Chapter XVI
The four of them had gotten very little sleep that night. In fact Magoza, Llandri and Brendarr had barely had more than a half-hour, if they had even that.
The memory of Darovin's horrible death still lingered in the two Dunmer's thoughts. Every time they tried to close their eyes, they saw him on his knees, clutching at the blade that stuck out his chest, at the metal that had pierced his heart.
Magoza hadn't slept, because she blamed herself for his death. She believed that if she hadn't waited for them to be moved, and attacked the house instead, then she could have saved him, that he would still be alive. The Orsimer hadn't shared the notion with the others, as she knew they'd just tell her that there was nothing she could have done. She didn't believe it. In her heart, she felt that she hadn't done all that was possible, and Darovin had paid with his life.
Late last night, they had all returned to the small abandoned village that Magoza and Hides had stayed in during their trip south to Narsis. They had made a camp-fire, and all sat around it for warmth. None of them spoke to the other, there was nothing to say, and small talk was the last thing on their minds.
When the sun finally started to rise over the horizon again, the weary group had eaten some breakfast, which consisted of food that Hides had caught. They then continued northwards into Dunmer Morrowind.
Llandri wanted to return to the farm, despite Hides' protests that it would no longer be safe there. In the end she had managed to convince him that they wouldn't be staying. They'd be there just long enough to grab the guar, and as many supplies as the wagon could carry. Then they would be heading to Almalexia for a few days to gather themselves. Then, her plan was for them to head north to the city of Blacklight, and perhaps to Solstheim, where the Dunmer widow had been raised.
Magoza had thought about suggesting that they head into Skyrim, but knew that they would probably not agree, especially considering the guar would not survive the harsh weather there. She'd have to go with them, even though she desperately wanted to take them to her friends up in Winterhold. If they were still even there, and hadn't moved on with their lives.
"A few hours and we will be there," Hides-In-Trees told them.
"Yeah," was all Llandri managed to say.
"I suggest that we are in and out of there quickly," he said. "When Talen finds out you have escaped, he will send people to your farm to look for you."
Brendarr scowled. "He can do whatever he wants. We'll kill everyone he sends."
"Don't be too sure of that," Hides warned. "We only succeeded in rescuing you, because of the suddenness and accuracy of our attack. They will be prepared when we next meet."
Brendarr looked over at him. "Don't speak to me, Argonian!" he spat.
"Don't Brendarr," Llandri pleaded. "Just don't."
"Why!?" the Dunmer asked his mother. "Why shouldn't I? His kind killed my father. His kind are nothing but filthy swamp scum!"
"Watch it kid," Hides warned.
"Or what!?" Brendarr asked. "You'll kill me!?"
"Stop!" Llandri yelled in despair. "Please, just stop this!"
Brendarr went quiet, while Hides moved slightly further ahead.
The tension was almost intolerable. At any moment Brendarr or Llandri could snap under it. Magoza knew it, Hides knew it, they all knew it. The two Dunmer had been through a lot, and it was all starting to catch up with them emotionally.
However, the stress they were all under wasn't about to go away any time soon. Having to leave one's home, and everything they had ever owned wouldn't be easy. It would be hard and quite painful. They were sure to find it difficult to leave it behind. If nothing else, it would reinforce the fact that Darovin was dead, and that everything Llandri had known for almost two decades, and what Brendarr had known all his life, was now at an end.
Rontag struggled to stand up from the chair in their small house, forcing Valerie to help him up out of it, while Tam looked on with a feeling of guilt.
She felt guilty because she didn't want to leave them. Not when Rontag looked like he might not get his strength back for weeks, or even a month. If the Thalmor showed up, then they would be in no position to defend themselves against them. She also knew that she couldn't stay. The Thalmor knew she was here, and they wouldn't wait around if they thought the assassin they had sent, hadn't completed her mission.
That was another matter that played on her mind. While she gave the story that she had broken her contract, Tam wasn't entirely convinced. Faldan on the other hand, she was. Either he was the greatest con-man on Nirn, or he was genuinely depressed over what had happened because of his actions. Still, she would have to watch the Ohmes-Raht very closely. One false move and she'd be on her like a hawk's talons to a rabbit's hide.
Right now, Rasha and Faldan were at the inn, waiting to leave. While Tam had set a rough date, within the next day, she wasn't sure yet whether she should postpone it or not. It was a difficult decision. It was all difficult. Especially finding out what Faldan had done, what he had caused. But he hadn't caused it, and she knew that. It was the Thalmor. Somehow though, she couldn't find it within herself to forgive him, to be able to let it go.
