A/N: Sorry I'm late! Had some technical difficulties when editing this chapter. Anyway, this chapter and the next were originally all one chapter but it was getting wayyyy too long so I split them up. I think that will be a good thing because there is quite a tone change between the parts so it seems more appropriate for them to be separated. Hope you enjoy!
Teldryn wanted to pick up his pace as they stepped onto the familiar sands of the beach, back into the domain of the mountain that laid its claim with a heavy layer of ash. He stayed his restlessness- as he had done on the entire trip back- due to his slow, limping companion. As if that were not enough, the closer to town they got, the more Fethis traded his previous silence for continuous musing.
"...I still remember the way she smiled the first time she mentioned his name, and somehow the memory no longer makes me ill..."
Perhaps for the old man, it was relief that his part in this mission was over that had loosened his tongue, or that they did not have the guards hovering around, or simply that the air was no longer freezing the breath in his throat.
"...Silly of me to be so protective, who could care for her better than the captain of the guard? And it's not as if he is not steadfast..."
Whatever the cause, Fethis had exhausted his topics twice over by the time they had reached Damphall yesterday and had been working on a third rundown since they'd set out this morning.
"...Although I do hope we will not be seeing more conflict due to what has happened. Those fool Imperials! I could not bear to see Dreyla distraught if he must go off into some ridiculous campaign..."
Teldryn nodded absently as Fethis launched into the least desirable of the subjects. There was more to come from that smoldering mess he'd left behind and while he'd followed through on his part, he could not help but feel he was not finished. It was not Raven Rock that concerned him, Teldryn had no doubt that Modyn could defend it. It was the nagging mystery that danced on the edge of his vision, slipping out of sight every time he turned to look. An insidious motive that roused his intuition with the scent of danger. On one hand, he did not want to leave his brother to field this unsettling threat alone, on the other, he wanted Vanya as far away from peril as possible. He and Modyn needed to talk, reason out the unknown, narrow down the possibilities. If he could get a handle on what they were dealing with, then he'd know better what to do.
"...Ah, the Bulwark! I have not always thought it a comforting sight. But I suppose it has grown on me over the years..."
As the rest of the shapes of the town came into view, Fethis' introspections trailed further behind. The old man could find his own way home.
The tip of the bone needle poked through the fabric a little further than the spot she intended, then not far enough, then too far...finally it emerged in the right place only to retreat back under as Vanya's fingers had already anticipated another failure. She growled under her breath.
In her periphery, she saw Sadesi grin as she worked on mending a tunic for a miner. One of about ten the dunmer had stacked next to where she sat near the foot of Vanya's bed in the Netch.
With her back against the headboard, Vanya was not working on a tunic, rather she was trying to re-repair an old tear in Teldryn's cowl that she'd managed to break apart by scrubbing a little too zealously. She finally completed her stitch, grimacing at the slight pucker it created. "This is going to be the ugliest seam in Nirn's history."
"Tch, that cowl is more stitching than cloth anyway," Sadesi replied. "He won't even notice."
Vanya made a face. "I'll notice." Unless he decided to keep her shawl for good, that is. Since her little escapade to the beach, Milore had insisted if she must go out, to at least wrap up her leg to keep from over-stressing it. So with a properly bandaged leg, she had hobbled to Teldryn's room in search of a few of her things and had happened upon his filthy cowl- and the distinct lack of a blue shawl. One thing led to another and she'd ended up here, trying to fix the failing of her good intentions. At least, now if her shawl came back full of holes she could stitch up those, too. And if the gods heard anything she'd sent out into the ether over the last few days, the shawl would hopefully be the only thing that came back that way.
She tried her best to exhale her anxiety, swinging her good foot that hung over the edge of the bed to burn off the rest. Just as she started the next stitch, she felt a tickle on her heel. She smiled and pulled her leg up and out of reach of the little one-armed menace who was skulking underneath with his new favorite toy, a feather he'd swiped from Milore. Vanya debated giving Sadesi a silent warning as she heard Llero shuffling toward his new target.
A second later, Sadesi nearly jumped out of her skin with a yelp, throwing her feet up and rolling back onto the bed. "Rats!" she cried in a panic. Vanya could not help her laugh between the woman's wild expression and Llero's muffled giggling. And I thought I was jumpy.
