Chapter 75: Arrival in Kvatch

[5th – 6th of Evening Star 4E 202]

With our business in Skingrad completed, we left Rosethorn Hall early in the morning, quickly stepped into the Chapel of Julianos and said goodbye to the priestess Marie Abor. She and the other priests were happy to have the Crystal of Julianos back, and she proudly showed us the prominent location it had been placed at again.

Half an hour later we were merrily leaving the city through the west gate and passed the stables and the vineyards. Naturally, Lucia and Yumi asked to stop for a few minutes to watch the horses, which we happily granted. We did not have a lot of time to spare to be able to reach Kvatch today, but a few minutes did not matter. Of course, I fully expected something to happen today to slow us down, as usual, but we would see.

After watching the bay horses stabled here for a few minutes, Lucia asked:

"Mama, Papa, say, why are we walking all of the time when there are horses available? I mean, we are not poor, right, and we could afford to buy horses to ride on, couldn't we?"

T'mara looked at me, and we were not quite sure how to answer that. Yumi chimed in:

"I recall when we were riding on horses, before I met you, Lucia. But I found it a little scary sitting so high up, honestly."

Indeed, we did not ride much at all, and the last longer ride had been from Solitude to Whiterun together with Jarl Balgruuf following the big Moot.

Lucia did not agree with her sister: "But it would be so nice!"

She had a point, and I responded:

"Honestly, I have not thought about it much. I like to walk and be able to pick up ingredients all of the time, and both T'mara and I are not so really comfortable riding. However, Lucia, if you'd really like to, why don't we ask if they have ponies for sale."

"Really, Papa?"

The proprietor, an Orc lady, was close by and I asked her about ponies. She lead us behind into a smaller barn, and there actually was a bay pony. Lucia approached it, and the pony touched her shoulder right away. The proprietor gave Lucia an apple, and she fed the pony. Lucia՚s eyes were gleaming, and she was quite apparently delighted.

"This is the only pony I have for sale right now. It is not very strong yet, but able enough to carry a lightweight person, like this young lady here."

"Oh, Papa, please?"

Lucia seemed to be delighted both about the pony itself and about being called a 'young lady'. I nodded, asked for the price, and handed over the 700 septims the Orc asked for; the pony was ours. Of course I double checked with Yumi when we were outside to make sure she was not feeling neglected, but she was not, and in addition Lucia offered:

"When you are getting tired, Yumi, we can always switch or even ride together, you know."

Lucia got closer to her pony again, and after a couple of minutes she told us: "I am going to call her 'Epona'.

From here on Lucia rode, and her facial expression clearly told us that she loved it. Just a few minutes later, past the vineyards, we say another one of those Ayleid wells shining through the bushes, and Yumi pulled us in that direction. While T'mara and Deborah picked some flowers around, Yumi conjured her familiar once more and cast a candlelight, which more or less exhausted her magicka supply. Then she stepped close to the well, so that the magical light could touch her; there was a kind of humming noise, and then Yumi cheered:

"This is really magical! My magicka is fully restored now, and it seems to be a little more than before even!"

She confirmed that by re-summoning her Newton right away, and we all smiled, but suddenly Lucia called out from horseback:

"Watch out, somebody is coming, and they are swinging weapons!"

We adults were on our guard right away, and indeed, from the south a group of bandits were quickly approaching. They were too close for bow and crossbow already, but Bran and Pammy had seen the problem and were already attacking, with Newton on their heels. Deborah and T'mara blasted fireballs, and Iona and Valdimar had their swords out, whereas I stayed close to the girls.

"Where did they come from?" Yumi asked.

I saw that my companions had the situation under control, got my map out and showed the two girls:

"See, there is a placed called 'Fat Ramp Camp' shown here, close to where we are, and this is probably where they were located."

"But why is it possible that their location is known and nothing is done about them?"

"Oh, sometimes the hold or city guards do clean such a camp, but most of the time the bandits come back. Such a place is convenient to lurk for travelers and rob them."

The others had taken care of the threat, and once we had looted the bandits, we made our way south to the camp. Indeed, we found a campfire and a few tents as well as a chest with more wares. In one of the tents another person was sleeping, and we woke her with drawn swords. She stood up and gulped, and eventually she, a wood elf, said:

"Please, do not kill me. I am not really a bandit, but they forced me to cook for them, and do … other things as well."

