WANTED

Arenar

"There's the Dragonborn!"

The roar that followed was nearly as deafening as those created by the dragon called Alduin. Kynesgrove, a village of mostly Nords with a scattered Imperial and Breton here or there, was in awe at the sight of their savior. Katjaa waved absently to the crowd the group was walking through, as she couldn't manage doing much more than that. Arenar carried her as gently as he could, mindful of her cracked ribs that Rimion hadn't the magicka to heal. Delphine, who'd failed to mention her own slightly magical background, was also incapable of fixing the damage at that moment. Her not being able to walk on her own did not deter the townsfolk one bit, judging by their applause and cheers.

Arenar could see not everyone was thrilled about the Dragonborn surviving the fight. There was a frown on the faces of a couple Nordic women in the crowd; their eyes were pink and their faces as equally flushed. It did not take a scholar to realize these women were somehow connected to one or more of the Nords that had fallen to the dragon's wrath. Arenar could imagine they wouldn't be happy that the Dragonborn, who was supposedly the greatest of all the dragon hunters, couldn't protect their husbands, or brothers, or fathers.

Katjaa and Arenar were at the head of the group as they all made their way towards the Braidwood Inn. Immediately behind them were Valentine, Rimion, and Lydia walking side-by-side. Rimion had healed all but Katjaa's ribs and Sven's broken leg, and so he was the most exhausted of the three; he planned to down a strong magicka potion so he could deal with the final two injuries. They were followed by Delphine who was supporting a crippled Sven. Trailing the farthest behind were Kole and Dog. The former didn't run around with the normal enthusiasm he displayed, while the latter was enraged at himself for being subdued for nearly the whole fight.

Arenar knew the praise being thrust by the villagers was mainly directed at Katjaa, but it felt good to be recognized as a hero again. All the work he'd done over the years—defending the weak, defeating the wicked—had rarely been noticed by those he had helped. The reason for that was mostly him; staying in one place for too long would draw unwanted questions like, "how did you do that with your ring?" or "why do you seem frozen in time?" or, worst of all, "how did you come back to life?"

Thinking of that brought him back to his and Katjaa's conversation just prior to Alduin appeared. Arenar hadn't let on how much it really bothered him that she'd been a thief, and that she came from a whole line of thieves. He'd had a more than a few encounters with several Thieves Guilds across Tamriel since his early days in Morrowind. To think that the woman he loved could have ended up dead at his feet due to a botched attempt to rob him... He shook his head, refusing to let his imagination run wild.

That Valentine was not only a thief but the leader of the Thieves Guild in Skyrim and a Nightingale was an entirely different matter. Arenar's instinct not to trust him had been right after all. He would have to inform Rimion soon, unless Lydia did it for him, as secrets to a thief were sometimes more valuable than gold.

Secrets. Alduin had prevented Arenar from giving his biggest one to Katjaa. Holding her lithe form in his arms, he could see no reason to not finish their conversation. She would never hurt him, intentionally at least. And not telling her today would not put off the truth eventually coming out. A serious mistake could temporarily cost him his life, or years from now when they were both older she would see he was still in the body of a twenty-four year old. Either way, Katjaa would have to be told then, when there could be no doubt his being the Nerevarine wasn't a lie.

But Arenar couldn't bring himself to do it. She might not be a criminal anymore, but Katjaa would likely tell her brother about him. And when it came to thieves, almost nothing was off-limits if it meant making a profit. Only organizations like the Dark Brotherhood were viler than the Thieves Guild; thieves prefer stealing from the living, while the wretched assassins made money through murder and torture.

Most of the crowd remained outside once the group entered the Braidwood Inn;only the innkeeper and a few of the tenants also entered the inn, but they kept a respectful distance from the warriors who'd save their home. With the sole exception of Rimion who went to get his bag, everyone went into the womens' room.

Arenar laid Katjaa down slowly on the bed he'd found her on merely an hour or so ago. She stopped trying to hide her discomfort, now cursing under her breath with each movement with a strained expression on her face. "Damn that dragon to Oblivion!" She cursed in little more than a whisper. "Both of them, for that matter!"

"I couldn't agree more," Sven said as he was put down on the adjacent bed by Delphine. The Breton propped his bad leg up on a pillow and took a seat on the small dresser next to it.

"Alduin..." Lydia rubbed her neck shakily. "Legend tells us Nords that the World-Eater would return to Nirn at the end of days. Some of the legends, including that one, seemed too preposterous to be true." She paused, as though to collect her nerve. "Could this be it? Could this be the end of days?"

"The Divines would not have blessed me with a dragon soul if they were planning to destroy the world," Katjaa said, her head supported by a pillow in order to see everyone.

"Alduin might not be a slave to the Aedra's will," Kole said. He sat in the corner of the room, wrapped up in a blanket. Dog was beside him, his head on his master's knee. "If his duty is to 'end the days,' as you put it, then waiting for the gods' to demand it would not stop him, if he's determined enough."

