20. A Great Vacation to the Nation of Nations of Expla. And Mercer.

"And so now Uncle Paarthy and Sahloknir are thinking of a way to convince my beloved Odahviing to help us kill Alduin," I explain to the dazed-looking Ma'dran and sleeping Madanach. Shadowmere was there, so he does not need to visit explanation-nation. "All I need to do is find someone who is gonna lure the stupid dovahkiin to his death by Dov death. Dovahhe giving him death," I quickly clarify, "not him giving dovahhe death. That'd be stupid and impossible 'cause he's stupid and impossible."

"I… see," Ma'dran chokes out, his eyes wide with what looks like fear but must be joy because no one should be afraid of joy. Thus, there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of. "Ehm. Okay. This one will help. If he can."

"Of course!" I cry delightedly. "Let's go!"

"…Where?" Ma'dran asks slowly.

"To Riften, of course!" I laugh at the silly question. "I have people there who know people who know people who know things and there's probably someone who knows the thing that is the stupid, idiotic, stupid dovahkiin with the stupid name!"

"At least Liar has a plan," Ma'dran says weakly.

"What…?" I inquire, and then my mind fills with the terrifying realization that I do, in fact, have a plan. A specific destination. A means to reach that destination. But Shadowmere isn't mean, I tell myself harshly. What a mean thing to think! "Think-g," I tell Ma'dran gravely, and he blinks before smiling slightly.

"Indeed," he says.

Satisfied that everyone is in agreement that I have no plan, no destination, and no mean horsie, I scramble onto my belovedly kind horsie's back, and Ma'dran is right behind me. Madanach makes a meow of complaint as he is passed from Ma'dran to me, so I kiss him on top of his fuzzy little head. Madanach meows much more happily, then falls asleep in my arms, purring.

Where are we headed? Shadowmere asks me with an eager stamp of his hooves of abyssal darkness.

"I don't know," I inform him confidently.

"Riften," Ma'dran calls out from behind me.

"But Ma'dran knows," I inform Shadowmere with just as much confidence, as I had just heard Ma'dran speak a word that I vaguely recognize as a destination. I demand an explanation for such a destination! How many words are also nations?

With a loud whinny but no explanation or destination to be found, Shadowmere dashes forwards, his Oblivion hooves making no noise on the ground even though I wish he could crunch leaves. As always, Shadowmere takes entire minutes that are dreadfully boring, enough that I doze off. When I awake, there is a stone wall in front of me and a wooden gate on that wall. As gates tend to do, it probably cuts all the way through the wall, allowing access for only the most beautiful of intruders such as myself. I slide off Shadowmere with the stunning grace of a drunken toddler and place Madanach delicately atop my head. He kneads his knead-le claws into my head and makes a charming nest in my hair, in which he promptly curls up to sleep.

"Would you like to gallivant the countryside or eat the stables?" I ask Shadowmere gravely, and he stamps a hoof.

I shall do both, Shadowmere informs me as a plume of flame flickers from his nostrils. I am strong, and no stable shall contain me. As I watch in breathless awe at my horsie's magnificence, Shadowmere rears and shakes his handsome mane from side to side.

"You are the most handsome horsie in existence," I inform him, my throat clogged with rising tears.

Shadowmere paws at the ground and glances away. I… yes, I am, he mumbles. N-now I shall… devastate the countryside with flames and terror. Because I am strong.

"I love you," I sob, and he nuzzles my face with his nostrils still leaking flame that dries every tear and leaves salty residue that I can eat for dinner.

Goodbye, my master, he says gravely. Until we meet again. Shadowmere takes a few prancing steps away from the walls, then pauses and glances back. I will not wander far, he assures me. The way I said that made it sound like I was wandering far away. I am not, so do not worry. A-anyway… off I go. Shadowmere shakes his mane again, neighs bravely, and gallops a few paces farther. I will be right here, he tells me haughtily. Not a single creature shall survive if it runs past me.

"Good boy," I tell him. I place a few strawberries, bottles of pickled leeks, and pumpkins on the ground just in case he needs a snack, and he eyes the pile eagerly. The moment I turn towards the gate, I hear him sneaking back to eat his rightful rewards for being such a good, fierce, handsome boy.

