Chapter 2: Snap or Shoot

Ryathen

"Mistress?"

She sat there, shell-shocked. I don't think she even realized she was weeping until her tears hit the back of her folded hands. She stared at the shining droplet as though it was something entirely foreign. Her fingers twitched. Slowly her palms came over her mouth in what formed an expression of horror. They did little to muffle her staggered sobbing.

"Isandith."

I damned the etiquette barring my way, flying to her side. I brought my arms closer, but did not touch. I knew the world she had been raised in all too well. I feared she would shatter if simple compassion met her point blank.

"E-Elenwen… s-she…"

I pulled a handkerchief out from my sleeve, holding it out for her to take, but she made no move for it.

"Why was she…?"

It wasn't that I was too much of a coward to admit that I had something to do with it, but I knew that she would have snapped sooner or later. It didn't matter if she'd heard the words from me or some other source. Her silent love had made her bitter. And she was going to be sure everyone knew.

"Don't fret over it," I urged gently, dabbing at the flow of tears. Two reddened blue eyes stared down at me, large, bewildered, and deeply hurt. "She's just strained, Isandith. High titles and fine grooming aside, being a member of the Thalmor has a way of eating away at someone."

Her exaggerated tresses became undone. I plied the crumpled petals and stems from her hair, swiping an ivory comb from the boudoir.

"She's right, though."

With three pins in my mouth it was difficult to say anything without dropping them. I unfurled her hair the best I could over the back of the couch, sectioning it into segments I could brush easily. The best I could manage was a gruff sound, encouraging her to continue.

"It's not that I'm terrible with spells, Ryathen. You know that." She stiffened from her shoulders down. "I just have no interest in them. I like alchemy, but everyone says it's below my station."

Station.

Position.

Rank.

The Altmer loved their hierarchy. Orders were adhered too, not questioned. Tradition was upheld, never amended. For those whose bloods ran purer than the rest, this was especially true. And Nine Divines, I hated it.

"The only reason Mother and Father hadn't sent me off to the College to study was because of this wet-dog hair and these barbarian eyes." A bitterness I doubted she was aware of began to surface in her voice. "I'm rare." She tilted her head back as I was braiding it. Isandith gazed at me in askance. "Tell me, Ryathen. If I'm so rare then why do I feel so cheap?"

I sighed before I could stop myself.

I would have launched into a conversation about the faults of Altmeri culture, but experience had taught me that this wasn't going to work. From the moment I met her I recognized the look of a creature born and bred in captivity. Her world extended to the walls of her estate, and no matter how expansive it was, how finely furnished, it was better to call it a luxurious box. She had no wanderlust, and no interest in exploring beyond those boundaries. I'd despised that about her at first, until it dawned on me.

She'd been taught that there was nothing else.

Nothing I'd say would make a difference. It was madness to speak of grass and sky to a bird that knew only a metal cage within a stone cell. Thus I tried a different approach.

"Look at me, Isandith," I beckoned. "What am I?"

My pupil blinked, taken aback by the question; exactly what I was going for.

She examined me as if for the first time. Tanned skin. Amber eyes. Black hair.

"You're… a Bosmer."

"Where do Bosmers come from?"

"Valenwood."

I nodded, tied off her braid and sat beside her in one fell motion.

"Have I ever told you how I came to be here?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"When the Altmeri Dominion was first being reestablished, the Thalmor came to Valenwood to annex it. On the surface it was a straightforward approach, but the truth was that many of us resented the meddling." I folded my arms. "There was also quite a number that fought to keep the Altmeri away, but they were soon overwhelmed by their sorcery. Those that weren't killed in the mess were captured to be sentenced for any number of reasons to any number of ends, usually nonsense; usually fatal. Your parents were, and still are, I imagine, inquisitors."

"My parents?" she gasped.

I see they never bothered to mention it the few times they did see her.

"Yes."

"How do you know this?" she demanded.

"Because I was part of one such rebellion, and Tirev was the one in charge of my fate."

"My Father?" Her eyes widened. "How are you still alive?"

I couldn't repress a grim smile.

"As it so happened… I may have struck through his wards using a simple arrow, though he'd never admit it, I'm sure. He asked me if I was any good at flinging my pointy twigs."

She bit down on her lip to keep from laughing.

"I answered yes. Then he told me he had a daughter, and he was concerned that she was wasting her days away without a hobby to keep her occupied." Now my smile was entirely genuine. "I had two choices. Teach her what I knew or die. At the time, bitter and angry as I was, I almost chose the latter. But Tirev is a cunning man… he gave me time to think over it –starve, I might add- but it served its purpose." I turned to her then. "And I served mine."

"I…I had no idea."

"There is more to than this to the world you know, Isandith. More than rules and regulations. More than appearances and manufactured smiles."

Though it had taken years, and the wound that Elenwen cut into her, my words were finally sinking into the fold. I could see it in the way her eyes began to shine, and how wonder bloomed through her face. It was the rebirth of an instinct that had been forced into dormancy at a tender age, and if I knew anything, it was going to burst.

"We Bosmer have a saying that our people are born with bows in their hands. All our lives we're holding onto them, pulling them taut. Sooner or later it comes to the point where we have two choices: snap, or shoot."

And just like that, invisible chains pulled her back.

The young Altmer rose to her feet, whisking her hands towards herself.

"I can't. It's not possible. Not for me, Ryathen."

"Isandith…"

"I don't even know what you're suggesting!" Her voice cracked. "Do you have any idea how much it hurts? Every time you speak of mountains and valleys and canyons and riverbeds –things I will never see. You're expanding my world and I can't even catch a glimpse of it! You're cruel, Ryathen. You're so cruel."

My mouth fell open.

That was it.