She might or might not speaking the truth, but it was not our habit to kill people without being forced to, so that I responded:

"Okay, you can go"

Of course we could not be sure about what she had said, but she ran away and did not turn back, and that was good enough.

Less than half an hour later we passed a place where the ground was still partially scorched, not far from the road to our left. As the girls wanted to see that, we deviated from the road and went there, and besides small flecks of black ground there were a few pieced of dark rock there as well.

"What is this place?" Yumi asked.

I knew and explained:

"What you see here is the remnant of an Oblivion gate. Dozens of those used to be around in Cyrodiil during the Oblivion crisis, when Mehrunes Dagon tried to overrun the province with his daedric forces. The gates allowed passing between our plane and his Oblivion plane, but while his armies could use it to attack Cyrodiil, our soldiers and in particular the Hero of Kvatch could also pass in the other direction and close a gate by picking up the Sigil Stone. Even after more than two centuries, the ground is still dark and has not fully recovered from the evil forces."

"What was that Oblivion plane like?" Lucia wanted to know.

"Oh, I read something in the diaries we have" Deborah replied. "It was quite eerie, with a red sky and strange noise. No green at all, and everything red, grey and black. At every corner one could expect to be attacked by some kind of dremora and daedric creatures, starting from low level scamps and clannfear to higher level atronachs, churls and caitliffs. Sometimes one even encountered ferocious spider daedra, xivilai and high ranking dremora, and believe me, they were tough enemies."

"So how did the Hero of Kvatch manage to close the gates?"

"Mostly, I think, he used stealth" I replied. "Even a strong hero could not hope to defeat so many and so strong enemies on his own, and he usually tried to sneak his way into the central tower. Once we was in, he attempted to lure enemies into corners where he could kill them without the others being aware of an intruder."

"In some situations, though," Deborah added, "he had a group of soldiers with them, allowing them to attack directly."

"Also, there is some mentioning of the Hero of Kvatch having one or two close followers. The relevant parts of the diaries are mostly missing, but I found some mentioning of a young lady called 'Vilja', just like the one I had encountered in Skyrim a few years ago briefly. That Vilja girl supposedly was quite close to him and developed into a formidable fighter; we do not know for sure if they were just good companions or maybe even involved in a romantic relationship. There is another mentioning of a female Dunmer with the name of 'Neeshka', who might have also joined their adventures."

"So, he had some help?"

"Yes, it appears like it. It is unknown, though, if he used help most of the time or maybe just on some occasions. If I had been him, I have to admit that I would have appreciated lots of help, considering all of what he did. Even with help, those tasks were quite challenging, and it is almost like a miracle that he managed to close that many Oblivion gates on his own or with just little help."

Deborah sighed and added: "Of course, it is also possible that he had the ladies do all of the hard work and just made sure that he is looking good."

I smiled and responded: "I guess it's possible, and maybe we will never know. However, there are quite a few historical recordings and journals from others, such as Burd, the former captain of the Bruma guard and Farwil Indarys, a Dunmer warrior and son of Count Andel Indarys of Cheydinhal at that time. Both of them had fought with the Hero of Kvatch and were duly impressed."

From here we stepped back to the road and slightly increased our pace. With Lucia being on her pony and occasionally taking Yumi up with her – both girls were still small enough to be not too heavy for the pony, at least for shorter periods of time – we could walk faster without tiring them, and we managed to get about half way to Kvatch when we had our lunch break. Keeping the break short, we moved on, and we reached the road fork to Kvatch and the guardhouse placed there in mid afternoon. The way up to the city Kvatch was quite steep, but again the pony helped a lot. To ease the load on the brave animal, I took Yumi on my shoulders, and we climbed up the road and followed its many turns.

Just before dusk we stood before the gates of the great city of Kvatch, and seeing the big gate, it felt almost like yesterday to me when I had last been here. Before we could enter, though, we needed to go to the stables right outside and make sure that Epona, Lucia's pony, was taken care of. Once this was done, we stepped back to the gate. The guards recognized my sister and me and allowed us to pass, so that we were inside a few moments later.

