Received

Fletchersgate Field Post

4E 186 Sun's Dusk 22

Posted

Medicus Legio Honorem

Imperial City

Carl Ulia Swain House Eodsbury

Ca IC XIV S

You have been requested by Tribuna Marca XIV S veterana. NON MORA.

4E 186 Sun's Dusk 28 Nearing midnight

"Took your lizard-arse long enough," she coughed through the spoonful of dark liquid the Kynareth medicus had just fed her.

"Doctor."

Ulia had nearly fallen off the last of the horses when she came to the stables at Imperial City's surrounding suburbs. She had ridden like a campaign, changed horses in towns and at courier stations as fast as she could since Falkreath, sleeping only on the stables ground to the astonishment of a few locals along the way, eating jerky and hardtack in the saddle. When she came to the first gatehouse at the end of the drawbridge, one of many on the island capital of the Empire, she gave the guard in brand new field plate only the letter with the red dragon seal, and was admitted across the bridge and through the city gates with no questions asked. A stabler was sent with her to the doors of the Legio Honorem.

She was greeted at the door of the civic temple by two robed Kynareth acolytes.

The elderly man tending to her, no doubt a retired devotee of great distinction to be serving here, took Ulia's arm gently and led her a little away.

"She is dying, milita," he gave the generic address for a legionary of any rank there in the halls.

"How ... long," Ulia said through her anaesthetizing fatigue.

"Soon."

"Thank you, pater," she said, handing him a gold septim in the traditional alms before he left.

Ulia walked over to the bed where Marca lay on a white cotton sheet wrapped in clean linens from her neck to her wrists and ankles, the same around her head. From the exposed face and hands, all the younger woman could see were thinner, older versions of what she remembered in the fields of Falkreath. Marca had distinguished herself in the Thalmor fight, and after nearly forty years of field service in Skyrim had been named military tribune in an honor detachment here in the City itself. Ulia had chuckled when hearing about that one twelve or thirteen years ago. Her? At head of a parade battalion? The barroom toasts had gone on about the campidoctor eating the scions of spa society for tea, but, still and thusly, the Empire did need its pompas and units to control them ... and actual field veterans to lead the units that watch the parade barricades, follow? So Marca had spent perhaps over a decade passing off the sniffish buffets and chats for incursions into every mess hall of the Guards Main for ale and brisket.

"How ..," Marca coughed and spat up, wiped her mouth with the back of a frail hand and then on the linen, "lonnng, uh ... "

Ulia leaned over her; she did not sit. "What, doctor? How long for what?"

Marca looked at her with the same dark, hard eyes even through the hollowed cheeks and labored breathing. "How ... long did it take ... you," she rasped.

"Five days, six hours, doctor."

The tribuna smiled.

"Falkreath to Bruma and then Cherrol, kept to the lowlands, had the jarl's map."

"Gooooddd," Marca smiled, "you havennn't gotten sofffffffft."

"No ... doctor. Started on a destrier, chargers at the border. Made seventy-five with four stops."

"Leg-ionis," Marca said as her eyelids fluttered.

"Doc ... doctor? Doctor," Ulia almost grabbed her hand.

"What," her former officer snapped with frightening strength from the sickbed. Her eyes opened back fully, and she looked right into Ulia's.

Ulia swallowed hard. This woman is an Imperial, do not smile or cry. "Orders, doctor?"

Marca smiled and lifted her left hand, pointing. "Go to my chest ... scrub," she breathed.

The smooth, pitted footlocker had XIV burned into its flat lid. On opening it, Ulia found a single item, the legate baton Marca had carried. She took it out and held it in the middle, parade style, and turned around to see the woman who had burned the dragon into her chest lying still with her eyes closed, completely motionless.

She felt the hand of another Kynareth on her elbow, this time an older woman with her hood thrown back to show a kind, tan face with deep lines and white hair in a bun. Ulia shook her head at whatever was said, she did not hear it anyway, and mumbled about the grand honor hall at the center of the building. The woman motioned gently in the direction of one open door out the Medicus and Ulia took steps towards it, wanting to look back yet forcing herself as if on a march through swampland, making it to a prayer alcove and collapsing to one knee with her hand gripping the baton, feeling the tears through the other that covered her face.