Ma'dran is already standing at the gate and wearing his dark disguise to sneak into racist cities, so I trot up to him. Something seems off about the gate, as though it is incomplete, but I cannot determine what. Maybe there were supposed to be dead people hanging from the walls like dried leeks, I determine after wasting a boring moment wondering about the misses.

"I shall soon be Mrs. Odahviing," I mumble as I throw open the heavy gate and return to my home away from home, the home of my friends and of the best soup, the home of the city of Mercer and the person of Shouty, the home of sewers. "…Someone should be ogling my breasts," I realize with a soft frown as I wander towards the sewer drain whose location I remember from my drunken excursion decades ago.

Ma'dran makes a choking noise. I nearly smack him in the throat so that he coughs up the peanut that is killing him, but he manages to escape my wrath because he coughs nevermore. "This one… is unsure how to respond to that," Ma'dran tells me in a strangled voice.

"You just did," I point out.

"Yes, but…"

"My friends!" I abruptly cry before Ma'dran can continue his response to that. "Bed and Cupboard!"

Ma'dran gazes at me with patient confusion

"My friends escaped the gate!" I gasp with a graceful dance indicating the joy of remembrance. "The community is no longer protected by my sexual favors!"

Ma'dran gazes at me with patient-er confusion.

"I shall-eth scour the land for my brave knights," I inform him, "my first friends in Mercer. First, though, I'll find them a noble steed in the sewers."

"Oh," Ma'dran says. Since he understands me perfectly, I bounce to the sewers with my trusty friends on my head or at my side.

"Hey, are you a Khajit?" an armored person who reminds me of Hadvar before he lost his clothes says, running up to us with metal clangs.

"You should really phase iron out of your diet," I tell him disapprovingly as I gesture wildly at his clanging pseudo-skin of metal. "Since I don't eat meat, I don't have to wear all that armor, and I can look beautiful instead of like a fat spoon."

"H-hold on, that's not the issue here," the guard stammers, now paying attention to me, as is required of him.

"It is," I insist, " 'cause if you don't stop eating the bloody flesh of the innocent, then you'll die of drowning in all the metal, and no one loves you enough to pay for your funeral."

"Geez…" the guard mutters. "That was uncalled for."

"No, I call it death metal," I rebuke him, "and no one loves you enough to pay for your funeral."

"No need to… r-repeat it," the guard says as his eyes glow with the salty waters of a wailing infant.

"No one loves you enough to pay for your funeral," I repeat so that his eyes do not explode into ferrets like my screamy stick would make them do. "No one loves you enough to pay for your funeral."

"You're… you're right," the guard sniffles as he stares blankly at the cobblestone on the ground between us. "I… need to write to my mother," he whispers with tears streaming from his eyes. "I need to write my mother." The guard rushes away, his wailing sobs echoing throughout the city as though he or it were an infant or a city, and I feel myself tear up as well.

"That was… effective," Ma'dran comments. When he looks at me, however, he jumps slightly. "Why is Liar crying?" he asks nervously.

"I want to see my dad and my brother and my sister and myself," I tell him, nearly turning into an infant city.

"Ah, yes," Ma'dran murmurs. "Family is indeed important. Once this one and Liar reach the destination, perhaps Liar might write to them?"

"No," I say firmly, my growing city of babies forgotten. "I'll draw to them. Writing is for guards, signposts, and the dovahkiin."

"This one looks forwards to seeing your pictures," Ma'dran says with a soft chuckle.

I nod with satisfaction and continue my bouncing to my favorite sewer in the world.

xXxXxXx

The two skeevers I am dragging behind me struggle vainly, but my chains of daisies prevent them from escaping. I found two mighty steeds for my knighty meads, I think proudly, and the skeevers squeak with happiness that almost sounds like fear while I pull them towards the firelight. When faced with a metal door, I frown because both of my hands are occupied with the fuzzy tails of the beautiful animals.

Ma'dran scoots past me and tries to open the door, but the handle seems stuck. It has always opened easily for me, so I lean down to press my lips on the door knob and breathe on it, waiting for it to remember my touch. Nothing happens.