"Llero!" Sadesi sat up with a huff and examined her finger. "Made me poke myself." A few wisps of golden light swirled around her left hand and she licked the remaining bead of blood from her fingertip. She situated her work back onto her lap, continuing with a shiver of disgust. "Where we lived in Blacklight was lousy with rats." She leaned over to address the monster under the bed, raising her voice. "And you're nearly as bad! I'll have nightmares tonight thanks to you!"
The boy crawled out on his knees and elbow, then hopped to his feet and began slicing the air with the feather as if it were a blade.
"How many times must I tell you, not inside," Sadesi hissed. "You'll knock over a candle."
"Almaaaaaa," he whined as he spun in one last circle then collapsed to the ground to sit with his knees crossed, looking up at his mother with an exaggerated pout.
Four years old. That's how old he was. He got up to roam around the room to find some entertainment, and it occurred to Vanya that he seemed to be on par with a human child in development. She had assumed elven children would age differently, given they could live so ridiculously long. At what point did their bodies just decide to curtail the aging process? And why? And what about mixed parentage?
After a few attempts to open all the chests and drawers and having his snooping stifled by his mother, Llero finally settled on flipping through one of Vanya's books that had a few illustrations.
"Just like his father," Sadesi sighed as she refocused on her sewing and Vanya followed suit, letting it slide that the young boy happened to be perusing her book on dagger combat. It was the first time he'd sat still and she certainly wasn't going to be the one to disturb that. "Always getting into things he shouldn't. Me being one of those things."
Vanya paused mid-stitch, the needle held out in the air. "Excuse me?" It wasn't clear which 'he' Sadesi was referring to, and though she was speaking lightly- the implications of the statement were a little concerning either way.
"I mean, his father is not the only one to blame, obviously," the dunmer said as she tied off a thread, then snipped it close. "But he is the one who is married."
"Oh," Vanya breathed with a relieved snicker. She stabbed her needle back into the cowl.
"I worked for Mevessa Rindu for oh, twelve years or so." Sadesi tossed the finished tunic aside, picking up the next to examine what it needed. "Did mostly hemming and closures, you know, the leftovers that the higher ranks didn't want to do. What I really wanted to do was embroidery. That's the trademark of Rindu pieces," she said as she picked through her colored spools for the right one. "But that wasn't to be. You see, Mevessa's husband runs the day to day in her shop, she's quite busy designing and rubbing elbows with her noble patronage. As you can imagine, he got to know us underlings quite well." She licked the tip of the thread she'd cut, poking it deftly through the needle head. "Some better than others. It's really to be expected, I'm quite sure Mevessa was well aware." Her lithe fingers began their expert movements along the collar. "The problems started when I got pregnant, that was not supposed to happen."
Vanya swallowed nervously. "Did you forget to drink your tea?" Up until her injury, she had been meticulous about hers and the idea of it failing was...she didn't want to think about that.
"Tea? No, no tea," she replied with a crooked grin, as if the idea amused her. "I suppose we didn't wait long enough after my fever, I hadn't had one for months and well, Taryl could be..." She arched her brow. "Hasty. Once I knew the truth, and my stomach began to grow, I assured Mevessa that it was due to my relationship with another man, which was plausible. I'd seen him a few times, here and there. When I saw Llero's eyes, though, I knew we were outed. That violet, those are Taryl's eyes, no question. And despite my best attempts to keep him out of the way when she was around, eventually Mevessa saw for herself." They both looked to the boy, who was sitting oblivious to their conversation with the feather perched between his toes as he ran his finger along its soft edges. Considering that he was also looking at a diagram of a dagger, the sight managed to be a tiny bit disturbing. "It was Taryl who turned us away when I arrived for the day," Sadesi continued, her mind drifting. "Truthfully, I had expected it much sooner. Llero was walking by then. He promised to assist me, and at first, things were alright. But as time went on I saw less and less from him, and when I tried to get work..." She turned her attention back to her project. "I couldn't. At least not anything that required my skillset. That...that hard-hearted, jealous..." Her lips pressed together tightly as her face turned a worrying shade of indigo. "...corprus-infested bonewalker squeezed me out!" She tossed the tunic aside, giving in to her rancor. "Reduced my options to begging or selling myself. And I'd do it, too, and be happy about it, just to show her. At least, I could have something beautiful that she couldn't." Seeing his mother's distress, Llero got up and started climbing into her lap. She hugged him to her chest. "But he doesn't deserve the things that lifestyle brings, and it's not his fault. I thought it best we got out of Blacklight altogether. Now I wonder if I'll ever do right by him."
