Lady Amarie Factice and Lady Abeni of House Bandia spent the day as tourists in Solitude. They strolled through the shops, trying on fine gowns at the tailor's, bedecking themselves with gold at the jeweler's, sniffing the incense at the alchemist's and last but not least, having a taste of Solitude's special spiced wine with lunch. When they had finished eating, they made their way to the Bards' College just in time to catch a public rehearsal of this year's Burning of King Olaf performance.

The tour was concluded with a quick glance at the Blue Palace grounds and hasty exit from the execution of the day, which conveniently, was taking place very nearly on their inn's doorstep. "Abeni" shut the door behind them like she was keeping the forces of Oblivion out. She could still hear the jeers of the crowd through the wood.

Inside, the inn was quiet and serene, all its normal patrons having funneled out into the street to watch the spectacle of a beheading. The bartender doted on his only guests, topping up their drinks with a wink and getting their food ready in half the time it would have taken him, had there been a bar full of thirsty people to tend to.

The ladies chatted amiably over dinner, about faraway politics, their next destination in their Grand Tour, the bore-inducing suitors their parents wanted them to marry and the inconvenience of mudcrab nests in the road.

For a moment, it almost felt normal.

Pleasant.

As though they weren't pretending to be who they were not and about to do something that would put them in extreme danger.

There was a roar from the crowd that resounded through the walls. It seemed to be a sign that the axe had at last fallen and the poor sod outside was dead. The door slammed open and a riotous slew of humanity poured through it, demanding drinks before they'd even taken a seat.

"Amarie" and "Abeni" decided to take the remainder of their meal upstairs. There was a lone table that looked down from above, in an unoccupied alcove.

As the darker hours of the evening took hold, their conversation dwindled down to nothing and was replaced by the silence of their private, anxious thoughts.

"Amarie" took a sip of her ale and set it back down on the table, beside the plate of venison that she'd been picking at all evening but making no real progress on. "Abeni" stared off into the distance, completely ignoring her steadily warming drink as she mentally ran through all the ways that the plan to infiltrate the Thalmor Embassy could possibly go wrong.

"Hey." Carolinne said, breaking the spell with a gentle touch on the shoulder and a shy smile. "You never did tell me how you ended up in Dengeir's service."

"Oh?"

Rayya turned to her, smiling, resplendent in her Imperial-style red silk chiton. She was more glad than Carolinne knew for the distraction.

"Well…" she said, taking her elbows off the table and sitting up a little straighter. "There was an assassin after him. Terrible shot, though I suppose that the poison was meant to compensate for that. I happened to be standing in the way."

As she watched, Carolinne's mouth dropped open and her face turned into a mask of concern.

"You got…what?"

Rayya laughed, throwing her head back in merriment.

"It's true!"

She undid one of the golden fibulae holding her chiton in place and let the fabric droop so that the back of her shoulder was exposed. On it, there was a tiny nub of raised scar tissue.

"Gods…" Carolinne murmured, her hand moving to the part of her thigh that still ached when the weather changed.

"But…" Rayya said enticingly, reaching behind her back to pin her dress in place again. "First things first. I'll start where we left off. I spent the first couple years of my Walkabout wandering southern Hammerfell and slaying troublesome wild animals where I could. Sometimes I stopped to help raise a new granary or build a house. But eventually, my feet took me to Elinhir, at the border of Skyrim."

"I thought that my desire was to see the mountains. But really, what I wanted was to go as far from my old life as I could. To forget, perhaps. Or to prove myself against something that is immovable, there, in the thin air and the frost."

"But once I got there? I had no idea what I was going to do next. I took a few local mercenary jobs. I drank some fine ale. But at the end of the day, there I was, alone in my cups, staring up at the lonely bulk of the mountains from the inn veranda."

"The hike was a the whim of a lazy Sundas morning. I had never climbed a mountain before and figured that I might as well, before I left and the chance was lost. I climbed much higher than I ought to, with much less supplies than I should have brought. I was caught in a storm and trapped in a cave for, near as I can tell, two days. Once I could no longer hear the scream of the wind on the walls of my shelter, I crept from hiding, only then realizing how far I'd come."