Why she'd had the idea to bring them along with her, when she finally left, she didn't know. Every time the Bosmer entered her mind, she just wanted to strangle the life out of him. The thoughts were neither productive, nor satisfying. All they did was make her angry, upset and useless. She should have tried harder to save those at the village. She should have not allowed herself to get trapped as she had.
Tam knew that she'd have to sit down with him alone, before they left and have a long talk. She wondered though, if she'd need to be tied to a chair to stop herself from putting her hands around his throat, or her fist through his face.
Thinking of the Thalmor, and how they had used the Bosmer, made her think of her former Blades student, Albus. The last time she had seen him, was when he was walking away from her in defeat on the road to Skyrim. The Thalmor had already killed his family, yet he held onto the notion that they were still alive; that by doing what they wanted, he could be with them again.
She should have smelt the danger when Albus had shown up on the steps of the decimated Cloud Ruler Temple. He had told her the Thalmor knew where she was, and she had taken it as one friend looking out for another. Of course they had known she was staying in Bruma. They had been the ones that had sent him, most likely to speed her up in leaving the city, so they could get her when she was more exposed. Though why they hadn't attacked her at Cloud Ruler, she didn't know. Perhaps they hadn't known she was there, and Albus simply went there on a whim.
It dawned on her that the way they had used Faldan, was the same way they had used Albus. Manipulated him into doing their bidding with a promise they had never intended to keep.
"Are you okay?" Valerie asked her. The Altmer looked over at the two Nords, who appeared to be staring at her.
"What?" Tam asked them.
"You look like you're thinking about something?"
"I need to talk to Faldan," The Altmer told them. "I mean, I need to." She paused. "I don't know what I need, what I want from him."
"Blood?" Rontag asked her.
"Ron!" Valerie exclaimed. "That's the last thing she needs from him!"
Tam shook her head. "I need to be able to put it behind me, or else I can't move on with my life."
Rontag began to move towards the front door. "We could all go to the inn, have a long talk together?"
"I need to do it alone."
"Well we go to the inn and fetch this Wood-Elf for you, and bring him back," Rontag suggested, stopping by the door.
"Tomorrow," Tam said.
"Can't keep putting it off," he told her. "If you want to have a talk with him, then best to do it sooner rather than later."
"If you think so," Tam said with a shrug. "I just don't think I can keep myself together."
Valerie nodded. "I can stay if you want?"
"No," Tam said. "It needs to be a heart to heart, and I can't do that with people watching."
"Sounds like you don't know what you want?" Rontag observed.
Tam disregarded his observation. "I know exactly what I want. I want a normal life, a house for myself by the ocean." Tam looked up to the ceiling. "Maybe to even find love someday. To have children and grandchildren." she looked down at her gauntleted hands. "What I don't want is to be pursued by golden predators, that want nothing more to see the life drained from my body."
"I didn't know you wanted any of that other stuff," Valerie said, mournfully.
"Before I began running for my life, it wasn't a dream of mine. But it has become something I long for since. I just want normality."
Rontag looked over at his wife. "Come on, let's go fetch that Wood-Elf."
She was laughing! Rasha was actually belly laughing at something he had said, and it filled Faldan full of joy.
Now that they had been stuck in the inn for the past few days, and hadn't been arguing over anything, Faldan had found that he had grown rather fond of the Ohmes-Raht-Khajiit.
While he knew the moment wouldn't last forever, he had not felt such a serene, perfect feeling in a long time. In a way, it made him a little homesick for Valenwood. He could never return there, and while he knew that he would never get used to that fact, at least he could find some joy beyond its borders.
Faldan turned as the front door opened, revealing the Iron-Axe's, a Nord couple that both knew, and lived in a house along with Tam. Rontag walked over to a table, while Valerie made her way over to them. Her face with a rather stern look on it.
"Something the matter?" Rasha asked her.
Valerie focused on Faldan. "Tam wants a one on one."
Faldan felt as though his stomach had just dropped out onto the floor. A queasy sensation washed over him. "What do you mean?" he asked her, trying in vain to try and hide the fear he felt.
"She wants to talk to you," Valerie clarified.
"What does she want to talk to him about?" Rasha asked with concern.
"Not sure."
The Bosmer bit his lower lip. He hated feeling so afraid, but he also knew that he had a good reason to. Blood was on his hands, and the only other survivor hated him because of it. He deserved her hate, and knew he would have to earn her forgiveness. If he got the chance and she didn't bash his head in.
"I'll come with you," Rasha told him.
Valerie shook her head. "Sorry, but Tam wants to speak to him alone."
"We both know that leaving him alone with Taemwyn, is a bad idea."
"Do we?" Valerie asked her. "Tam's a friend. She just wants to talk, nothing else."
