde woman approached then, smirking slightly at Nesta, her blue eyes raking over those accompanying her. "You know, I've never found High Elves all that attractive, but something about the genes in your family . . ." she teased as she leaned up against the bar.

Aerenwen chuckled and nudged Aela with a nod toward Elain who looked upon the woman with a smirk.

"Well, I initially had a very poor outlook on Nords thanks to a less-than-satisfactory encounter," the dark-haired sister said in a low, flirtatious voice, "but I've recently developed a soft spot for beautiful blondes."

The woman laughed heartily and shot Elain a wink. "I'm assuming these are your sisters," she stated with a glance toward Nesta.

"Elain, Aerenwen, Aela, meet Vex," Nesta introduced with a grin.

"As lovely as it is to meet your friends, Nes, and as much as I enjoy watching Elain seduce her next conquests, if the Thalmor have already headed into the Ratway, we can't afford to delay any longer," Aerenwen stated.

Nesta nodded, seemingly remembering the reason her sisters were there.

"If the elves head out this way with the old man, we'll do what we can to delay them," Brynjolf offered.

Nesta thanked Brynjolf and gave him a quick kiss, and Aerenwen saw that her instincts had, once again, proven correct. Nesta and this man had some sort of relationship beyond business. It must not have been a sure thing yet, if Nesta hadn't chosen to share the information with her sisters, but it was serious enough that she didn't hesitate to show affection to him in front of others.

The Ratway Vaults were located through a door down a hallway from the Flagon. They were dark and damp and smelled of must, rot, and waste. It was not a pleasant place, and Aerenwen couldn't imagine how desperate someone must have to be to resort to living in such conditions.

They traversed the twisting sewers, delving deeper below the city. Most of those they encountered avoided the women who were obviously seasoned warriors, but a few attempted to engage them and were dispatched quickly. They encountered three Thalmor agents along their path who were a bit harder to take down, but they were successful nonetheless.

Aerenwen knocked on the wooden door Etienne had told Nesta about, and a small panel at eye-level slid open, revealing part of the face of an elderly man.

"Who are you?" he called out. "Go away!"

"Are you Esbern?" she asked.

"I don't know who that is!" he replied and immediately slammed the peep-hole shut.

"Esbern, open the door. I'm a friend."

"No, that's not me," came the reply. "I'm not Esbern. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Delphine sent me!" Aerenwen called out through the door.

"Delphine!" he gasped. "So you've finally found her, and she led you to me. Here I am, caught like a rat in a trap."

"The Thalmor have found you," Aerenwen replied. "You need to get out of here."

"Oh, how reassuring!" the old man bit back sarcastically. "Most likely you're with the Thalmor, and this is just a trick to get me to open the door."

Aerenwen sighed and then remembered what Delphine had told her to say. "Where were you on the 30th of Frostfall?"

The peep-hole slid open again. "Delphine is really alive, then?"

Aerenwen nodded.

"Alright. You'd better come in and tell me how you found me and what you want," Esbern replied. "Just a moment. There are several locks here," the man called out. The women stood waiting, not quite patiently, as they heard several locks on the door disengage as he muttered to himself before the door finally opened. He closed and locked it behind them.

Esbern was a balding Nord of advanced age with a full white beard. He wore ragged clothes and looked a bit worse for wear. His room was surprisingly large and, even more surprisingly, rather clean and well-stocked. Books and various objects littered bookshelves, and candles lit the otherwise dark room.

"So Delphine keeps up the fight after all these years," Esbern stated as he crossed his arms and glanced at the group of women he had just allowed into his room. "Her fight is useless. The end is upon us. I may as well die here as anywhere else. I'm tired of running."

"What do you mean the end is upon us?" Aerenwen asked, not liking how defeated the old man sounded. Delphine had been nothing but a picture of determination during all this. Paranoid yes, but never defeated like Esbern appeared to be.

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" he asked. "What more needs to happen before you all wake up and see what's going on? Alduin has returned, just as the prophecy said! The Dragon from the dawn of time who devours the souls of the dead. No one can escape his hunger, neither here nor in the afterlife! Alduin will devour all things, and the world will end. Nothing can stop him. I tried to tell them. They wouldn't listen. Fools. It's all come true. All I could do was watch our doom approach."