At that moment Rimion entered the room. He in his arms he cradled several bottles of varying size, all containing the same alchemical mixture to give him a rapid refill of his magicka pool. He rested them on Katjaa's bed and lowered himself down next to her.

The conversation continued as the healer got to work. "So now we know how the dragons are coming back," Delphine said, "but now we're faced with another question: how has Alduin returned? His death was the turning point in the Dragon War, and was recorded by the ancient Nords." She gave a consoling look at Lydia. "I do not think he came to end the world, per say. That was his duty since the beginning of time, and he abandoned it to rule us mortals instead."

"You think he would attempt it again?" Arenar asked.

Delphine didn't answer his question right away. She and Arenar had been talking nonstop since the Blades had joined the group. He'd been pestering her over and over to release privileged Blades-only information in return for his own knowledge of the secret organization. Arenar had abandoned the Blades as soon as he could those two hundred years ago, and now he was starting to see the result of that. Had he remained with the emperor's secret guard, could he have prevented the death of Uriel Septim? Or could he have saved Martin Septim, the last of the Septim emperors?

He would never know if his inaction had caused the rise of the Thalmor, and the death of Lielle. But he refused to step aside ever again.

Arenar changed his story slightly from what he'd originally told Delphine. He said to her that he had been the son of a Blade from Cyrodiil, and that his father had unofficially made him one as well. Lying to her to get her to trust him ended up a success, though learning the Blades' perspective of their demise hadn't exactly been what he was looking for.

She finally spoke. "I would. Skyrim is weaker than it has been since the Oblivion Crisis. The High King is dead, and the country is on the precipice of a civil war between the Empire and the Stormcloaks. Better timing is something Alduin could not have."

Rimion removed his hands from Katjaa's abdomen. "There we go. You're still going to feel pretty tired from Shouting, but once you wake up from another three day mini-coma, you'll be good to go."

"Thank you," Katjaa said. Her pained expression had been replaced by one of contentment. No more than a couple seconds passed before she fell asleep.

The cork preventing the magicka potion from spilling all over the place was removed, and Rimion drank its contents down to the last drop. He did so again with another, smaller vial. He smacked his lips together. "Man, does that not taste good." He crossed the room and started restoring Sven's leg.

Valentine said to Delphine, "you said that a dragon can't be killed unless its soul was destroyed. Could it be possible that Alduin's soul lingered around for the past thousands of years or so, and has only recently found a new body... or reformed his old one... or something like that?"

"Maybe." Delphine didn't sound too convinced by the proposal. "But Alduin was the strongest of the dragons. Why would he not have been able to come back to life sooner?"

"Alduin could have come back to life a long time ago," Sven said, "and had been hiding since then, waiting for a time to make his existence known to the rest of the world."

Again the Grandmaster of the Blades seemed doubtful of the suggestion. "Dammit, we're blundering around in the dark here! We need to figure out who's behind it all!" Her eyes lit up with sudden awareness. "I know who brought back Alduin."

When she didn't add anything else to that, Lydia said, "well who is it?"

"The Thalmor."

Rimion broke his concentration on Sven's leg and looked at Delphine. "There's no way the Thalmor are behind this."

"Who else gains from a weakened Skyrim and a weakened Empire than the Thalmor?" she asked.

Rimion opened his mouth, but seemed to decide against arguing with her.

"Right now, this is all just speculation," Arenar said. "Unlikely as it may be for the Thalmor to have control over Alduin, there is a chance that it is what's going on. Regardless, we need to find out what the Thalmor know about the dragons." He looked around the room. "Any ideas?"

"The Thalmor Embassy up in Solitude would be a good place to start looking for leads," Rimion said just a little too quickly.

"If we could get in there, yes." Delphine eyed him for a moment, as if wondering how much he, being an Altmer, knew about the Aldmeri Dominion. "It's the center of their operations in Skyrim. The problem's that that place would be locked up tighter than a miser's purse. They could teach even me a few things about paranoia."

"I could get in there," Valentine said. "There's not a building in the world I couldn't break into."

I have no doubt about that. "We should wait until Katjaa wakes," Arenar suggested. "That way she can have her say on the how we'll proceed."

Nods of agreement ended the conversation.

Katjaa didn't take as long to wake after Shouting herself unconscious this time. It still took her several hours, but that was nothing compared to her three day mini-coma in Morthal. Arenar, who had elected to stay behind while the rest of the group explored the village, was at her side when she started to stir.

A moment later, her eyes fluttered open. "Hey," she said sleepily.

"How you doing?" he asked.

"Not bad." She sat up, leaning her back against the headboard of the bed. "Please don't tell me the fight with Sahloknir was three days ago."

"No; it's been about three hours since you killed the dragon."

