There had been nowhere to call home from that point on. When she'd killed a dragon by the Western Watchtown the Jarl of Whiterun had invited her to live in the city, but he still expected her to pay for the house. Biting back a comment about how long the building had evidently stayed empty, she refused his offer and began staying in a bandit camp outside the city walls. She'd chased off the bandits some time back and it was a good place to watch out for wild animals and stragglers who might also be looking for a bed.
After her run-in with Astrid, who had dragged her nearly all the way to Solitude, Athene hiked back with gritted teeth. She grew weary of her own anger as she reached the plains, but Astrid's words still haunted her.
As had her invitation to the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary.
Athene arrived back at Whiterun as the sun hung low in the sky. She meant to fall straight to bed but a commotion near Loreius Farm caught her attention. There was a stranded cart, a bored horse, and the strangest man Athene had ever seen. As she watched Vantus Loreius, who owned the farm, shouted something she couldn't hear and stalked away.
Athene glanced back at her bedroll where it waited. She looked up at the shape of High Hrothgar, the fortress on the mountain that had been shadowing her sleep since they'd tried to call her home with a thundering Thu'um. And she looked again at the man on the road, dancing around and squealing as if he was actually a pig dressed in women's clothes.
She shrugged. There were strangest things in Tamriel. This one was worth investigating.
"Trouble?" she asked the jester. And that's what he appeared to be, though she couldn't think of another she'd seen outside of picture books and stories.
He squealed again.
Athene leaned back.
"Mother!" he cried. "Oh, my poor mother…"
He claimed to be transporting his mother's dead body, which Athene found creepier and more entertaining than all of Astrid's postering. Vantus refused to help him repair his wheel. If Athene would talk to the farmer Cicero, the jester, would be extremely grateful.
Her purse had been a little light in the last while, and the hike back from Solitude hadn't done her any favours. Athene agreed.
"Oh, what now?" Vantus whined as she approched.
"That man. He needs some help."
Vantus began shouting about how weird the jester was. Athene considered showing him what a shout really was, but instead she kept listening. It was strange, perhaps as strange as the jester himself, but she really felt like helping Cicero was the right thing to do. She was attached to very little, let alone other people, and certainly not a bizarre Imperial carting his dead mother through Skyrim. But Vantus' bias irked her. He wanted to turn the man in to the guards for nothing more than making him nervous. A lot of things made Athene nervous, and she'd adopted the method of avoiding them, taking responsibility for herself, rather than running to the town guards. In short, Vantus was a coward and a fool.
What did that make Cicero?
In the midst of the farmer's rant Athene stepped forward and brought her dagger–a fine ebony blade–from its sheath by her hip. She touched the blade with a gentle finger and looked up at Vantus, who had stopped talking and stared at her with more than a little concern.
Thank goodness he'd stopped talking.
Athene raised the blade so they could both see it.
"Helping that man," she said, "is only the neighbourly thing to do. I won't turn him into the guards for something he hasn't done. Your suggestion is disturbing. I wonder… what are you afraid of?"
Vantus swallowed.
Within the hour he was down at Cicero's cart, helping repair the wheel. And after the jester had squealed his delight, Athene's purse was a little heavier. She stayed around to make sure the farmer had fulfilled his promise, and then turned to hike up the hill to her camp.
Then Cicero spoke up.
"I suspect, you suspect," he said. "I suspect, you suspect, we suspect there's more to this! A little place in the woods, oh yes! A dark door and a shadow falling! Two are better than one, off the path by Falkreath!"
"Ah," said Athene, as the pieces fell into place.
"Ah ha ha ha!" the jester laughed.