"When...when does it end?"
"What?"
Rayya looked up blearily from her half-drained pint. It was her third of the night. She was beginning to feel the effects and figured that she should stop once she reached the bottom of this glass.
Carolinne was flushed a deep scarlet and considerably worse for wear, considering that she'd drunk the exact same amount of alcohol. She was looking at her, glassy-eyed, trying to put words together.
"The Walkabout..." she slurred, making vague hand motions in the air. "It's…a test of some sort, isn't it? But...what are the para...pair-am...parameters? How do...how do you tell when it's done?"
"Well…" Rayya sat up, making a vague hand gesture of her own, the bracelets on her wrists rattling as she did so. "It's hard to say. It's...different for everyone. You know it when it's finished, though."
She took another long drag of mead. It was one of several Skyrim customs that she had not taken to at all upon first arriving, but like any type of alcohol, the deeper she got into her cups, the better it became.
"I suppose…" she murmured, setting the tankard down with a clatter. "…that you reach some kind of internal completion. An ending, a divide between one part of a life and the next, I don't know. How's the mead?"
She raised her glass enthusiastically, nearly spilling its contents.
"Ex...quisite! I didn't know you could put oranges in it!"
Rayya cracked a smile and raised her glass in return, before taking another sip.
"There's some places that throw in apples or snowberries or jazbay leaves." she went on, setting her glass down. "Juniper berries. I wonder whatever happened to that place..."
When she looked up after the last bit, she saw that Carolinne had lost quite a bit of her color.
"But...uh...oranges!" she said smoothly, not knowing what she'd done wrong and struggling to rectify it anyway. "Oranges are certainly the best. Must be expensive, importing them from Cyrodiil."
"Yeah...and they travel awfully well, don't they?" Carolinne said softly, perking up a bit, her smile returning. "Better than pastries. I wonder if there's anyone who can get baked goods across the Illiac before they go stale. Stasis magic, maybe? Ha, that'd cost the mortal plane...but the things they make in High Rock! Macarons, éclair, cheese tarts! There's this type of pastry that's nothing but buttery layers folded over and over each other and the outer layer is brushed with caramel that gets hard and sweet in the oven and oh...oh my gods, the crunch."
She sat there looking wistful for a moment and then lightly punched the table with the hand that wasn't holding her drink.
"And the bread!" she practically shouted, her voice growing in passion. "I haven't had a proper piece of bread since I've gotten here. It's all so heavy and dense and...and chewy...though..."
She laughed.
"I suppose that you need some ballast, what with the winters around here."
Rayya chuckled and raised her glass.
"A toast, then. To tasting them again after this mess is sorted out."
Carolinne brightened.
"Here, here!" she cried out, raising her glass.
They toasted, linked arms and somewhat messily, drained their cups.
"Anyway…ooh…" Rayya clutched her chest as she suppressed a burp. "Where were we? Wait...wait...I've got it..."
"Siddgeir, as you may have guessed, was not entirely fond of me…"
*.*.*
Nenya and Siddgeir were called to stand as witnesses to the oath between jarl and housecarl.
It was a simple affair. She knelt before his throne and repeated the words he fed her. The deal was sealed with a kiss on his hand. Dengeir bid her rise, the corners of his eyes crinkling with joy. She felt as though a great burden had been taken from her, though the weight of the duty she'd just sworn an oath to was beginning to take its place.
When she stood, her eyes met Siddgeir's. He was standing to the side of the throne, just behind the Jarl's field of vision. His lips were curled into a sneer of purest disgust and barely-concealed rage beamed out of his stormy eyes. Nenya was on the other side of the throne, blissfully unaware of what was happening not one foot from the Jarl's oblivious back.
The thought, tenuous and without proof save this one fleeting moment, occurred to her that perhaps Siddgeir was the one whom Dengeir was hiring her to protect him from.
Rayya smiled sweetly at him, showing her teeth. Siddgeir narrowed his eyes. Was that a touch of fear she saw in them?
She thanked the Jarl, bowed respectfully and went to her quarters to change for dinner.
