And she was… here. Wherever here was. And whoever… whoever that was she'd just punched as she stretched.
"Oof."
She froze and cast her mind back to the previous evening.
"G'morning," the Breton mumbled.
Ah. Dalan.
Athene scrabbled around on the floor for her clothes. His little beneath-deck room was just small enough that she smacked her head on the wooden wall twice as she searched.
"Here," he said, and suddenly she could see.
She looked at the magelight above his hand. "You're full of surprises," she said.
"So are you." He grinned and reached a hand out for her bare shoulder. It brought back the memory of more intimate moments, mead-fuelled and urgent. It had been a long time since Athene had let herself enjoy a man in such a way. It might be a long time again.
She shook him off. "I have to go."
Above deck, fully dressed, she stepped past his shipmates as they turned and blinked to see her go. Let Dalan explain himself, she thought. Not her job. The Argonians were already out and working–Whatever work the Nords threw them, she remembered–and she walked quickly past a town guard and up the stairs to the back entrance to Windhelm. At first another guard tried to stop her, but she acted dumb until someone else came along and then slipped in with the group.
She found herself on the edge of a slum. Remembered a story Brunwulf had told her last night, about the Gray Quarter and its poverty.
She sneered. It was truly beautiful that Jarl Ulfric, the man the Nords adored, would let his city's residents live in such a place. As she considered it, two Nords shouted at a Dunmer and accused her of being an Imperial spy. Athene ducked her head and took the long way through the Gray Quarter, seeing what she could see, avoiding anyone's gaze. Luckily she was good at blending into poverty, though she carefully hid her Amulet of Kynareth in case anyone got any ideas.
Athene found her target in the Hall of the Dead, praying with her mother. After a few minutes Tova stood up and left, and Nilsine was left on her own. With Athene.
The wood elf moved up to sit behind her.
She was clearly rich, and clearly sad. She worried her hands together and muttered. Perhaps she was praying, or perhaps she was complaining. Athene hadn't spent a long time in chapels herself, but she knew about mourning. When the Thalmor had purged her home, she'd learned much too much about mourning.
She slipped her ebony blade out of its sheath and held it on her thigh. Its drew the warmth from her body and lay, as if a living thing, waiting for her decision.
"Oh!" Nilsine said, turning a little in her pew. "I didn't see you there."
"I didn't mean to scare you," Athene said.
"That's all right. I was lost in thought. My sister… my sister was murdered. My father says we just need to move on, but…"
"I understand," said Athene, because she actually did.
Nilsine's shoulders dropped. "It's my mother I'm most worried about. She doesn't seem to be coming around. And should she? How can things just… keep going?"
"By the nine divines, I don't know," said Athene.
Either Nilsine didn't hear, or didn't care about her slip. Eight divines, nine divines, it hardly mattered to a young woman who thought they were all against her.
She sighed again. "My mother…"
"Your mother will move on, even when both her daughters are dead," Athene said.
"Yes. Yes, I–What?"
Sitting in her clean dress, considering how everything bad happened to her, Nilsine raised her eyes and finally really looked at Athene. She saw a small wood elf with Bosmer tattoos dotting her cheeks and eyes like rich Valenwood earth. She saw her hand move with the swiftness of mercy. And then she saw red, red flooding over her own clean dress, and the darkness of the chapel rose up to welcome her home to Sovngarde.
Or wherever the hell it was these stupid Nords thoughts they'd end up, Athene amended.
The Nord's body slid to the floor of the chapel, and the wood elf was already gone.