Furious, I kick the door as hard as I can, and the sound echoes through the air. I am gearing up to kick it again when it creaks open. Oh, I realize, it has a foot fetish.

"Liar?" the door asks, sounding strangely surprised, as though it did not recognize whose feet had just kicked it sexily.

"I'm Liar," I remind the door as is only polite.

"Damn, it's been a while," the door says, and then it opens wider before turning into a Breton whom I vaguely recognize.

"Cynric," I recall. "Didn't you disappear into solitude like a mountain hermit?"

"Yeah…" Cynric says sheepishly. "Sorry about that. Come on in."

Cynric steps aside, revealing that the door has disappeared completely, and I carefully step through the portal, ready to hit it with a skeever if it decides to reappear and attack. Cynric swivels his head back and forth and blinks, his gaze fixing on Ma'dran.

"Who is—wait, are those…" Cynric trails off, this time looking at my newest steeds. "Never mind," he sighs.

Cynric turns, and I trot behind him, my skeevers dragging behind me, and Ma'dran slinks behind me so that we are a line of schoolchildren but without the rope that will prevent us from losing each other. Where is the teacher? I wonder.

"Guildmaster!" Cynric shouts, apparently searching for the teacher as well.

"Shut up!" a heartrendingly familiar voice yells out. "If you don't, then I'll make you a decoration on the shrine of Boethia so that I can take a damn nap."

"Fenri!" I shriek, instantly dropping the skeevers who jump to maul the someone whom I do not care about.

"Lillie!" Fenri shrieks from across the sewer. "Lillie, darling!" I search for my beloved sister, growing panicked when I do not instantly find her, but she appears in the gloom ahead of me. I have no time to react before she drags me into a hug so tight that I actually feel it hurt.

"Am I dreaming?" I ask dazedly, my voice muffled by my face's position of being squished against her shoulder. I gnaw on the shirt in front of me and am comforted by the taste of the dry leather. That's how I know it's real. "You're real," I inform Fenri in case she is doubtful.

Fenri laughs and pulls away from me. She gazes at me with a warm yet sharp gaze, inspecting every inch of me and mentally storing it for some reason that will become apparent at some time in the future, probably. "You haven't written a single letter," she scolds me, but that cannot be right. I clearly remember thinking about drawing a letter sometime. "Pa is out of his mind with worry, and Evoshin was ready to raise an army to storm Skyrim."

I laugh lightly at that. "Where are they?" I look around. That man peeking above his counter could be pa if he were a Dunmer and also not armed with a broom and looked and acted completely different.

"I'm the only one who actually made the trip," Fenri says. She gives me a disapproving look that means I am about to receive a lecture. Instead of saying anything, though, she holds out her hand. Out of reflex, I hold out mine as well. "No, take the papers, Lillie," Fenri says, so I do.

The papers she was holding have a few words on them and a little wax thing on the corner plus some little ink smudges about. I have never seen them before in my life.

"They're your visa papers," Fenri explains. "You forgot them."

"All right," I acknowledge. "I'm good at that."

"These are what should have gotten you over the border," she adds.

"But I'm already over the border," I point out.

"Yes, but now you're over the border legally."

"Does that make me any more over the border?"

"No, not really."

"Then why should it matter? I'm over the border whether or not there's a paper saying I'm over the border."

"True, but this will let you get home without murdering border patrol, and on the off-chance that someone actually bothers checking your citizenship, you'll need these."

"But I've already murdered border patrol," I counter.

"There are other border patrollers," she counters my counter.

"Then I'll just kill them too."

"You could, but you don't have to if you have these papers."

"But what if I want to?"

"Then, by all means, kill away!" Fenri cries delightedly. "After all, they're just border patrol, haha."

"I love you!"

"Aw, I love you too, honeysuckle, darling, angel," she coos. "Oh, but the real reason I came here..." She rummages through the pack she has casually slung over one shoulder. "Uhh... aha!" She pulls out a stuffed animal about the size of my head, and I shriek in delight.