The great chapel of Kvatch, dedicated to Akatosh, dominated the view inside. This was the same chapel Martin Septim had served in during his earlier years, while he had not known about being the Emperor's son. It had long been rebuilt after the Oblivion crisis, and it looked impressive.

T'mara, the two girls, and our two housecarls had never been here, so that we gave them plenty of time to look around and get a proper first impression of the city. Once we had passed the buildings which used to house the Fighters Guild and the Mages Guild, we had the castle to our left and the chapel to our right, and while specifically the girls were quite in awe, a young female Argonian approached. Even in the dim light of the evening she recognized Deborah and looked at me for a few seconds before she said:

"Timotheus, it's you! You actually came!"

"Yes, I did. Weedum-Ja, it's good to see you; how have you been?"

She got close to me and briefly hugged me, and I hugged her back.

"I am fine. You are staying, aren't you?"

"Yes, we will all stay."

"Let me run back and let your parents know – see you soon!"

She turned around and ran towards the southeastern city quarter, where my family home was located. T'mara looked at me for an explanation, and I provided it:

"That was Weedum-Ja, our maid. She will be telling my parents about our arrival and make sure that the guest rooms are prepared."

"Your family seems to have a thing about having Argonians as maids" Iona commented.

"Yes, indeed, we have. Weedum's family has been with us for a long time, basically since a pilgrim with the same name, one of her ancestors, lost everything during the Oblivion Crisis. She was taken in by my ancestors, and she is more part of the family than maid, actually. She is about my age, and we kind of grew up together."

Slowly we followed the direction the Argonian had taken, and ten minutes later we stood in front of an impressive mansion, easily one of the largest houses in Kvatch, even larger than Rosethorn Hall in Skingrad. It was located on the left side of the street leading from the main gate towards the arena, east of the chapel.

My parents had been informed by the maid, of course, and they were already waiting outside. While my father's expression did not change much when he saw us – he was a very traditional Imperial man and always preferred to be in control of his emotions and kept them hidden from view – my mother, a stout but beautiful Nord woman, beamed and hugged me right away:

"Timotheus, my son, it is so good to see you again. Welcome home!"

I hurried to make some introductions, and T'mara was also hugged by her. Mom was specifically delighted to see the two girls:

"Who are those two lovely young ladies?"

"Well, Mum, they are ours, our children I mean."

My mother's look was priceless as she looked at me, at T'mara, and back at me again. Finally she asked:

"How is that possible?"

I decided to tease her a little, smiled, and replied:

"Oh you know, Mom, when two people love each other and cuddle and ..."

T'mara looked at me and decided to cut it short:

"Lucia and Yumi are our adopted children, Mrs. ..."

To my surprise Mom replied right away:

"None of that, my dear! Please call me Mom or Mother or something like that!"

I was pleasantly surprised; I had not expected my mother to open up to my Khajiit wife that quickly. Mom now turned towards Lucia and Yumi, who acted a little shy, and told them:

"So, I guess that I am your Grandma, girls."

The girls looked at each other and almost could not believe it. Lucia asked her sister:

"Have you ever had a grandmother?"

Yumi nodded and replied:

"I think that I had one when I was very young, but I recall almost nothing about her. And you?"

Lucia shook her head:

"No, not that I can think of."

While the two girl shyly approached my mother and eventually allowed themselves to be hugged, I introduced Iona and Valdimar and now my father stepped into the conversation:

"So, they are both your housecarls? If I know Skyrim culture right, a housecarl is kind of a bodyguard sworn to protect and serve an important person, right?"

Valdimar nodded and confirmed:

"Yes, sir, indeed, we are sworn and honor bound to serve, and for Iona and me, it is also a pleasure to be around our thanes, Mr. ..."

"Oh, I forgot to introduce my parents properly" I cut in. "Iona, Valdimar, meet my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Silanus, members of one of the oldest and most respected families of Kvatch."

Finally it was time to get inside, and my mother mentioned:

"I am not sure if we have enough guest rooms for so many visitors."

"Oh, I am sure that we have, Mom. The two girls will share one room, Iona and Valdimar will also share one, and T'mara and I will use my old room; Deborah has her room anyway. Thus, we only need two guest rooms."