*.*.*
The next week, an armorer from Whiterun was summoned to take her measurements. They talked of what she wanted as he flicked his measuring tape about and scratched his findings onto a wax tablet. Ease of movement was the top priority, with protection and durability not far behind.
When he was finished, she thanked him for his time and sent him off with a hearty meat pie and a flask of wine from the kitchen.
Two months later, on the cart of a courier, the finished armor was sent to her, each part meticulously packed in straw.
Rayya opened each crate in the privacy of her room, like they were so many late-coming birthday presents. She grinned wildly with every new piece revealed, admiring their intricate details before setting them down on the bed.
It was a sturdy set of steel armor, carved with Nordic runes and charms of protection, strange and beautiful to her eyes. She felt honored to even hold it in her hands, to know that she was so trusted and welcomed in a foreign land to have been given something so precious as a gift.
Though it was, as expected, a bit heavier and more cumbersome than what she was used to. She vowed to set aside training time every day specifically to get used to it, though in the heat of summer, the idea did not appeal to her at all.
But when she put it on, people took notice of her.
While she wore it, she felt as though who she was inside was visible to the world at large, at last. She walked taller, stood straighter, commanded more respect.
Even Siddgeir's glares failed to give her pause eventually.
*.*.*
About a month into her new life, she was beginning to have something of an emergency.
Her roots were growing out and it was about time to get something done about them before her hair was too damaged to deal with.
The problem: where does one find a Redguard hairdresser in Skyrim?
This was what eventually led her to screw up her courage and darken the local alchemist's door. The place was named "Grave Concoctions" and its proprietor was known for having something of a grim sense of humor. Zaria was also known for having emigrated fairly recently from Hammerfell to set up shop. She was bound to have closer ties with the immigrant community of Skyrim, such as it was, than the more recently arrived Rayya.
The bell on the door tinkled as she let herself in.
"Oh, Housecarl!" the alchemist chirped, getting up from her chair and standing behind the counter. "Welcome! What can I do you for today? Is your shoulder acting up again? I'll have you know that I do stock more than rat poison and emetics here, ha."
"Oh, no, it's nothing like that." Rayya answered, waving her arms defensively. "The problem is...ah..."
She seized one of her braids and held it close enough so that Zaria could see the split ends.
"Do you...happen to know anyone who can take care of this? I haven't been here long and I don't know many"-
"Say no more!" she cut her off with a smile as she ripped a piece of paper out of her logbook and grabbed a fresh quill from below the counter.
"There's a little farm just outside Granite Hill..." she murmured as she wrote. "It's a bit of a journey, but the wife can help you, so long as her children aren't visiting and eating her out of house and home. Here."
She blew on the ink to dry it and handed her the directions.
"You know..." Rayya said, tucking the paper away with a barely-contained grin of absolute relief. "...come to think of it, there have been some rats in the longhouse recently. What kind of poison have you got?"
Zaria lit up like a starry night.
"Well, you've got your nightshades of course, old standbys, gets the job done. But if you really want to be subtle about it - artistic - nirnroot, I find is..."
*.*.*
Nenya counted out her first stipend from the Jarl's treasury and handed it to her in a sizable leather purse.
She had not held so much gold since her days, years ago, of working in Baba's shop. For a moment, she felt a little light-headed and giddy about having so much, all at once. Thanking Nenya graciously, trying not to show how much this meant to her too obviously, she finished up her business and rushed back to her room to portion it out.
One fourth of it was deposited into her usual purse. The rest she kept in the other one, to be sent home to her parents.
She sat up late into the night, writing a lengthy letter about what she'd been doing, where she'd been and how much she missed them.
In the morning, she sent the package off in the hands of the Jarl's most trusted courier.
Two months later, Mama wrote back to tell her how proud she was.
*.*.*
Her chief duty consisted of standing beside the Jarl when court was in session and looking grim. It was dreadfully, soul-suckingly boring.
Most of the time, that is.