"The air was so clear that I could see my way far into Skyrim. A vast and dark forest stretched out below me, broken here and there by gaps of what I'd taken to be settlements. I could see trails of smoke emanating from a few of them and my stomach grumbled, reminding me of the careful rationing I'd been subjecting myself to in that cave. For a moment, I hovered on the brink, wondering if it would be wiser to go back or to go forward."

"Perhaps it was the thinness of the air or the delirium which comes with hunger and being in darkness for days, but I found my feet taking me forward. I felt excitement rising in my breast as I walked, the thrill of entering into something unknown. I felt every sorrow I'd accumulated in Hammerfell lessening in weight as I descended and the forest below grew ever nearer."

"And so it was, that I found my way across the border."

*.*.*

The air smelled of rain, though the brooding clouds that had followed her all day had not yet broken and soaked the forest surrounding her. She could hear the calls of unfamiliar animals all around - birds she didn't recognize, yips that sounded different from those of the jackals at home, squeaks of rodents that didn't sound a thing like what she was used to.

She had no idea where she was.

For half a day she had walked and not run into a single living soul. Were it not for the paving of the road and the evidence of her eyes before she descended, she would have assumed that Skyrim was an uninhabited wilderness. It certainly didn't look like the bastion of civilization that the guidebooks had made it out to be.

At midday, she rested beneath the boughs of a pine tree while the rain pitter-patted around her, making everything misty and fantastical. She chewed on her last strip of dried meat as it fell, making it last. When it was gone, the sound of the rain lulled her to sleep and the stress she didn't realize she was carrying melted away with the fading of her consciousness.

Faint voices in the distance awakened her. Her eyes snapped open and she lay there listening for a moment, not quite able to make out the words. The rain had stopped, though the mist remained and the dampness in the air had soaked into her skin. The voices grew louder as their owners got closer and snatches of conversation drifted down from the road to her ears. Some man was bragging about the meal his wife was cooking for him at this very moment and the welcome he'd get when they made it home. This was naturally followed by what sounded an awful lot like a snarky jibe against the wife and a quick burst of throaty laughter.

If she leaned forward, she could see four pairs of steel-toed boots tramping down the road towards her and hear the clatter of their occupants' armor as they walked. She hesitated in her hiding place, silently weighing her options. She was not certain if she was entirely comfortable with her first human contact in Skyrim being a group of soldiers of unknown origin. A logger or a farmer, in her experience, would have been much more preferable.

Her stomach growled again, interrupting her thoughts. She'd been walking for half a day and had yet to see any signs of logging or farming. She was starving and lost and here were a group of people who almost certainly knew where they were going.

She took a deep breath and crept out from hiding, her hands in the air.

The party stopped in their tracks and eyed her warily. The four armored men were dressed in greyish surcoats, their faces concealed behind featureless helmets. Between them, they bore an ornately carved litter. Upon it perched an old Nord man, the marks of hardship on his weathered skin, but the haleness of a well-trained youth still swelling in the muscles of his bare arms. A silvery wolf skin was wrapped around his shoulders and when he leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, she saw the gold glinting on his breast.

"Hail." Rayya said, nervously flashing her brightest smile. "I am a newcomer in these parts and I was wondering if you might provide me with directions to..."

She caught the flash of movement from the corner of her eye. The words died in her mouth and as she was turning to look in its direction, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling with unease, it happened.

There was the twang of a bowstring and a rush of air. Before she had time to react, every last ounce of air was knocked out of her lungs.

She swayed on her feet, struggling to pick up the shattered pieces of her psyche through the pain radiating from her shoulder.

As one, before her wavering field of vision, the soldiers dropped the litter and drew their swords.

"The Jarl!" one of them screamed. "Protect the Jarl!"