"Only three?" Katjaa asked, sounding pleasantly surprised. "Gods, I wish the Greybeards would have recognized me as Ysmir sooner. I wonder if they knew how much their Voices would affect me."

"None of them have ever encountered a Dragonborn before you," Arenar pointed out. "Ancient texts can teach you only so much."

Katjaa looked around the room. "Where is everyone else?"

Arenar shrugged. "They're out and about; getting supplies, seeing the sights, and the sort."

She smiled. "And here you are again, sitting next to me."

"I had no reason to leave, and plenty reason to stay."

She kissed him for that. When she pulled away from him she said, "the last time we were in this position, you had us profess our love for each other." She arched her eyebrow. "Anything as life altering to say this time?"

"Actually, yes. Not 'life-altering' mind you, but important all the same." Arenar took her hand, able to feel her skin since he'd removed his armor hours ago. Being alone with her gave him a chance to continue their discussion of secrets, and how he planned to keep his. "About my being a Blade..."

Katjaa brought her finger to his lips to silence him. "Whatever it is, don't say it."

"What?"

"I'd be lying if told you that I have no secrets left to offer," she said. "But... some secrets should remain secrets, you know what I mean?"

He nodded, unsure what direction she was going in.

"So here's what I propose: we can have our secrets, but we should not lie too each other from here on out." She paused, looking at him for a response. "What do you think?"

"I think... that will work."

It took three days to reach the capital of the Pale, but Dawnstar gave them a warm welcome. Rimion had failed to mention that he had visited the city once before, and had rescued them from a vicious plight caused by the Daedric Prince Vaermina. All of the city's inhabitants considered themselves in his debt, and thus were happy to supply the group with provisions for a low price.

Even the Jarl, Skald the Greater, was grateful for the Arch-Mage's services; he gave them room and board for the single night they were there, free of charge.

"What was going on here?" Arenar had asked him.

"Vaermina was stealing people's memories, preventing them from being able to sleep. I caught word of the happening not too long after I became Arch-Mage. A Dunmer who was partly responsible for everything and I took care of the issue," Rimion had answered.

The group left early the next morning, wanting to reach Solitude as quickly as possible. Valentine most of all seemed happy to be leaving the port city behind for some unspoken reason. Another four days of traveling allowed Arenar to process his talk with Katjaa a little more. He knew that their agreement wouldn't last, but anything that kept him from having to tell his secret, if only a temporary fix, was good news to him. But it made him wonder: what were Katjaa's secrets that she refused to tell too?

Considering the terms of their agreement, he might never know.

He allowed himself to stop watching Valentine's every move on the trip to Solitude. He seemed genuine in his wanting to help his sister, and thus would not likely do anything to harm her. Arenar still didn't trust the leader of the Thieves Guild, but he wasn't going to continue looking for an excuse to call the man out.

Spending time with Katjaa had already become the greatest thing he'd done in over a hundred years. His time with Lielle had been short compared to the months he'd been with Katjaa. His love for her was stronger than it had been for his first true love.

But he was a man, and that left him wondering when his and Katjaa's relationship would reach a more... physical level. He and Lielle had slept together the last night of her life, and that had been the last time he'd ever been that close to a woman. Thirty years of abstinence left Arenar yearning quite a lot to be with Katjaa.

Especially considering the moans that had come from Lydia and Rimion's room during their stay at the Windpeak Inn, and from their tent each night since.

At midday they reached Solitude, home to the late High King Torygg and his wife, Jarl Elsif the Fair. Coincidentally, it was the same day as an execution.

According to the Nords standing guard at the gates to Solitude, a man named Roggvir was scheduled to be beheaded today. He had supposedly helped Ulfric Stormcloak escaped the city after he'd killed the High King. Roggvir had only recently been found hiding out near the borders of Haafingar Hold and The Pale, having escaped alongside the Jarl of Whiterun.

Arenar wasn't sure what to do. He had sprung Ulfric Stormcloak from the Empire's custody in Helgen, and had pledged himself to the Stormcloaks. Had Alduin not intervened, and Arenar had been captured, he would be in the same boat as this Roggvir person. Should I help the man I might have ended up being?

Deciding it best to play it by ear, he and the others entered Solitude to immediately come across said execution, with a crowd easily over a hundred people not including guards, watching loudly and impatiently as Roggvir was brought onto the execution stand. Overall the reaction from the crowd was mixed; half the crowd was eagerly waiting for the traitor to be decapitated, while the other half wanted him to be pardoned. The first half seemed the most likely to be pleased by what would follow.

The group found a place in the back of the crowd. Delphine and Sven had hoods over their faces, in case any Thalmor were about that would recognize the last of the Blades. Rimion, too, had his hood up, equally worried of being recognized by someone from the Aldmeri Dominion. He made up a lie for the Blades, who he did not want knowing about his past, that he anticipated rain.