When a petitioner got too close, she would lock eyes with the overstepping peon and point to where he was supposed to be standing. If a visitor was visibly agitated, more extensive security measures were taken. It was extremely, thankfully rare that anyone needed anything more than a firm hand on the shoulder in order to behave themselves.
Slowly, through long observation during the boring hours of the day, she learned the ways of the court and how the people of Skyrim demonstrated their loyalties. They were an emotional people, prone to big shows of gratitude, anger and sorrow. Honor was everything to them - honor in battle, honor in family, honor in history, honor in death. In this way, though there were many things about their culture that were strange to her, she found herself fitting right in.
Little by little, she was welcomed into the mundane rituals that made up the lives of the people she was surrounded with. The captain of the Falkreath Watch invited her often to drink a horn of mead with his men. She witnessed the blessing of newborn babies by a priestess of Kynareth, after they had survived their requisite week after birth. She accompanied the Jarl as he hunted and learned how a portion of the kill was always offered in sacrifice to the Old Gods, no matter how fondly their regard for the Divines was held.
As time went on and she adjusted to the undulating rhythms of Skyrim life, her homesickness became less and less. It never entirely went away - it merely went from a sharp pain that flared up suddenly to a dull one that throbbed deep in the background noise of everyday life. She made friends and allies. She formed romantic attachments, broke them off when the time was right and started again.
She grew content in her stability, at peace with where her life had gone.
Perhaps that was why she paid so little heed to the rumors that those who would change that spun in the dark.
*.*.*
At first they were only angry mutterings of the old and the bitter - ramblings of scandals covered up, city funds drained for the purpose of fine parties, accusations of Dengeir's growing senility in his old age. No one in court took it seriously. It is expected of all rulers to have some manner of discontent in their holdings. Pleasing everyone in a hold, let alone a province, is an impossible feat, though the rare (and perhaps, foolish) leader will try until his dying breath.
There were more pressing issues beginning to weigh on the agenda. Tensions across Skyrim were rising and talk of seceding from the Empire was growing in seriousness. Lines were being sketched out in the sand and which side any person would fall upon was anyone's guess. Already, alliances were breaking down, families splitting down the middle, confusion and distrust creeping like a plague across the province.
Siddgeir used all of these factors to his utmost advantage.
His public face was that of a kind, polite nobleman, obedient to his uncle at every step. He was fairly well-liked by the citizens of the hold, though he spoke but little in public and was careful never to state a direct opinion on any topic whatsoever.
His treachery is a thing that cannot quite be explicitly proven. He covered his tracks so well that there was barely any outline left. The things he did - dropping a hint here, a word there, pushing a conversation just a little further than it needed to go - could not truly be tracked so surely as secret correspondence or a poisoned arrow. It is still unknown, whether he was in the pay of the Imperials or if his desire for the throne was something that arose from his own mind.
Regardless of motive, the consequences were the same.
The swirling whispers turned into shouts.
The questions, into demands.
One morning, the Jarl was roused from bed by a sizable portion of Falkreath's residents outside his longhouse door, demanding that he step down for the good of the hold.
His jaw set as he tried to conceal his trembling, he agreed to their demands.
*.*.*
Jarl Siddgeir was kind, they said, for giving his ailing uncle such a generous pension, for remodeling his old childhood home so that he might live in comfort in his old age.
What a dutiful nephew, they said.
What a fine young man.
Nevermind how useless Dengeir felt, when his life's work was suddenly taken away after a lifetime of laboring for the good of the hold.
Nevermind that his entreaties to be named counselor to the jarl were denied, time and again.
Nevermind how unwelcome he was made to feel in court, with Siddgeir's new housecarl staring him down as though he were a wounded animal.
As the months passed, he fell into despair, becoming a pale imitation of the hale old man he once was. He argued with his brother incessantly, accused the maid of treason and would oftentimes not eat unless the food was spoon-fed to him.
But the one thing he did not lose was his honor.
His anger festered with every careless action of his newly-crowned nephew. Siddgeir was not so untouchable as he seemed on the surface. Once he took office, his lack of wisdom and care for those who surrounded him could not be concealed so easily.