Gritting her teeth, she swallowed the pain and craned her neck around to see the shaft of a poorly made arrow projecting from the back of her shoulder. There was a rustling in the trees and a terrified squeak as the would-be assassin tumbled from their perch, taking off like a shot into the undergrowth.

She was running at top speed, all thought and emotion concentrated into a single point within her, hardly caring that her left arm was flopping uselessly behind her as she sped after the fleeing shadow. It was slower than her. She caught it easily, hurling herself bodily at it and pinning its kicking shape to the ground like a skilled predator.

It was a Nord boy, his cheeks flushed with exertion, his flaxen hair disheveled and muddy, his eyes wide with terror. She dug the nails of her good hand into his shoulder and locked her knees around his hips as he tried to squirm out of her grip.

She could hear the Jarl's guard crashing through the undergrowth somewhere behind her.

"I've got him!" she called out, her voice weaker than she thought it would be.

She rolled aside when one of the men had him safely in his grip, feeling suddenly light-headed. Her mouth was bone-dry. Her vision was blurring at the edges and no amount of blinking would make it stop. With a jolt of terror, she realized that she couldn't get up on her own power.

"Hey!" a guard said, a tremor in his voice as he rushed to her side.

The world was spinning and the mud was dragging her down into the earth.

*.*.*

She vaguely remembered seeing someone bind the boy's hands and slapping him across the face when he tried to fight back. She felt hands lifting her out of the mud, panicked voices rising and swelling in her ears.

She remembered opening her eyes and thinking for a moment that she was floating through a mist-filled forest. And then she felt the carved wood under her arms, the subtle movement of the litter as its bearers carried it. The old man, his shoulders bare, a gold medallion swinging around his throat, turned to look at her when she moved, worry creasing his already lined face. She tried to speak, but only a thin wail came out of her mouth. She was shivering uncontrollably and her shoulder throbbed with every slight jolt of the litter.

The man reached over and pulled the blanket on her lap a little higher. Her head drooped down and she saw that it was a wolf skin.

She closed her eyes again after that.

They snapped open to see a crowd of staring strangers looking down on her, a chorus of worried voices assaulting her ears. She was on her side, and could feel the chill of the ground below leeching away her body heat. She wanted to cry, to hide, to shrink away from view until no one could see her. Her head was fuzzy and everything - every last hair follicle, intake of breath and stirring of sound - hurt.

There was a shout in the distance and blessedly, the people backed away, the chatter stopping soon afterwards. An elf with pale golden skin and the robes of a priest came running, a small satchel clutched in one hand and a silvery globe of light in the other. The light pulsed in his hand like something alive. His eyes were sad as he dropped to his knees and reached out to touch her with it.

Without warning, her heart started racing and her mind was filled with visions of lightening and fire and crackling lights and gold thrown in the bottom of a boat to get away from it all. She jerked away, shuddering and sobbing.

And then she felt something hard and cold being wound around the palm of her hand. Warily, she opened her eyes to see the elf wrapping a strand of clay beads around her hand and closing her fingers around it.

"I promise" he begged, pleading in his eyes as he squeezed her hand tight. "on my honor as a priest of Arkay, that I will not harm you. Will you let me help you?"

One last tear slid down her face. She squeezed the beads, breathed in deeply and gave a small nod.

He touched a bead of light to her forehead and she was gone.

*.*.*

She awakened - she was told - in the house of Jarl Dengeir of Falkreath.

Her wound was bandaged, her arm was in a sling, her clothes were clean and the beads were still wrapped around her hand. She lay in bed for a moment, touching them, enjoying their coolness against her hot skin. She felt as though she had been kicked in the stomach by a camel, but if she tried, she was strong enough to sit up on her own power.

The red-cheeked servant that had been perched on a stool by her side brought her a goblet of water, a cool cloth and chattily answered every question she had to ask.

In this manner, she learned that she was a honored guest of the Jarl, who had insisted that she recover in his longhouse. She was cordially invited to dine with the court, when she was up to it.

Two days later, she felt well enough to take him up on that offer.

