"No odd occurrences while you were in Apocrypha," Neloth announced as Telyra stretched and reacclimated to her solid body. "You were gone longer than I anticipated."

Erik nodded. "I didn't think you'd be there so long either," he said. "Was everything all right?"

Telyra glanced at Neloth as her arms fell to her sides. "No issues," she said. "I learned a little bit more about Miraak and Vahlok. But not how he was defeated." She reached for her pack and tucked the heavy book inside before pushing herself to her feet.

"Are we heading back to the Netch?" Erik asked, settling against the doorframe as he had before she'd delved into Oblivion.

"Yeah," she said. "I could use some rest. After hours and hours of reading, my eyes are on fire." At the thought, she rubbed her eyes with her palms and blinked away the blurriness. "But I could use some food first. Mora doesn't provide a buffet."

After offering curt good-byes, as Neloth wasn't much of a conversationalist, Erik and Telyra returned to the Retching Netch, settling into their table. The server was quick to bring them food as the tavern was well-into dinner and food was already prepared.

Telyra slurped on her soup while trying to avoid looking at Erik's food: the thorax of an ash hopper. The idea of eating bugs never settled well with her, but it was such a commonality here in Raven Rock, it was difficult to avoid.

"You look absolutely disgusted," Erik said, as he swallowed a chunk of meat.

She grimaced and kept her eyes on her own food. "I am."

"You need to be more adventurous," he teased. He held his fork out to her, dangling a cube of ash hopper over her soup. "Come on. Isn't this part of your heritage?"

"If I hadn't seen what they look like before being turned into food, I might've tried it." She shoved his hand away, knocking the meat onto the table. Erik was quick to pick it back up and eat it. "And just because my mother was from here, doesn't mean I am. You and I had the same childhood. I ate the same food you did." She rolled her eyes.

"Still," he said. "I'd be curious. I mean, I was curious, that's why I ordered it."

"Well, I'll settle for being curious about the drinks," she said, taking a sip of her sujamma to punctuate her words.

"Have you asked around about her at all?" Erik asked. "Seems like you'd want to know if anyone here knew her."

Telyra glanced around, eyes jumping from dunmer to dunmer.

"I didn't mean here here," he remarked. "Just… here in Raven Rock."

She turned back around. "I know what you meant," she retorted. "I was… debating. It's a weird feeling knowing my mother grew up here, and many of these people probably sat here with her, had drinks with her." Telyra frowned and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her pointed ear.

"I'm sure it is," he replied. "Still, something to think about. I know you've always wanted to know more, and your father never shared much."

"No," she said, "he didn't." Crestfallen, Telyra slumped forward and continued sipping on her soup.

Erik watched her, she could feel his eyes pressing against her. After several moments of her silently praying he'd stop staring, he spoke.

"So," he mumbled, drawing out the "o." "Now that Neloth's not here to eavesdrop on your treacherous plans…"

Her narrowed eyes shot up to him.

"Oh, please," he said, rolling his eyes. "You know I'm kidding. How was your little journey? Did you actually learn anything?"

"I did." Telyra straightened slightly and rested her elbows on the table, tucking her arms together and abandoning her meal. "We talked about some of what he's already tried. You know, different ways he's tried to escape. Nothing's worked, obviously. Any ideas I threw out were immediately shot down since they were all things he'd attempted."

"After several millennia of trying to escape, at some point, you run out of things you can do."

Telyra shook her head. "No, I know there's something. Some way he hasn't thought of. There has to be."

"You're dealing with a Daedric Prince," Erik remarked with a shrug. "It might just not be possible."

"I thought you were on board with this," she huffed. "Are you trying to get me to give up?"

He held up his hands. "No, no. I'm just being realistic." He smirked and added, "Actually, part of me is always hoping you'll give up."

She rolled her eyes.

"Did you talk about anything else?" he asked. "Or was it just a depressing back-and-forth of 'Have you tried this?' 'Yes. It didn't work.'?"

Telyra snorted softly. "No-well, it was all depressing, but it wasn't all 'ways to escape.' He told me about Vahlok, you know, from that book we read."

"Oh?" Erik's eyes flickered with curiosity. "What'd he say?"

"That the book was mostly filled with lies," she replied. "The two of them battled and-dammit. I didn't even think to ask if their battle was the cause of Solstheim breaking from the mainland."