"Mehrunes Dragon!" I cry out as I snatch the fuzzy red dovah from my sister's arms. "I missed you!"

"I got worried you wouldn't be able to sleep without him," Fenri frets. "You forgot him and just about everything else father packed for you." She looks me up and down and sighs. "Like a jacket—remember what he said about getting frostbite?"

"It kills the mood," I recite.

"No, that it fucking hurts like a cow sitting on your face in a non-sexy way," Fenri returns.

"Really?" I inquire. "Is there a non-sexy way to do that?"

"I hope you're joking," she says before looking up at my head. "Oh, and who's this sweet thing?" she inquires.

"That's Ma'dran," I tell her, pointing to the actual Khajiit standing a short ways behind me.

"Hello, Ma'dran," Fenri calls to him, "but I actually meant the kitten."

"That's Ma'dran," I repeat

"Hello again, Ma'dran, but I actually meant the small kitten sitting on your head."

"Oh," I realize, "that's Madanach, True Lord of the Fursworn, the King in Fuzz."

"What a little cutie!" Fenri gasps. "Just like my little Lillie."

Madanach meows.

"Yes, hello to you as well, your Grace," Fenri says politely.

Madanach meows again, and Fenri nods, her gaze filled with nothing but the greatest solemnity.

"I will pass that on," she says gravely before turning to me. "Lillie, Madanach, True Lord of the Fursworn, the King in Fuzz, just informed me that he loves you to bits."

I sniffle. "I love you too, Madanach." Madanach purrs loudly and rubs his little kitten soft velvet kitten head against my nose. I almost break down into tears right there.

"Guildmaster!" someone shouts. "Should we... Oh, is that Liar?"

"Delvin!" I squeal and dash over to hug my Breton friend tightly.

"Damn... feel even bigger 'n they look."

"Do you want to repeat that?" Fenri asks. She has drawn her double handaxes and is glaring fiercely at poor Delvin. "I've always thought pig tongues tasted pretty good."

Meanwhile, I am still looking for Shouty. "Where's the Guildmaster?" I ask confusedly, wondering if he is still counting his coins so that he can see his little book with the words.

"Right here," Fenri replies.

"Eh? Shouty?" I peer closer, but it is still Fenri. "Did my sister eat you?" I inquire. "That's what I wanted to do!"

"Oh, did you meet Namira worshippers?" Fenri inquires. "Strange lot, but very welcoming."

"I made sure to cook my food first," I inform her.

"Good for you! Also, I'm the Guildmaster now!"

I gasp dramatically. "What? How? Did you kill Shouty?"

"Yes, actually."

"I wanted to do that!"

"Aw, sorry hun!" Fenri cries. "He was talking shit about my baby sister, though, so he had to get an axe through the brain. It was pretty messy, so it's good you weren't here."

"Ugh, I can imagine..." I mumble, "but still, I wanted to know if he screams as loud as he shouts."

"Shouted."

"I dunno anyone named Ed, but I did get Ted a noble steed."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll find an Ed somewhere!" Fenri reassures me. "Anyway, I axed Shouty, and some of these guys were a bit put-out by that, so they tried to lock me into their vault to suffocate and die."

"You bastards!" I shout, waving my mace at anyone who dares to be somewhat near me. "Never trust a redhead!"

"Lillie, let me finish, and then you can get revenge," Fenri gently chides me.

"All right, sorry." I obediently sheathe my mace again.

"No need to apologize, sweetheart," she says warmly. "So, they tried to lock me in, but their vault was empty! No riches to be found!"

I gasp at this plot twist, and Fenri smiles.

"They let me investigate," she says, "and guess what we found!"

I tilt my head so that I can think very hard. "Uh... a kitten?" I wonder. "A screaming stick? A missing mister?"

"All of those sound much more interesting than what we actually found," Fenri admits, "which was most of the vault's treasure."

"I thought you said the vault was empty," I point out, confused by the plot twist's double-cross.

"It was," Fenri assures me. "We found the treasure in Mercer's house."

"Huh? The city?" I look around me at the smattering of people staring at Fenri and me. "The city has a house?" I breathe, in awe. "Doesn't a city hold houses?"