"Alduin," Aerenwen commented, recognizing the name as one the dragon she had slayed in Kynesgrove had used when addressing the black dragon who had destroyed Helgen. "He's the dragon who is raising the others."

"Yes!" Esbern replied, his passion for the subject finally overcoming his despair. "You see. You know, but you refuse to understand! It's all been foretold. The end has begun. Alduin has returned. Only a Dragonborn can stop him, but no Dragonborn has been known for centuries. It seems the gods have grown tired of us. They've left us to our fate as the plaything of Alduin the World-Eater."

Aerenwen smiled softly at the old man, hoping to comfort him. She would take time to process all he was saying after they'd gotten him out of the Ratway and away from the Thalmor who hunted him. "It's not hopeless, Esbern," she stated softly. "I am Dragonborn."

Esbern's eyes widened, and he seemed to stagger back as a physical reaction to the shock of her statement. "What?! You . . . can it really be true? Dragonborn?"

Aerenwen nodded, and when the old man glanced at her sisters and Aela, they nodded as well.

"Then there is hope!" he exclaimed with a wide smile. "The gods have not abandoned us! We must . . . we must go quickly now. Take me to Delphine. We have much to discuss."

Aerenwen watched as the old man rushed around the room, filling a couple of bags with books and other supplies he considered necessary to take. Elain and Aela stood guard nearby, and Nesta watched Esbern curiously.

"You're talking about the literal end of the world?" Aerenwen asked the old man as he packed.

He nodded as he shoved a few books into one of the bags. "Oh yes. It's all been foretold," he replied but offered nothing else.

"Why are the Thalmor so interested in finding you?" she wondered.

"Well, they've been hunting down the Blades since the Great War on general principle," he replied. He stopped a moment to study the contents of another bookshelf, deciding upon two tomes to bring with him. "But if you mean me, now, in particular . . . maybe they've started to get an inkling of what the return of the dragons means. I don't suppose they want the world to end any more than we do, or at least, they'd prefer it to end on their terms."

Aerenwen couldn't help but smirk at that comment, and she heard her sisters chuckle.

"What happened on the 30th of Frostfall?"

"It was a cold day," Esbern replied. He placed one of his bags over his shoulder, and Nesta stepped forward to take the other. "The end of Frostfall is nearly winter in the Jerall Mountains. We heard the news at Cloud Ruler by courier, riding hard from the Imperial City. The 30th of Frostfall, 171. Thirty years ago. The Great War started that day. The Thalmor ambassador gave his ultimatum to Emperor Titus Mede - the heads of every Blades agent within the Aldmeri Dominion. I knew, that day, that it was truly the beginning of the end."

He glanced once more around his room and then nodded at Aerenwen. "Very well, Dragonborn. Let's get moving."


The trip out of the Ratway had been a bit more treacherous than the trip in. The place was overrun with Thalmor agents who the group had to battle at nearly every turn. They made their way to the Flagon and breathed a sigh of relief. The Thalmor wouldn't act against them there. There would be too many witnesses.

Nesta then led the others out of the sewer and into her home. She introduced them to her housecarl whom she commanded keep watch for any Thalmor who may be roaming the city. Though they didn't think they had been followed, one could never be too certain.

Esbern rested in Nesta's bed while the sisters and Aela chatted quietly around the hearth. After hiding out for years, the old man, though a skilled mage and once a talented warrior, lacked the stamina he'd once had, and just the journey through the tunnels had taken a lot out of him. They would let him rest until nightfall and then travel in the direction of Riverwood under the cover of darkness.

"This is some deep stuff you're dealing with," Nesta commented, studying Aerenwen. "You okay?"

Aerenwen sighed. She wasn't sure, honestly. She simply shrugged. "I knew the return of the dragons was big and had to mean something. I knew being Dragonborn meant that everyone was counting on me to take care of the dragons, but I had no idea this was some huge, world-ending event. It's overwhelming."

"We're here, Ren," Elain promised at the same time Aela took her hand. "You're not alone in this."

Aerenwen nodded. Though it wasn't entirely true - apparently defeating Alduin was something she and she alone could accomplish - she appreciated their support. Without it, she feared she would crumble under the pressure.