*.*.*

Her skin prickled with nerves when she stepped out in her borrowed finery. The outfit was a loan from the steward, a woman who plainly had much narrower hips than Rayya, thinner arms and longer limbs. She had dined with nobility before, in the times when her friends at the Hall had invited her into their homes and lent her their clothes, but even with practice, the feeling that she was playing dress-up among the real adults never ceased.

She stepped warily into the dining hall, located the high seat and stiffly, her left arm still in its sling, bowed to the man with the wolf skin wrapped around his shoulders.

"Ah, the hero emerges!" Jarl Dengeir barked, true delight glimmering in his tired eyes. "Welcome, welcome! Nenya, make way, she'll have your seat tonight. Come, Rayya, is it? You must tell us of yourself."

A lump in her throat, she seated herself on the bench next to the Jarl. A plate was placed before her and filled by a quick-fingered servant who slipped in behind her the moment she looked at it.

"We're a small bunch tonight, I'm afraid." the Jarl went on. "If it pleases you, this is my steward Nenya..."

The elf who had moved down a seat and now sat next to her nodded politely. She was indeed rather tall and thin.

"My nephew Siddgeir..."

The young man on the other side of the Jarl peered around his uncle for a moment, appraised her with narrowed eyes like he was inspecting a hunk of meat and then resumed his seat.

"...and my brother Thadgeir."

An old man with a haunted look gave her a cursory nod and then went back to his cups.

The Jarl seized the bottle before him and poured a healthy helping of wine into her goblet.

"Please! Drink and eat!" he laughed, raising his own glass. "You've well-earned it."

She sat there for a moment, in shock that the Jarl himself had poured for her from his own bottle. And then her face cracked into a smile that was more than mere formality.

"Thank you, sir." she said softly, raising her goblet and clinking it with his.

She was not entirely comfortable with eating solid food and drinking great quantities of wine yet, but as the evening wore on and the formality wore away, she felt her nervousness leaving her like a summer storm.

The conversation drifted this way and that. Sometimes it was local politics or faraway wars, crop rotations or philosophy. She couldn't quite follow all of it, but she was made to feel welcome with every change of topic. And then, as a discussion of summer taxes was dying down, Nenya turned toward her, an admiring glint in her yellow eyes.

"You must tell me where you learned to run like that!" she said. "I've had words with the men who witnessed the chase and the way they described it - you taking off like a daedric prince was on your heels and wounded and poisoned on top of that - I can hardly believe it myself, though the evidence is plain to see."

"Well..." Rayya said quietly, clearing her throat before she said anything more.

She realized that everyone was looking at her. The air was filled with baited silence.

A calm coming over her, she thought back to what Iya would do. She put her right hand on her knee and sat up straighter.

"On my eleventh birthday, as is the tradition in Hammerfell, I entered into the Hall of the Virtues of the War, where all the country's greatest warriors train. But it was not the physical manifestation of the Hall. I had no weapons, no armor, no building of stone and mud where I might grow strong and be safe. No, the desert was my Hall and the scorching winds, my teacher. On the first day of my training, I ran beneath the open sky to learn the virtue of endurance..."

*.*.*

A week after his capture, the boy was brought from the dungeons, pale as a bloated earthworm and dressed in torn rags, for trial.

The evidence was brought forward.

A crude hunter's bow and a quiver of arrows matching the one pulled from Rayya's shoulder.

A vial of poison, whose main ingredient, as determined by the local alchemist, was crushed deathbell petals.

He was a member of an impoverished hunting family in the hinterlands. His parents, nearly as poorly dressed as he was, arrived to plead for his life. They begged the Jarl to forgive their son for his mistake, for letting his arrow shoot a woman in the mist instead of the rabbit he had meant to kill.

Each guard who was present gave his account of the event. None of them had seen a rabbit and it was decided beyond a shadow of a doubt that one does not typically kill meat one wishes to eat with a poisoned arrow.