He felt every raucous party his nephew threw while beggars starved in the streets to be a smudge on the family name. He burned with shame when he saw him misjudging an envoy's intent in visiting the hold. He flirted nonstop with the daughters of powerful foreign lords in full view of their parents. Through his sorrow, he began to identify his nephew's weaknesses and form a plan accordingly.
The centerpiece of the whole thing was Rayya. He did everything possible to keep her in his employ, though her status sunk as much as his did through the transition of power. To her he secretly paid the bulk of his pension.
When she was out and about, she acted as though she had chosen to stay in Falkreath of her own accord and made certain to not meet with Dengeir in public, should Siddgeir grow suspicious. She packed her armor away in boxes and took to living in the graveyard alongside Runil, helping to dig the graves as both him and the graveyard's caretaker grew too old to manage on their own.
On the sly, she continued sending money to her parents.
And more importantly, she kept her ear to the ground and waited for the signal.
*.*.*
Siddgeir was practically hanging himself.
As time wore on, he grew more complacent in his power and committed a series of ever-increasing insults to both the citizens under his rule and the nobility of other holds.
The hold's debt steadily worsened under his rule and his corruption became plain for most to see.
Dengeir and Rayya played their roles as well as Siddgeir had played his - a push here, a nudge there, a hint in the right ear.
But it was not their machinations that ultimately pushed the citizens of Falkreath over the edge. That was due to a spectacularly bad harvest.
In Skyrim, it is a common folk belief that the ruler and the land are intimately connected. The idea does not hold so much sway now as it once did, but among those who have grown up on the stories of cursed kings and doomed harvests, it is still strong enough belief to make a difference in hearts and minds.
As the superstition goes, the rightness of the ruler determines the rightness of the land. If there is some defect in the ruler - whether that be internal or external - that is revealed through how the land responds to him.
In the distant past, failed kings were sacrificed on the altars of the Old Gods as an offering for a better harvest in the future.
And now, though no one was outright calling for his head, knives were being sharpened around town.
*.*.*
The rebellion was almost entirely bloodless.
One watchman gashed his head on a wall fixture while dressing in the night, but aside from that, there were no injuries among Dengeir's forces. With the support of nearly all within, the longhouse was taken as easily as a child might do so in a play battle with friends.
And then, as the noose of Dengeir's loyal guard closed in around Siddgeir's throat, he broke free of the hands that grabbed for him, snatched a greatsword from the wall and demanded his ancient right of Einvigi - a battle to the death to decide the fate of the throne.
Dengeir stepped forward to meet him, dressed in his old wolf skin. He was smaller and thinner as of late and the hair was falling from his head more readily. But there was a glimmer of light in his eye and a spring in his step that belied his old age.
"I accept your challenge, nephew." he said fondly, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. "But we are not matched in physical prowess. I am an old man and you are in the prime of your youth. The contest would not be fair. Hence, Rayya will serve as my second."
Rayya stepped out from the crowd of guards, resplendent in her freshly polished steel armor, her scimitars on her hips.
There was a flash of fear on Siddgeir's face before it turned to anger.
"Oh, uncle?" he spat. "You call this a fair fight? A hardened warrior against one new to war? I think not. Helvard!"
His housecarl looked up from his seat on the floor. His hands were tied behind his back and his mace was in the hand of the man who was guarding him.
"Helvard!" he snapped. "Will you stand in my place and bring us victory?"
Slowly, Helvard shook his head.
"My jarl..." he drawled. "You were the one who called this challenge. It is a dishonorable thing, to back out of it now."
Siddgeir turned a deep shade of red, down to the tips of his ears. His eyes gleamed with the reflection of the fire, as though they would burn out of his skull of their own accord.
"You may arm yourself accordingly, nephew." Dengeir crooned, unable to hide his satisfaction. "My men will clear the hall for the contest. Everyone! Please!"