A poor lie, considering there wasn't a cloud in sight. But the Blades clearly didn't take him seriously most of the time. That feeling was shared among most of the group.

The captain of the Solitude guard, standing next to Roggvir, ordered the crowd to be quiet. It took a moment for the message to sink in. Once it did, he continued by addressing the prisoner. "Roggvir. You helped Ulfric Stormcloak escape this city after he murdered High King Torygg. By opening that gate for Ulfric you betrayed the people of Solitude."

Roars of both agreement and disagreement came from the crowd. Roggvir had to shout loudly over them to be heard. "There was no murder! Ulfric challenged Torygg. He beat the High King in fair combat. Such is our way! Such is the ancient custom of Skyrim, and all Nords!"

"I wonder exactly how fair the fight was," Katjaa whispered in Arenar's ear. It was hard to understand her over the angry cries of the crowd. "Ulfric has a limited ability to Shout, but he wouldn't need much to have a huge edge on the High King."

Arenar remembered Ulfric mentioning having the talent to Shout. It must have been common knowledge, as his mouth had been bound when none of the other Stormcloaks' had.

The crowd went quiet almost all at once as the guard captain forced Roggvir onto his knees. Another guard, carrying an executioner's axe, moved to the opposite side of the captured Nord.

Arenar took a step forward as Roggvir's head was placed on the executioner's block. Before he could take another, Katjaa put a hand on his shoulder. She didn't say anything, but the message was clear: they couldn't do anything to help the man.

He was no stranger to killing, but Arenar had to turn away as the axe was brought down upon Roggvir's neck. He could have easily ended up in Roggvir's shoes, though even he wasn't sure if being decapitated would permanently put him down. Hopefully I'll never have to find out.

Enthusiastic members of the crowd walked away relatively happy with this turn of events. People that were less so trudged away with frowns. In either case, the crowd quickly dispersed as the body and head of Roggvir was removed from the scene.

The group stuck around a while longer than the rest, since they had nowhere else to be. Delphine was the first to speak. "We're going to have to find a way into the Thalmor Embassy... preferably without getting ourselves killed in the process. I have a few contacts that are locals here; none of which are fans of the High Elves. Sven and I will go look for them. The rest of you, find someplace for us to hide out. We'll find you."

She and Sven walked away, leaving the group to do their own thing.

"I remember when I used to be the leader of this ragtag group of warriors and mages," Katjaa said, sounding only partially sarcastic.

"You have the soul of a dragon," Kole said. "It is in your nature to take charge and to never submit. What has changed?"

Katjaa gave him a dirty look. "What changed was we ended up stuck with the only people in all of Skyrim that can potentially help us with this... dragon crisis. I don't know what I'm doing half the time; I'm not above stepping aside when someone that can actually do something can do it."

"Spoken like a true woman," Rimion said jokingly.

"Excuse me?" Lydia said, doing a poor job of suppressing a smile.

"I wasn't referring to you of course, my love," he said quickly. "You're much more self-reliant than most women."

"And I'm not?" Katjaa asked him.

Rimion looked back and forth between the two women. After several glances he shrugged. "My friends, it appears I have been caught with my pants down."

A fit of laugher erupted from everyone in the group, gaining them unneeded attention from people passing by. Arenar noted that even Kole, who not too long ago would ever let anyone catch him laughing at one of Rimion's jokes, was visibly amused. The shell we found him in seems to be breaking slowly but surely. I wonder why he was so serious all the time when we first met.

The laughter stopped when Delphine and Sven reappeared out of nowhere. The Blades looked more nervous than normal, and that was saying something. In Delphine's hands were two folded pieces of paper.

"We have a problem," said the Grandmaster of the Blades.

She handed one of the papers to Katjaa and the other to Arenar. Both unfolded them at the same time, doing it in such a way that the rest of the group could see them.

The one in Arenar's possession had a not-too-flattering sketch of him, and Katjaa's had a similar one of her. Underneath the poorly done portraits were their names, though Katjaa's had "Amarie" on it instead of "Valentine." Following details that could not be given by their sketches—such as hair color, eye color, height, etc.—were the following words printed boldly:

WANTED BY THE EMPIRE AND THE ALDMERI DOMINION FOR AIDING IN THE ESCAPE OF ULFRIC STORMCLOAK. REWARD OF ONE THOUSAND SEPTIMS IF BROUGHT IN ALIVE. REWARD OF FIVE HUNDRED IF BROUGHT IN DEAD. ANYONE CAUGHT AIDING THIS PERSON WILL FACE SIMILAR PUNISHMENT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH BY HANGING.

Rimion sighed. "Well, shit."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to the following for reviewing on the last chaper. Zikarn Krais, Duesal10, Winter's Sentinel, RangerArmy, poBBpC, and Enchantress48.