The parents could not account for the presence of the poison, nor fathom where he could have gotten it. They lived in the deep wilderness and hardly ever met a travelling merchant, let alone an alchemist. The boy himself was silent on this matter no matter how sweetly the steward prodded him for answers.

The verdict was delivered by Jarl Dengeir himself.

"While it may be an accident, you shooting a woman instead of your quarry..." he said slowly, his face hardening as he looked the boy in the eyes. "the presence of the poison and the proximity of the shot to my own person cannot help but suggest otherwise. You are convicted of assault, poisoning and high treason, with intent to kill the Jarl. Your sentence is death."

The boy's mother burst into wild sobs. Her husband held her, holding in his own emotions with great effort.

A lump grew in Rayya's throat as he was escorted out by the city watch, his face drained of all emotion, his eyes firmly focused on the ground.

She decided that she would not deign to attend the execution.

*.*.*

When the onlookers of the trial had gone home and the longhouse was in the midst of that empty lull before dinner occupied by nothing save the clanking of dishes in the kitchen, the Jarl summoned her to his throne.

She had seen him sitting on it before, of course. Not two hours ago, in fact.

But never, in any of those times had she been the one summoned to kneel before him. Her skin prickled with goosebumps as she strode toward him on his dais, his furs and his gold suddenly setting him so much higher than an ordinary man in the spot.

She bowed before him and kissed his hand when he extended it.

"Now then," he said, breaking the formality with a gentle smile. "you have told me stories of your training and your travel all week. I understand that you are on a test of sorts and bound to travel until you pass it. You must be aching to be back on the road soon, I should think."

Truthfully, Rayya had not been thinking about it just yet. The trial, her efforts to entertain the Jarl and his court and her own healing had absorbed nearly all of her attention.

"But..." the Jarl went on, a serious thread weaving through his voice. "if you have any desire to stay longer, I would wish to honor you with a position in my court."

Rayya's eyes widened. Any words she was going to say evaporated to mist in her mind.

"Truth is, it's a treacherous world out there and a great many people want me dead. I have need of a strong arm who won't stab me in the back. And..."

He chuckled to himself.

"What purer proof of loyalty is there than a woman who takes a poisoned arrow for her jarl? A-ha...ahem."

His face softened again.

"But don't let an old man's jokes frighten you. You will have permanent lodging in the longhouse, a suit of armor crafted personally for your use and a sizable yearly stipend for your service. Though it is traditional - and my wish - that a housecarl will stay with their charge until the bitter end, I also grant you the boon of leaving when you choose. You would be free to stay for as little or as long as you like. Nothing less for the woman who saved my life - and you did save my life. I will not have any more of that false humility."

Rayya's head was spinning. It must have looked as thought it was because Dengeir's forehead was wrinkling with worry.

"But, please..." he went on raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "take some time to think on it. I don't need an answer today. Or even tomorrow. Go! Get some fresh air. Mull it over."

"T-Thank you, my jarl." she sputtered, giving him a quick bow before backing out the door.

*.*.*

Her feet took her to the graveyard. It was a part of town which she had not yet explored, for fairly obvious reasons.

But once she got there, she wondered why she had not come sooner. It was a quiet place, free of the shouts of merchants and the bustle of life. Wildflowers bloomed profusely on the edges of the wilderness surrounding the lonely plot of land. She could hear herself think here, have room to move as freely as she needed to.

She strolled leisurely among the headstones, tapping them every now and then with a stick she'd picked up on the way.

Housecarl to the Jarl of Falkreath.

It was a position with power, influence, prestige. If was never wondering where you'd sleep that night or if you'd have a meal to fill your belly in the morning.

It was being bound to one duty, one person. It was never being excited for what surprises the next day might bring.

No more traipsing through the woods whenever she wanted. No more stunts like leaving the province on a whim. It was a heavy responsibility and she was not entirely sure if she was ready for that.

Her heart ached at the thought of stopping here and never going further than the Jarl's side, but soared at the thought of finally making something of herself beyond the scope of a common mercenary. She paced back and forth as she thought on it, twisting the stick in her hands.