"What are you talking about?" Vanya couldn't believe what she was hearing. "It's not your fault, either. This was completely unpredictable," she said, motioning between her leg and Llero. "A freak thing, that's all."
Sadesi laughed, batting away her son's attempts to poke her face with the feather. "I won't be able to handle any more 'freak things', I'll tell you that much. You must be tiring of hearing this by now, Vanya, but you saved my life."
She wouldn't say she was tired of hearing it, but Sadesi was indeed inundating her with gratitude for which she'd begun to run out of responses. At this rate, she figured, it would simply be a permanent fixture of their exchanges and as such had started giving a similarly repetitive rejoinder. "You know I'd do it again."
Having finished her seam, Vanya tied it off. "Well," she said, holding it out for Sadesi to trim the thread. "Time for inspection."
Sadesi shooed Llero away to pick up the books he'd spread out on the floor, then took the cowl to look it over with her critical eye. When she gave the fabric a tug to test its strength, Vanya nearly squeaked in alarm, but managed to hold it together.
"Passable," Sadesi said politely. Somehow the vaguely patronizing assessment sounded like high praise, especially after seeing Sadesi's unnaturally perfect stitching. "And look, you've even sewn one of your hairs into it."
"Damn it," Vanya snatched the cowl back, her pride deflating. She picked at the stitches, trying to get a hold of the wayward strand.
"No!" Sadesi cried, causing her to jump as her work was shoved down into her lap. "Jermesh am'as daelkhun," the dunmer said insistently. Vanya blinked at her, waiting for the explanation.
"Okay?" she ventured after a few moments of silence.
"Ehm, thread of the heart. The ashlanders say it's good luck. Of course, it would not be appropriate for professional work, but this you are doing out of care. Leave it, and it will bring him good fortune."
Vanya hummed thoughtfully. She'd leave it then, even if it merely sounded like a clever excuse to not have to redo any work. She could get behind that, and for all she knew, it could be true. At this point, she was ready to believe anything.
"So what is he like, really?" Sadesi wiggled a tiny bit closer. Vanya hardly had time to process the question before she continued, "In Blacklight, I saw him a few times around the markets. He was well known, being the son of an Officer. And he certainly strode around like one. I heard the other mercenaries called him that in jest- Gahareg. I was far too young to run in their circles but not too young to swoon. I met a few of them years later." She leaned back on her hands, obviously pleased with herself. After a few moments, Vanya's hopes that Sadesi's memories would lead off on a tangent were dashed as the dunmer's eyes leveled on her. "Teldryn was long gone by then." There was something latent in the statement, a segue into a conversation that would definitely be based on hearsay and it made Vanya re-evaluate whether she wanted this to continue. Sadesi might be an open book, but theirs was not yet a friendship that she felt comfortable sharing anything involving Teldryn- in either direction.
Vanya shrugged, fiddling with the cowl aimlessly. "I guess that's the way of a sellsword, huh?"
"Oh, he didn't leave of his own accord, he was banished." That got Vanya's attention. "I never heard any more about him after that. I didn't recognize him here, even after I learned his name. He didn't have the..." she gestured around her face. "...markings before."
"Why was he banished?" The question fell out of her mouth before she even realized she was speaking. Damn my curiosity.
A shadow darkened the door and Sadesi's imminent answered died in her throat with a croak as they both stared at the figure leaning on the frame. There he stood, as if he'd been summoned by the intrigue. The elation that she felt upon seeing Teldryn safe was tempered quite heavily by the undeniably poor timing. That, and he looked rough. His tired features were darkened further by the black scruff that had grown on his face and sides of his head, making him seem almost like someone she didn't know. She felt as if she could not take a breath, her vision honed in on crimson eyes, unreadable but not cold.
"It was trivial, I assure you," he said with a slight quirk at the corner of his mouth. Any tenderness that could have been detected in his features fell away as his gaze slid to Sadesi and Vanya felt a slight jolt on the mattress as the woman gave a full-body wince.
"Ah, I think..." Sadesi got to her feet quickly, heading for Llero. "I think we ought to go see if Geldis needs any help, hm?
Vanya could not look away as Teldryn watched the others shuffle awkwardly from the room. Then he closed the door, sealing them in.