Rasha disagreed. "When it comes to what happened in Minestead, she's quite impassioned."
"Wouldn't you be?" Valerie questioned. "If you finally felt like you'd found a home, only to have it torn away from you? Wouldn't you be angry, upset?"
"Which is why I don't think he should be alone with her," Rasha explained. "Faldan doesn't want to meet her alone."
Valerie looked at the Bosmer. "And what does he think?"
Before Faldan could say anything, Rasha responded. "He doesn't want to meet her alone."
"Stop speaking for him!" Valerie snapped. "Let him speak for himself!"
Rasha went quiet, silently fuming at the Nord for screaming at her. She didn't appreciate being spoken to in that manner, especially when she had legitimate concerns.
The Bosmer cleared his throat. "Well, maybe it would be good to meet her alone."
Rasha glared at Valerie, before addressing Faldan. "She might tear your head off if given half the chance!"
"Maybe I deserve it," he said, raising himself up from the table.
Rasha gripped his arm. "If it looks like the conversation is going sour, get out of there and return to me."
He nodded. "I will."
Much to Tam's surprise, Faldan didn't only come, but he actually came alone.
The two of them had been sitting at the table for the past five minutes, staring at each other, neither uttering a single word.
Faldan was terrified, she could easily tell. The way his face had gone a peculiar shade of pale yellow, how he gripped the side of the table tightly, and by how rigid he was. She imagined that if she gave him a little push, he'd fall over like a tree that had been cut by a lumberjack. A small smile appeared on her face at just the thought.
The Altmer cleared her throat suddenly, causing Faldan to almost jump out of his skin. Tam held up her hands in a disarming manner. "I didn't call you here to harm you."
"I'm sorry for what happened," he apologized, his voice quivering.
"I didn't call you here to talk about that," she told him, desperately not wanting the conversation to go in that direction. Just the thought of Minestead made her angry.
"Then what?" he squeaked.
Tam looked at him for a few moments. When she had seen him before, she had been so angry with him, so furious. Now, without his Khajiit protector, he seemed more vulnerable.
"I want to know who you are, Faldan?"
"What?"
"Tell me about yourself?"
"I don't know what to-"
"Tell me!?" she shouted.
Faldan whimpered, as Tam recoiled in shock at her own outburst. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I really didn't mean to shout."
Faldan simply stared at her, eyes wide, his knuckles tightly grasping the side of the table.
"I just wanted to know a little about you?" she said as softly as she could manage. "I want to try to understand you, at least a little bit. Where're you from? What did you do? That kind of thing."
"I-" he faltered. "I was raised in Valenwood."
"Were you born there?"
"Erm, yes."
"Good, tell me about it?"
"Well, it was nice," he told her, his voice betraying a deep pain.
"How did you end up in Cyrodiil?" she asked him.
"I don't want to talk about it," Faldan said, his eyes staring past her.
"Okay," Tam acknowledged, not wanting to push him into saying anything he didn't want to, even though it meant they now had nothing to discuss.
She had wanted to understand why he had done what he had done. Without some idea as to what he had left behind in Valenwood, and why it was that he had been driven from there, then she would never understand.
Tam pushed herself up from her seat. "Come on Faldan," she said to him. "Let's go for a little walk. Clear our heads."
"Umm, okay," he said, standing up also. "Where we going?"
"For a stroll."
"Okay, but to where?"
"Nowhere in particular, just down the road," she told him.
Reluctantly, Faldan followed Tam outside into the cold, snowy street. Right now the weather was decent, but the heavy clouds overhead meant that could change at any moment.
Faldan looked at her steel-plate armour. "Do you always wear that now?" he asked her, his voice quiet, and uneasy.
She tipped her head, the memory like a heavy weight on her shoulders. "Back in Minestead, I was caught without it. I never wanted that to happen to me again, to be unable to reach my armour when I needed it."
"Did you get your armour back?" he asked. "Is that what you're wearing now?"
"Yes, I got it back later. When I returned to find that everyone was dead." She glared at him. "Almost everyone."
"You didn't notice I wasn't among them?" he asked her.
"I didn't check. I got what I could and got out of there as fast as possible. The Thalmor could have returned at any moment, and I didn't want to be there if they did."
"Do you hate me for what I did?" he asked her, his voice wavering.
"I don't know," she revealed to him. "I don't know how I feel." Tam looked up at the sky. "Sometimes I just want to bash your head in. Other times, I just feel sorry for you."
"I was a courier," Faldan said suddenly. "Back in Valenwood."
The Altmer looked over at him. "You delivered letters?"
The Bosmer kicked at some snow. "I was only doing my job," he said. "I was only delivering what I was told to deliver."