And then, she looked up and found herself standing before the stone cottage on the edge of the graveyard. He thoughts stilled for a moment. She knew who lived there, though she had not yet set foot inside. She had meant to visit him at some point, though her stomach knotted with nerves at the thought.

Today was the day. She was here, now and it looked as though he had no other visitors.

Sucking in her lips, she knocked on the door.

"Do come in!" a frail, elderly voice called through the door. "The shrine is open to everyone."

Without allowing herself to overthink it, she seized the handle and slipped inside.

The single room of the cottage was divided into two halves. On one end sat the Shrine of Arkay, candles burning beside it and a modest pile of offerings at its foot. On the other was the priest's and the caretaker's living quarters - a set of little beds, a dresser, a cupboard, a table, a firepit with something mouth watering bubbling in a cauldron.

"Oh!" the priest gasped, getting up from the table and closing his book when he saw who it was. "Welcome, indeed. Tell me, how's your shoulder been doing?"

Rayya rotated it to demonstrate its improving health and smiled.

"Nearly healed, thanks to you. I'm Rayya."

His old face with its sad eyes crinkled into a smile in return.

"So I've heard! Runil, at your service."

It was suddenly awkwardly silent between them. Rayya reached into her shirt and took the string of clay beads from her neck.

"I...came to give you these back." she said slowly, forming each word carefully before she spoke it. "...and to apologize for my reaction to you. I'm sorry I acted the way I did."

"Oh, don't worry about that." Runil answered, taking the beads from her and tucking them securely into his belt. "You were in pain and under a great deal of stress. Things happen."

"No." she said firmly, a pang of regret piercing her heart. "It was more than that. When I was a child, my home was conquered by Aldmeri mages. I barely escaped the destruction myself and grew up with the aftermath. For a moment, when I saw you, with the magic, I thought that you were...truly, I'm sorry for thinking such a thing of you."

"Well..." the elf said, a shadow passing over his face as he lowered himself back into the rickety wooden chair. "In truth...you were not wrong. I wasone of them once. I served as a battlemage in the Great War. I had the power to level cities, raze villages. And then one day...I saw what I was doing and came to regret it. Gave it all up on that day to devote myself to Arkay and haven't looked back."

He put his head in his hands and massaged his temples.

"I suspected that you had come to harm at the hands of Aldmeri mages when you reacted as you did. It's not...exactly an uncommon thing, especially among the warriors still old enough to remember. I take it upon myself to apologize for every careless act of my brethren, though the cost of their actions are too great to bear and the words of an old mer bring but little comfort. So, for what it's worth, I apologize to you for causing what harm I did."

She felt a twinge of anger flash through her skull. Here was an elf who had burned cities no different from her own, who had escaped from that life without punishment or restitution.

For a moment, she heard the voice of her father in the back of her head.

A single old elf, unguarded, unsuspecting, no witnesses, fully admitting to wrongdoing...

It is best to strike when an enemy's back is turned...

He lifted up a hefty mug and took a deep dreg of the steaming drink within.

She took a breath and closed her eyes. She remembered the feel of the beads in her hand, the pleading look in his eyes as he entrusted her with them, begging her to trust him.

When she opened them, the thoughts were gone.

"Thank you, Runil." she breathed, flashing him a genuine smile.

After they had shared a mug of snowberry tea and gossiped a bit about the goings on around town, she said her goodbyes and hoped that she was not too late for dinner at the longhouse.

As she was walking, feeling lighter for having been relieved of another burden she didn't know she had, another thought about the housecarl situation came to mind.

The stipend.

She thought of her parents struggling in their apartment and the last letter her mother had sent her, in which she had tried to think of cheery things to say, but they barely concealed the growing worry in her tone.

Taking the job would mean a steady income and more than enough to spare. She wondered if it would be enough for Baba to open his shop again, for Mama to stop taking in laundry.

With that, as she reached the top of the hill where her destination dwelled, the decision was made.

Notes:

Both of their fake names contain jokes. u