Erik gaped at her. "How could you forget about that? That's probably the most interesting part of the story."

She waved him off. "He started talking about how Vahlok betrayed him, and it was the most I'd ever heard him say. I just sat and listened." She frowned. "He seemed so… sad. Vahlok was his closest friend, and he gave him up to the dragons. It's how he wound up in Apocrypha."

"That's horrible," Erik lamented before adding, "if it's true."

"Why would he lie?"

With a shrug, he replied, "He's been stuck for millennia. Maybe he knows you have a soft spot for saving people who deserve it, and he wants to make sure you feel sorry enough for him to not change your mind."

Telyra groaned. "Why do you insist he's a villain?"

"I can only judge based on what I've seen," he explained. "I've seen nothing to suggest otherwise. I don't have this divine connection with him that you do." He waved his hands as if that expressed the divinity of her dragon soul. "So far, I only know him as a man who enslaved the minds of Raven Rock and the Skaal village, sent dragons after us, stole those dragons' souls after we killed them, attacked us directly…" He ticked off each item on his fingers. "I'm just saying, it doesn't look good for him. A bad situation doesn't justify doing whatever it takes to escape it."

She scowled and crossed her arms. He had a point, loathe as she was to admit it, but Miraak didn't feel malicious, and the longer she spent with him, the more conversations they had, the stronger she held that belief.

"You'll see," she said. "If we ever get him out. Unless you want to take a trip in and find out even sooner." She held up her pack and shook it, the corners of the book bouncing into the leather.

He quickly shook his head. "I don't think so. Watching you get sucked in by disgusting tentacles is enough to put me off reading for the rest of my life."

"Spoken like a true Nord," she teased, dropping her bag beside her chair.

"You're half-Nord," he said, wagging his finger at her. "Keep that in mind."

Her chuckle disappeared into her drink as she finished off the last of it. "One of the worst things about being half-Nord is inheriting that alcohol tolerance."

"That's a bad thing?"

She nodded. "Do you know how much more we wind up spending just to get the same level of drunk as anyone else?"

"That's true," he agreed. He smiled and waved for the server. "Is that your plan for tonight? Getting shit-faced after a day spent traversing Oblivion?"

Leaning back in her chair, Telyra chewed her lip in thought before shaking her head. "No, I probably shouldn't. I'd rather not wake up with a hangover. And there's nothing to do here anyway."

"You could go for a swim," he suggested. "See how long it takes for the sea to take hold and just-" he swung the back of his hand forward, "whoosh you away."

"As fun as drowning sounds," she said, "I'd rather be drunk back at the college." Her fingers wrapped around her freshly refilled mug as the server walked away. "We would get into the worst sorts of trouble. Brelyna always tried coming up with new spells. She'd sit with her notebook and scribble away, and then try to make sense of it the next day. And she'd take advantage of our hungover state and convince us to let her test them on us." Telyra took a long drink. "Have you ever tasted the color green?"

"Uh, no," he scoffed. He rested his elbow on the table and placed his chin in his hand, smiling as Telyra rambled.

"It's not much better than fermented cabbage," she said, curling her lip and scrunching her nose. "And J'zargo-he would constantly challenge us to duels."

"Drunk magic," Erik mused. "Sounds hilarious and deadly."

"It is," she agreed.

"Did you ever agree to them?"

She tilted her head sheepishly. "Only a few times, but we were never able to decide a winner. One of the professors always wound up hearing us and would put an end to it. Actually, there was one time I ended up in the infirmary… I guess J'zargo technically won that one, but he cheated."

He snorted. "How?"

"He gave me these magic scrolls to try out," she explained, "and he wanted me to use one during the duel. 'J'zargo would like to see if he can stand against his own creation,' he said. Well, the damn thing wound up blowing up in my face."

"That doesn't sound like he purposely cheated," Erik pointed out. He took a swig of his own drink and watched her roll her eyes over the top of his rim.

"I don't care if it wasn't intentional," she muttered. "It wasn't fair, and I never did get my rematch. Tolfdir kept a closer eye on us after that."

"So, that was the end of drunk magical shenanigans?" He returned his head to his hand.