"Are you sure? The bed in your room is quite narrow and not really big enough for two."

"Believe me, it is" I smiled. T'mara and I had absolutely no problems sleeping in a narrow bed, as we were always very close to each other anyway, with my wife ending up on top of me most of the time.

"And about your two housecarls, are they married?"

"No, they are not, but they will share anyway."

My mother raised her eyebrows, and I knew that she did not like that. Some of the older families in Cyrodiil were somewhat conservative in their views about allowing people of different gender share a room without being married, and I assured her that this was absolutely normal in Skyrim.

Inside, Weedum-Ja was already busy in the kitchen preparing dinner.

While eating dinner, it was nice to see the two girls warming up to their newly found grandparents. My father was a little stiff, as usual, but mother talked to them a lot, and the girls liked that. They were still at an age where being treated as little girls was just fine, and when my mother showed them around the house after the meal, they loved it.

Iona and Valdimar asked if we needed them for anything for the rest of the evening, when we declined, they stated that they were going to stroll through the city. After all, it was their first time in Cyrodiil and in Kvatch.

During dinner Lucia and Yumi started to yawn; it had been a long day with traveling and all, and the girls were apparently tired. Mother had had Weedum-Ja, the maid, prepare a nice room for them, with two beds close to each other. It had been Deborah's room during her childhood times, painted and decorated in yellow and pink, with small dragon and unicorn icons everywhere. Rather than having it redecorated when she got older, Deborah had moved to a different room, and my parents had opted to keep the room as it was for visitors.

I showed the girls to their room and they loved it; half an hour later my wife and I closed the door to the room with two sleeping girls.

We adults sat together for another hour or two, talking about this and that, before we also retired.

During breakfast, father insisted that we needed to meet the count today.

"Count Silverius is a distant relative of us; we have been maintaining close ties, and he will sure want to meet you.

Well, I guess that this made sense, and later on we left the two girls with mother and our maid, and the rest of us marched towards the castle. It had been rebuilt nicely, and now, more than two hundred years after Kvatch had been partially destroyed, it looked like it had never been touched.

After we met the steward and waited for a few minutes, we were guided into the Great Hall and stepped towards the count. My father introduced us:

"Count Silverius, may I introduce my son Timotheus and his wife T'mara, the Dragonborn. With them are their two housecarls Iona and Valdimar. T'mara, Timotheus, meet Count Reman Silverius."

"Look at that" the count mused. "The Dragonborn at my doorstep."

"You have heard about me?" T'mara asked.

"Indeed I have. As count I need to be aware what happens on other counties and other provinces, and the legend of the Dragonborn has been told around here a lot in the last few months. Bards have started to write songs, and I am honored to meet you in person, indeed."

We chatted a little about our adventures and about Kvatch, and then the count mentioned:

"By the way, we are getting a new commander of the Imperial Legion in the county. He and his troops should arrive any day now, I think. His name is..."

The count looked at a note to check the name, and while he did this, I continued for him:

"… Legate Brutus."

The count looked up again and raised his eyebrows:

"How could you have known? I have not announced this yet."

"We have met Legate Brutus before, and the last time we saw him, he was in Skingrad, and he was delayed by some thievery there."

"In Skingrad as well? You may have heard that we've had some issues with items being stolen and even citizens being assaulted lately."

"Yes, we have heard about that, and we already had the honor of working together with the legate on something which may be related."

"Well, well. I guess your presence here may be an advantage for us. Anyway, welcome to our beautiful city, and I hope that you can stay for some time."

The count now called for this Captain of the Guard, and once that person had stepped into the room, introduced us to him:

"Captain Quintus Inian, meet the Dragonborn and her husband. They will stay in our city for some time, and they are guests of the city. If they ask for anything, you are authorized to tell them about even confidential topics, and provide assistance, within reason, of course."

The good captain bowed in our direction and replied that we would certainly do so. When I heard his name, I asked, though:

"Captian Inian, are you by chance related to 'Berich Inian', who helped to liberate the city during the Oblivion Crisis?"

