Ch 9

After the Honorhall incident, I did feel a little bit of remorse. I had just murdered an innocent old wood elf for some tattered clothes! Thinking about my previous actions sent a few nervous shudders down my spine, so I just pushed those thoughts out of the way. My momma always told me to never look back on mistakes, because you could trip on the next thing ahead of you. I guess she never really looked back on me. Standing there in the Honorhall yard, I was hit by a rush of old memories.

My mother's name was Dralsi. I never forgot her soothing low voice, or her slow-blinking red eyes and tangled graying locks. She was tall and lanky, with long arms and tiny little feet that never fit into the kind of nice boots that craftsmen make in their little smithing stores. I remember her always being gone for weeks on end, saying that she was working very hard on assorted "projects." After a few weeks of being away on a project, she would always hug me with tears in her wide eyes and tell me that she loved me.

"I love you, Karliah. You are my greatest yield in the sea of life; the juiciest fruit in the great land of Morrowind. I wish you had a father to share this life with. It's just… that in my line of work… You never know where anyone comes from," she would coo before falling apart into a heap of tears.

"It's ok, Momma. I don't need a papa anyway. You always said that they were more trouble than they were worth," I would reply. This normally just made her cry harder.

But one day after the typical post-project weeping session, she looked me dead in the eyes and slowly took a shaky inhale. The mud she used to line her eyes was dripping down her face and the bright red lip pigment she wore for "special" projects was smudged. After taking a minute to regulate her breathing she began.

"You are so young. I do not expect you to understand, but I thought I might try to stop hiding everything from you," she whispered. "You, Karliah, are special. You and I come from a very special family. And I can't have the family we come from find us," she continued, her eyes beginning to overflow with tears. She looked hesitant to speak the next sentence. After a grand pause, she said these words, barely audibly. "My momma was the empress of Morrowind. She made some very bad choices that no one can ever find out about. One of those choices led to my birth." I gasped. My whole existence became much more convoluted after that second of my life. Could I really be royal? My mother continued, "My father was not the same person as my momma's husband. An empress is not supposed to act like that, so she had to cover it up. She sent me off quickly to my real papa so he could raise me. He tried to raise me well. He tried to educate me in the arithmetic theorems and literatures and gourmets. But he simply couldn't. He was a starving bard with a child he didn't really want. So he went out doing illegal favors for money, calling himself 'The Nightengale.' That's all I ever knew, and that's all I can do for you." My mother then lost all control and burst into earth-shattering sobs. "I'm sorry!" she cried.

"Hey! Hey! You alright, Miss?"

I snapped out of my reminiscent daze to see a guard clapping in front of my face.

"Oh, dear. So sorry. I was caught up in a memory," I quickly apologized.

"Oh, no! It is no problem! I can't help but do the same with this job…"

"I can imagine!" I replied.

"I suppose the Guild keeps me on my toes. New in town, Miss…"

"Karliah."

"Ah yes, Miss Karliah. I'd advise that you stay away from those filthy thieves. I'm pretty sure they just stole the statue of Mara from the city's temple!" the guard gasped.

"Wow! That's horrible!" I exclaimed quickly.

The guard ran his eyes over me as if that alone would let him know if I was telling the truth. His gaze stopped at the handful of children's clothes I was carrying.

"What's that you got there?" he inquired. I could almost smell his accusatory tone.

"Those poor kids' laundry! You know their mistress was murdered?" I replied without skipping a beat.

"A murder, you say! I must get over there to investigate it!" The guard did a neat spin on his heels and sprinted down the docks towards the orphanage.

I heaved a sigh of relief and quickly made my way to the poorly manicured statue garden that surrounded the Guild's secret entrance. I leaned against a smooth slab of stone as I gingerly threaded the kids' clothes together, stuffing the grass clippings in the mattress as I went along. The two moons were already high in the sky and the first stars were already out by the time I had attached the last two threads of my pillow. The air was cool and a breeze blew fragrant aromas of the late summer flowers in my direction. After sufficiently admiring my handiwork on my bedroom set, I picked a few flowers to distribute around the sewer I now called home.

On my way down the rickety ladder, I tried to do a little jump like Mercer and Gallus had done earlier. Yes, it was toned down by about a million times, but I enjoyed the thrill of it just as much as they did.