"You have two hands and two feet. You're not bound to a wall like I was! You aren't gagged or maimed or covered in scars! You can choose your life –others don't do it for you." I grabbed her by the shoulder; the physical contact rendered her so stunned she couldn't move. "This is the last chance you have, Isandith. Ancano isn't going to let you continue doing something as uncivilized as archery much longer. He'll coerce you into joining the Thalmor or studying a school of magic –most likely the one he favors- and if you aren't capable you'll be made to breed like a prize sow! Tell me how all your etiquette and niceties make that sound any better. I want none of this shit about him being gentle and deflowering –you'll be made to spread your legs like anyone else, cry, scream; moan like a bitch in heat –if he's any good, and if he isn't his Altmeri pride will never allow either of you to broach the topic. And if you want to feel cheap consider this; at least a whore gets paid."

I would have found her expression funny, if only I didn't care for her well-being.

"We all have our strengths and weaknesses. I've seen you in the orchards, Isandith. You're as fine a shot as any! You know I don't say that lightly. Someday you too can fire past spells like I did! You can be the finest archer of your generation." I released her, but my eyes had yet to relinquish her own. "You're at that point I mentioned, Isandith. You can either snap or shoot. And I'm doing all I can now. I'm begging you. Such a bow, once broken, can never be made whole again. Strike now. Strike true."

Isandith

Ryathen had always been frank. He never tiptoed around rules like I did when we were alone. If I did poorly he told me so, never sparing the criticism just because I was an Altmer, or a noble. It made me want to strive towards approval, and the times I received it tasted sweeter than anything I've ever had. It was brief, but it always left me craving more.

I'd always respected Elenwen, but it was a different sort than what I had for my teacher. She was the ideal; the woman that all Altmer females aspired to be, or should, anyway. For as long as I could remember I'd showered her in praises, and so she'd been good to me, taught me bits of what she knew, and was more patient than most. Her sudden change in attitude was what had thrown me off guard. I felt I'd lost someone dear to me.

Yet with Ryathen, as brash as he was being now, I wasn't nearly as upset.

His disappointment was clear.

The student within me was now desperate to remedy this.

I'd had delusions about being an archer… stalking the world, being paid to fetch elusive quarry. Then I'd catch my reflection in a floor-length mirror, at my oiled skin and silk gowns, and that dream became a fantasy I was suddenly ashamed of thinking up. Voices in my head cursed at me for even considering the possibility.

Ryathen made it clear those voices belonged to my parents, the servants, Elenwen; Ancano…

Not once had anyone asked me what I wanted.

This epiphany, as small and seemingly insignificant as it was, rocked the little corner I could call my world.

But what… what do I want?

This question terrified me.

"…Isandith?"

I blinked, staring at Ryathen's face, now muddled with guilt and wariness, fearing he'd overstepped his bounds.

"I… would like if you spoke to my father," I began. The words felt foreign. The thoughts behind them more so. "Ask him if I can accompany Elenwen when she leaves, to observe her Thalmor duties and give myself… a worldly example. I'm getting too old to spend my days sitting here doing nothing. It would also serve to… benefit my betrothed, wouldn't you agree?"

He blanched.

Then the corners of his mouth perked up.

First one side.

Then the other.

He threw his arms around me so fast I didn't have time to react.

This… this was a breach of everything I knew.

And this abuse of protocol felt absolutely wonderful.

Ryathen

"You do know what will happen with you as soon as she leaves."

It was not a question.

But a fact.

I'd gone to see Tirev after supper, and now stand in his office, illuminated by fiery mage-light.

"Yes."

He unfolded his hands from beneath his chin, and for the first time since being interrogated by him all those years ago in a Valenwood grotto, looked into my eyes.

"Codes dictate once one such as you fulfills their service they're to be… dealt with."

"I know."

Call it what you will, but what began as deep-seated loathing had been tempered to a grudging sort of respect over time. The Thalmor took away the freedom of others. But they were slaves to themselves; bound not by iron, but by laws and traditions; the weight of a culture so old that it consumed all they could stand to be in the present. Many shirked from such a life, but many more embraced it. It took a great deal of discipline and selflessness to lose all sense of self for a cause… or a people.

It took me ages to discover that the cause I had been fighting for in my native home was one that only a minority could wholeheartedly support. We spoke pretty words, about fighting for the whole of our people. It was only after meeting Tirev, after living in the Summerset Isles among the Altmeri, that I came to the stinging truth.

I was only fighting for myself.

And in his eyes I could see that he knew his daughter was not the sort that could bear the weight of millennia of Altmeri history, and that she would be crushed beneath it the moment she left his cloistered walls. It was a silent conversation between elves of different races, of men that had faced one another in battle; of two people that cared for the fate of a girl they knew could not handle what was set out before her.

"Ryathen will die," he said, as though I wasn't in the room.

I tipped my brow towards him.

"It was bound to happen."

"Yes… especially in the event that something should happen to Elenwen's caravan…"

I blinked.

"Such as… a convenient raid of Stormcloaks as soon as they cross the border…"

He couldn't…?

"And should my daughter escape in the chaos and start a new life on her own, she'll be dead to us –a fate you'll meet for certain."

Tirev scowled.

"Get that disgusting grin off your face."

I humored him, but only barely.

It suddenly made sense why he was never around. It wasn't that he didn't want to be. If he were home he'd be forced to look after his daughter's behavior constantly. Thalmor duties got in the way, allowing them both an excuse for her poor upbringing… her freedom, however limited it was.

"It's been an honor serving you."

"You've been useful."

It was the closest thing I'd ever received to a thank you. For once, I adhered to the nonsense of stepping back x number of paces before turning heel.

"Ryathen."

I froze.

"Her marksmanship had better be superb. She'll need it in Skyrim."