Tam's eyebrows raised with curiosity. "What were you delivering?"
"Letters, and some inheritance," he informed her.
"And some of it was dangerous somehow?"
Faldan frowned. "No, it was what I saw when I arrived at the village."
"What did you see?"
"The Thalmor had killed them all. They were destroying the trees, cutting them down, the village down." His head sank. "They told me that the people there no longer needed my services."
"And what did you do?"
"I reported it to the authorities."
"And that was a bad idea?"
"I thought my people still cared for the trees, for the people. I thought that the flora of Valenwood was still sacred to us, that they were charged with keeping us safe. But they didn't care."
"Was that when you were driven out?"
Faldan shook his head. "No, they told me to keep quiet. If I didn't, then I'd find myself in a lot of trouble."
"But you didn't keep quiet?"
"No," he told her. "I told some folks in Greenheart, and word spread. People were furious, and there was a riot. Some of those filthy Thalmor got what was coming to them. They responded by executing a lot of Bosmer." Faldan shuddered. "They called it re-asserting their authority, that they had clearly become too lenient over the years. I was nearly on the block too, but I evaded them."
"And that's when you found yourself on the run?"
"The ones that are in charge. They may be Bosmer on the outside, but they treat the wilderness like the Altmer. No longer do they care about our way of life, they don't care about any of it. The Thalmor rule Valenwood now, under the banner of the Aldmeri Dominion."
"Greenheart to the Cyrodiil border, is a long way to be on the run."
"I knew the land. I knew where to go. Besides this was a few months before the war started. I think they were preoccupied with that."
"And they caught you up somehow?"
"Yes."
"After the war?"
"Yes, when they were starting to get a foothold in Cyrodiil after the signing of the peace treaty."
"It wasn't a peace treaty," she informed him coldly. "It was the terms of our mutual stand-off. The Thalmor got the better deal," she said bitterly.
Faldan was silent.
Tam decided to get the conversation back on track. "So, they told you that if you found me, that you'd be allowed back home?"
"Yes."
"How did that happen?"
"I don't know. They found me in Anvil, and said all I had to do was find you, and I'd be able to go home again."
"You believed them?" Tam asked him incredulously.
"I know if was stupid," he said solemnly. "I just wanted to go home so bad."
"What of the Khajiit you're with?"
"What about her?"
"Do you trust her?"
Faldan shrugged. "I guess I do."
"All the more reason for me not too then." The Altmer looked over at the inn. "You can go back to your friend if you want, I think we're done for now."
Faldan nodded, before rushing over to the Frozen Hearth, almost breaking out into a run.
A small smile spread across Tam's lips at the sight. She had gotten something out of him, but wasn't even sure if it was what she had wanted.
Their discussion, however brief, had made his actions more relatable, even if it hadn't made them justifiable. While she would never be able to forgive him, at least she was able to have a one-on-one conversation with him without injuring him. That was a start at least.
When the four of them finally reached the old farm, the first thing Brendarr did was rush to check on the guar.
Magoza and Hides assisted Llandri in filling up several small crates, with a few pieces of select clothing and as much packaged salted, and other preserved foodstuffs as they could.
While it had been decided they would be spending the night, and perhaps the next few days in the city. They would be continuing Northwards, with the eventual destination of the city of Blacklight; a city that lay on the northern shore on the border to Skyrim.
After feeding the guar, Brendarr brought it to the canopied wagon, where it was harnessed and reined.
As Brendarr climbed into the driver's seat, Magoza made her way over to him, uneasily with Darovin's ebony crossbow in hand. The Dunmer looked down as the Orc held it out to him.
"This probably belongs to you now," she told him.
He reached down and took it. "Thank you," he said, his eyes welling up with grief.
"It's yours not mine," she said, passing him the quiver of crossbow bolts.
He took them, his lower lip trembling slightly. "I'm so sorry for how I treated you before," he said. "And I'm sorry for blaming you."
"Blaming me? For what?"
"I thought that it was you who got us captured."
"What?" Magoza almost couldn't believe what she had just heard. He had thought that she was responsible for it? That she was the one behind their near enslavement? for his father's death?
"I was wrong," Brendarr said to her. "And I'm sorry."
Llandri shouted, her voice full of emotion, as she placed the last crate into the back of the wagon. "Let's get out of here!"
As they climbed aboard, Brendarr shook his head at Hides. "You can walk."
His mother ignored him, and told Magoza to help the Argonian into the back, while she sat up front, to the right of her son.
With one last long glance at the farm, they set off towards Almalexia with Brendarr at the reins. Llandri wept softly, as the farm vanished behind them, into the settling evening fog, for the final time.
Updated 08/04/2014