Telyra shook her head. "We just didn't get caught in the main hall anymore, but it was the only place on the grounds to duel without scaring the locals." She took another drink and set it down, watching the remaining liquid rock against the sides. "We would climb to the upper levels and drop stones into the sea, and we'd see who could keep their stone from landing first. Or we'd go off the grounds and away from the city to the little spot we'd turned into a makeshift hot spring. We'd take turns keeping it heated, and eventually one of us would nod off, and the others would steal their clothes."

A sad smile settled on her features. "Onmund was usually the first one to pass out. For a Nord, he couldn't really hold his drink. He'd spend most of his time trying to keep us from getting into too much trouble, but eventually he'd give up and just laugh and laugh. He had the goofiest drunk laugh." She lifted her drink, pausing with a soft hum before taking a sip.

Her eyes drifted off, staring at nothing, rather picturing those memories, back when her most pressing concern was passing one of Tolfdir's exams. She would visit again, she thought, share new stories with whoever may have stayed. They wouldn't believe her, that the person who'd managed to pass out on the college's statue in naught but her small clothes was some being of legend depended on to save the world from something thought only to be myth.

"I wish you had gone with me," she said. "You would've loved it-well, you would've loved the chaos. The studying, on the other hand…"

"Not to mention, I don't have a magic bone in my body," he added.

"That too."

"But I am envious," he admitted. "I didn't get in much trouble at all while you were gone. If anything, that was the most well-behaved I'd ever been. And then, you came back, and dragged me into this mess." He laughed.

"There wasn't any dragging," she corrected. "You couldn't contain your excitement at the prospect of coming with me. Even if you didn't believe me, at first."

"Why would I?" He shrugged. "You leave for a few years and then show back up, out of the blue, calling yourself the 'Dragonborn.' Father had thought you'd lost it. He said 'I told you those mages were nothing but trouble. Her father warned her.'"

"Really?" She pouted. "Mralki was never supportive of my dreams."

"I think the only reason he didn't put up more of a fight about me going with you was because he was worried you'd get yourself killed." He glanced to the side and nodded. "Gods, he has no idea how many times he was almost right."

"There's a lot we've done that he probably shouldn't be told," she said. "I don't think he'd forgive me for letting you get married to that hagraven."

With a shake of his head, Erik sighed. "I would never be allowed out of the basement." He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. "I still don't remember much of that night. I barely even remember the following morning."

"Daedric Princes, they'll get you every time… but that's what we get for agreeing to a drinking contest with a stranger," she said.

"You agreed," he stressed. "I don't even remember taking that first drink."

"Oh, no, you were right there with me." She leaned to the side of her chair and threw one of her arms over the back; with her other elbow resting on the table, she pointed at Erik. "You were egging me on. And Sanguine decided to take us both."

"At least I wasn't humping the statue of Dibella," he muttered.

"I think that's preferable to marrying a hagraven," she retorted. "I would've killed for a front-row seat to that honeymoon."

"You're disgusting."

"I wonder if those priestesses ever realized who I was," Telyra said. She pursed her lips. "It'd have been funny, but I'm not sure my reputation would've recovered."

Her eyes moved from Erik and to the rest of the tavern. Everything had grown quiet, most of the patrons had long since left for home, and only the barflies and the Dragonborn and her best friend remained. The owner was busy drying the freshly washed dishes, stacking them on the bar, and the server swept away the dirt and stress of that day's attendance.

"I think we'd better get to bed," Telyra remarked.

Erik followed her eye line and nodded. "I think you're right. I can't imagine Geldis would appreciate us keeping him."

"You're right," the owner said, giving the pair a hard look of warning.

"We're going," Telyra said before downing the rest of her drink and tossing several coins on the table.

She hoisted her pack onto her shoulders and followed Erik into their room. This had been the norm early on in their adventuring; rent a room for however many nights it was needed, try for a room with two beds, quickly become disappointed when there was only ever one bed, and dream of the days they wouldn't need to fight over the blanket.

He was already sitting on the bed, pulling his boots off when she turned around and locked the door. Telyra spun back toward the bed and found him watching her.

"What?" she asked, placing her bag on the chair in the corner.

"When we get back to Skyrim," he said, "I'd like to go visit Father. Before we do anything else."

She smirked. "You want to show off that wedding ring? Oof!" His boot landed into his stomach, and she chucked it back as she laughed.

"No, you ass," he huffed. "I want to show him we're still alive and doing some good."

Her smirk softened into a smile, and she nodded. "Yeah, I would like to see him again too."