He smiled and replied:

"Sure I am. Many of my ancestors have served the city as guards, and I am honored to count Berich as one of my ancestors. I am also aware of the fact that the Hero of Kvatch, who is one of your ancestors, worked together with Berich during the attack on the city."

Well, it appeared that reminders of the past lingered almost everywhere.

After lunch, we all took our time to stroll through the city and see all of the important places. In the eastern part we heard some shouting from a lot of people, and I explained that this was from the close-by arena. Contrary to the big arena in the Imperial City, though, brave citizens did not fight against each other here, but against creatures only. Some of those creatures were captured in the wild, some others were magically summoned.

Of course the girls wanted to see that, but I sternly told them that the arena was open to adults only.

When we got back to our home, Yumi conjured her familiar again, and she pushed it against her staff. Borrowing a knife from me she made a mark in the staff, and I asked her what this was good for. Yumi replied:

"You said that Newton would grow over time, so that I going to mark his size. Later on I can compare and scratch another notch in."

Okay, that made sense.

Later on in the evening, when the girls were in bed, my parents, my wife and I sat together to talk a little more. I knew that my parents weren't racists, but I wanted to find out to what extent T'mara matched or disappointed their expectations. My mother was fully Nord, and my father, who had a Nord father and an Imperial mother, had once met her when he had traveled to Bruma, where mother had been at home. But both Nord and Imperial were fully human races, and a Khajiit was something entirely different. So, with my wife sitting on my lap, I asked:

"Mom, Dad, I need to ask you something. Are you really okay with me being married to a Khajiit? I know that you had different plans for my future..."

My parents looked at each other, and after some time my mother replied:

"Honestly, if you had showed up without warning with her, we might have been shocked. You know that we had always expected you to find a nice lady from the neighborhood, or a respectable Nord girl in Skyrim. However, after reading your letters, seeing that you speak so fondly of your wife, and finally when hearing about the whole Dragonborn events, we have been able to get used to the facts over time. Finally, when seeing how you look at each other, we cannot fail to notice how much you obviously love each other; that, together with your two lovely girls, overcomes all concerns and previous plans, and I already realized that yesterday when I saw all of you. No offense, T'mara, but one of our family marrying a Khajiit is totally unheard of, and parents are known to worry about the well-being of their children."

"Oh, that's all right" my wife replied. "My family would have thought in the same direction, and if I showed up in Elsweyr with Timotheus, I would probably be expelled for a second time."

"Expelled?" father asked.

"Oh yes, and I assume that this had not been mentioned before. During my childhood I had been frequently mobbed and mocked about my unusual fur color."

"But your fur is really nice!" Deborah threw into the conversation. "I think it's actually quite beautiful!"

"So do I" I had to add, of course.

"Yes, but most Khajiit think different" T'mara continued. "What would you think if you had an Imperial or Nord baby born with green hair and blue skin or something like that?"

"Point taken" my father nodded and replied.

"Anyway, I managed to hang on until I was almost an adult, but when I was 17 years old, both of my parents died, and I did not have many close relatives left. The few I had did not really support me, except for my cousin M'lissa, and I was more or less forced to leave. I joined a caravan traveling towards Cyrodiil and Skyrim, and just after getting to Skyrim, I managed to get captured by the Imperial Legion, who thought me to be a spy or so. Soon after that Alduin showed up in Helgen, and only hours later I met Timotheus."

"You poor thing!" Mother was almost in tears. "From my point of view, please consider this your home, and as I said before, I'd be honored if you called me 'mother'!"

My wife and my mother hugged each other, and tears were flowing on both sides. It appeared that T'mara had been fully accepted as daughter-in-law, and any concerns I had had before about her being accepted by my family were gone; I was very happy about that.

[Author's Notes: 'Companion Neeshka' is a nice follower mod for TES IV. When I played 'Oblivion', I sometimes had her along together with Vilja, and I am curious to see if there are companions going to be available once 'Skyblivion' is completed.

We finally got to Kvatch! Yeah! For the city of Kvatch, I assume the layout to be similar to what is shown in the TES IV mod 'Kvatch Rebuilt'.

A guest review from Ted Hsu issued some concerns about the issue of interspecies relationship acceptance some time ago, and I spent some time thinking about that one as well. There may be more issues in that direction later, but not in the closest family at least.]