At the clap of his hands, furniture was shoved against the walls, braziers moved out of the way, carpets rolled up. The main hall of the longhouse became a sea of empty space. A ring of tense onlookers huddled on the edges of the room, every tongue held as they waited for Siddgeir to emerge.
He stepped out of his room, clumsily dressed in a suit of leather armor, with a shortsword belted to his waist. He was not nearly so red as he had been minutes ago, but he did look as though he had just eaten a spoiled piece of meat. Rayya stepped forward to meet him, bowed respectfully and drew her scimitars with a twin shing!
His lip curling in disdain, he drew his shortsword and faced her.
And so it began.
They circled one another - it felt like - forever. She studied his posture, watched his footwork, contemplated the glint in his steely eyes. She deduced that he was especially dangerous because he was unpredictable. He was unpredictable because he was unstable - driven by his rage, his greed, his twisted sense of justice.
She listened for the music in his footsteps. She learned the rhythm of his breathing. The tempo was off, the music, discordant. She could not predict which move he would make next, which direction he was sway.
But, she found that she could dance to his song anyway.
When he attacked, she deflected. When he pulled back, she refused to take the bait. An eternity of five minutes had passed and she had not yet made a single attack. The crowd began to murmur, the tension driving them to second-guessing. She blocked out their words and focused only on the beating of her heart and his.
With every deflection, every attack shrugged off as though it were nothing, his anger intensified. He began to shout insults, slurs not heard in Skyrim since the time of his great-grandparents, spraying spit from his lips as he spewed his filth. Rayya narrowed her eyes and closed her ears. His words were unimportant.
His attacks grew stronger and more erratic. Sweat poured down his brow as he tried again and again to land a single blow on her, to catch her off guard one time. He was getting clumsier, less sure of himself.
And then, her scimitars in an X before her, she locked blades with him. There was a moment of shock in his eyes as he registered that something had happened which he had not expected. In that moment, she whipped her blades away, stepped out of the way of his falling sword and slammed her forehead into the bridge of his nose.
There was a mighty crack and he was on the ground howling, clutching at his shattered nose as blood spilled down his breastplate. The sword fell from his hand and hit the stone floor with a resonating clang.
Moving fast, Rayya kicked it aside and lowered her scimitar so that the tip just brushed his throat. He looked up at her, hurt and anger and stubbornness mingling in his tears.
"Yield." she said softly. "And I let you live."
"I..." he gasped, blood gurgling in his throat.
His hand scrambled for his missing sword beside him.
"I..."
She cut his throat, just a little, so that a thin red line appeared on his adam's apple.
"I yield!" he screamed, spitting blood on her scimitar.
The room burst into thunderous cheers and the crowd surged forward, slapping her on the back, nearly lifting her off the floor. She saw Helvard pulling Siddgeir to his feet before they vanished behind the wall of surging bodies.
Her head was still pounding with the impact of the blow and her face was flushed for being the object of so much attention. When the crowd parted and Dengeir stepped forward, she made to kneel before him as a show of respect. But he stopped her, putting one frail hand on her shoulder and shaking his head. Working around her drawn scimitars he threw his arms around her and squeezed her in a tight bear hug, as equals.
A single tear of pure pride spilled down her cheek as she dropped her scimitars and hugged back.
*.*.*
After Siddgeir was exiled, the man who had taken his fallen sword as a trophy soon developed a bad rash on his hands.
Runil treated it as best he could, but he couldn't shake his suspicions as to what the cause was. When Rayya came to the graveyard to pick up her things before she moved back into the longhouse, he took her aside and aired his thoughts on the matter.
Siddgeir's room was searched thoroughly. Every wall panel and floorboard was checked for hollowness, tapped until something made a different sound.
They found the compartment at last, hidden beneath his bed. Inside, was nothing more than a small purple vial.
After extensive testing, Zaria determined that it was a concentrated, if crude poison.
Its primary ingredient was deathbell petals.
Notes:
"A thrust is elegant, and a cut is powerful, but sometimes the right action is a head-butt." - Book of Circles, Loredas Maxims