"Sorry, Shouty's house," Fenri corrects herself swiftly. "I get confused by all the names sometimes."

"Me too," I assure her sympathetically. "So Shouty decided he had a better vault and was a greedy hunter?"

"So it seemed," Fenri agrees. "And then, this random lady called Karliah showed up and yelled at me for killing her prey."

"What?" I gasp. "Who'd you kill? Border patrol? Mutated pig-vampires?"

"Nah, Shouty."

"Aw," I pout, "I wanted to do that."

"I know, sorry," Fenri says sincerely, "but so did Karliah, apparently. The lady waited twenty-five sodding years to make some half-assed plan to maybe draw Mercer out and paralyze him or something," she huffs. "Ridiculous."

"Sounds like it," I huff. "Ridiculous."

"Hey, I'm right here!" a hooded Dunmer woman that I only just now noticed yells. Well, she whispers loudly. "I was being cautious, okay? I needed all the evidence before confronting the Guild!"

"In over two decades," Fenri snaps, "you never once thought to look at Gallus's body, until you suddenly did and found a journal. Hell, all you had to do was go back to the Guild with Mercer twenty-five years ago, and you wouldn't have looked like a guilty piece of shit! Just could've showed the Guild Gallus's wound and matched it to Mercer's blades or something! Boethia's sake, your stupidity makes me ashamed to be a Dark Elf!"

"I was being cautious and smart!" the Dunmer lady complains.

"Sure, sure, by letting Nocturnal stay pissed at the Guild for a quarter of a century while you piddled about in dark caves and angsted," Fenri scoffs.

"The Skeleton Key business wasn't my fault!"

Fenri rolls her eyes. "Yeah. Right. Sure."

"Fenri!" I shout. "You met Nocturnal? The Nocturnal? With her ravens of darkness and pretty dress and all?"

"Yup!" Fenri cheers. "I'm her Agent's of Strife now, a Nightingale bound to her in life and death. Also, I'm the Guildmaster now because I exposed the whole Shouty plot and 'cause no one has the balls to step up and take responsibility for their own damn guild."

"But... aren't you already pledged to Boethia?"

"Yes, and Azura, Hermaeus Mora, Clavicus Vile, Malacath and..." Fenri taps her chin thoughtfully. "I think that's all, but I can't be sure," she admits. "You know what kind of trouble I get into when I'm drunk."

I nod sagely. "You'll have a lot of Daedra fighting for your soul."

"It'll be a good show, at least," Fenri laughs.

"You deserve nothing less."

"Ugh, I missed you to bits!" Fenri clasps her hands in front of her face very happily. "You are just... such a doll."

"You are too," I tell Mehrunes Dragon. "I missed you too," I tell Fenri.

"Any exciting stories from Skyrim so far?"

"Oh!" I gasp, delighted to ramble about myself. "Cynric and I went to the storm roads and I met a sparrow child who sent me geese to grill! And I made friends with Ted and Robert and Brynjolf and Cynric and Delvin and Keerava and Revyn Sadri and that one guard with the stray dog and Sahloknir and Uncle Paarthy and that one dovah that decided not to kill me and Odah and Hadvar and Ma'dran and Madanach and Sharpened Ear and snows and Beoladventure and—" I turn to the sweeping man. "Oi, broom coward!" I snap. "You promised to make mead a drink!"

The sweeping coward jolted nervously. "How do I…"

"Make my baby sister her drink!" Fenri snapped. "If Lillie says you promised, then you did!"

"Y-yes, Guildmaster!" the sweep squeaked. "Right away."

I smile brilliantly at my sister. "You are my favorite ever," I tell her gravely. "Ever."

"And you're mine, my darling," Fenri coos. She pulls me into another tight hug, and I hug her right back. "Now, let me cut that hair of yours. It looks…" Fenri trails off, clicks her tongue, and shakes her head as I gaze at her adoringly. "You are perfect," Fenri tells me, and I squirm with delight even as she draws a knife and begins trimming my perfect hair. Madanach meows and descends to my arms, where he returns right back to falling asleep.

Everything is right with the world.