"This may be the worst idea I have ever heard," Volund said through clenched teeth, "And I heard a man suggest painting pink flowers on a giant's mammoth."
"I'd very much like to hear how that worked out, my thane. This, however, will be fine," Lydia whispered. She adopted a false smile and waved casually at a party guest on their way to front door of the embassy.
"Two Nord commoners trying to fit in at a Thalmor diplomatic party? It would be easier to just attack the place head on. Might as well get someone to cast a frenzy spell on them first."
"Would you stop worrying? Our false names are on the guest list – actually on it, not just forged invitations. I don't want to imagine how Delphine managed this, but we have every right to be at the party."
"Yes, and the Thalmor have every right to get the – Hello, there, sir! – out of Skyrim," Volund grumbled around a greeting to another guest.
It improved Volund's mood somewhat that he was taller than the elven guard who met them at the door and checked them for weapons and names. Weapons were forbidden. To wear armor was not forbidden, but would be highly insulting to their hosts; bringing a housecarl would be doubly so. Volund, Lydia, and Delphine would all have been fine with insulting Thalmor, but it would have drawn attention they would rather avoid.
Thus it was that Lydia, unwilling to sit idle while Volund risked himself, found herself playing the part of love-struck mistress, wearing an elaborate, formal, and rather low-cut dress and clinging to the arm of the undercover Dragonborn. She would never have admitted how little acting she actually had to do to appear smitten, nor how refreshing it was to be able to simply relax her normally military posture and stoic public face, and instead simply display her affection.
Volund was secretly envious of the seeming ease with which Lydia took to the mannerisms of nobility. He had excellent manners for dealing with those in high places, but not for pretending to be one. Luckily, as Delphine had patiently explained to him, silence and aloofness was a mannerism many noblemen displayed, and tension or nervous hesitancy to speak could be passed off as haughtiness with the right facial expressions.
"Be quiet and aloof," Delphine had said, "or, failing that, and if you've drawn attention to yourself, deflect it by subtly ogling your escort. It's the most natural thing in the world to see a nobleman do when he's got someone like this on his arm."
It didn't take much urging for Volund to agree to that plan. He had, in fact, practiced it quite a bit in the carriage ride on the way here. Seeing Lydia in an elegant, deep blue dress was a thing to behold. She had done her hair up quite fetchingly, with small blue mountain flowers woven into it. Her pale skin contrasted nicely with the dark dress, and no one could have worn it better.
Then it was time to focus, as the guard at the door asked for their names.
"Evandr of Riften; this beauty is Anya." Lydia smiled. The guard, seeing their aliases on the list, nodded.
As they passed the doors to the Thalmor embassy, Elenwen herself was nowhere to be seen – for which Volund was grateful. The guards, however, watched them closely.
"That's Jarl Elisif the Fair," Lydia whispered, ignoring the servants and guards. "I wonder if she'll be able to get the support she needs to become High Queen of Skyrim. And there's Jarl Siddgeir, and Jarl Idgrod."
"You know," said a dark-haired woman, "I could have sworn you said you were Evandr of Riften." She walked toward Volund boldly. The woman was clearly no longer in her youth, but she was not yet old, and she had an air of confidence about her – as well as arrogance.
"I find that very interesting," she went on, "because, you see, I'm from Riften. I keep a fairly close eye on what happens there, and I know for a fact that there is no Evandr of Riften. Your name may be on the list at the door, but it didn't get there from Riften."
"And who might you be, my lady?" Volund marveled at how well fear could be disguised as arrogance.
"Maven Black-briar. Perhaps you've heard of me. I would say at your service, but I'm not – I'm at my own service, and the Thalmor are good for my business. Tell me, no-name, why I shouldn't report you to them?"
Volund froze. Lydia, however, was as quick to rescue him here as she was in battle.
"Are dragons also good for your business, my lady?" she said conversationally.
Maven's gaze shifted from Volund to the woman on his arm.
"And what do dragons have to do with an imposter at a party?" she demanded.
"My friend here is… uniquely talented, shall we say?" Lydia explained. "He and I have been looking into the dragon matter, with some success."
His wits returning, Volund jumped into the conversation.
"You seem like a smart woman, my lady – and a well-informed one. Surely you know enough of the Thalmor to realize that dragon attacks on Skyrim will benefit only them. The Thalmor, certainly, have realized it."
Maven's eyes narrowed. Lydia picked up his chain of reasoning and pressed on.
"And what have you got to lose? If we find a connection, you get rid of the dragons and your treacherous 'allies.' And if, perchance, we were caught doing something the Thalmor did not quite… approve of, how does that affect you? After all," she hinted, "you didn't hear anything at the door, and when we spoke, we told you we were from Solitude."
"Now that you mention it, I believe you did," Maven said slowly. "If you find yourselves alive and well after your adventure here, and your road takes you to Riften, come see me. I think we may prove… useful to each other." The older woman nodded to the pair, and moved on.
Volund breathed again.
"Have I ever told you how amazing you are?" he asked Lydia. "Where did all this social savvy come from?"
She laughed, and very deliberately rested her head on his shoulder, looking up into his eyes. Her own blue orbs twinkled with mischief.
"To hear Irileth tell it, Skyrim politics are nothing compared to Morrowind's," she said. "You'd be surprised how much an attentive housecarl learns about the dealings of nobility, and Irileth made sure I learned a little bit of how things work."
"Lucky for me," Volund mused.
"Yes," she teased, "I am."
A huge crash sounded from one corner of the room, and every eye in the room looked to see what had happened. An extremely drunk partygoer had apparently lost his balance, knocking over a serving girl in the process, whose tray full of wine and other drinks had crashed to the floor. The wine itself, however, had ended up not on the floor, but instead almost entirely on Jarl Siddgeir. The man began to alternately wail about his clothing and rage at the drunk, the serving girl, the party, and everyone around him. Guards began to subtly edge toward the commotion.
The two adventurers, meanwhile, edged the other way, taking their chance to slip out a side door unseen. They began to move as silently as they could through the deserted sections of the vast network of buildings, looking for offices or other important rooms. They were about to round a corner when two guards opened a door at the end of the hallway, talking animatedly. Volund frantically motioned Lydia back around the corner.
Volund was about to enter a side room when Lydia stopped him. When he gave her a questioning look, she smirked, and pulled down the neck line of her dress a bit lower.
When the guards came around the corner, they found a Nord nobleman and his mistress passionately kissing in a secluded corner of the compound; the woman, whose dress was almost indecent, gave a soft little moan.
"You there! You savages aren't allowed back here. Find somewhere else to f-" He never finished his sentence. As he laid his hand on the woman's shoulder to separate the two, she rather unexpectedly punched him square in the jaw. The man leapt toward the other guard, tackling him to the floor and breaking his neck. Lydia did the same with her dazed opponent. In a remarkably quick, silent scuffle, both guards were dead in seconds.
Lydia pulled her dress back into its proper place.
"You shouldn't call refined, genteel ladies like me savages," she whispered to the bodies.
Volund laughed.
"Come on, my lady, we need to get moving."
They hid the bodies hastily, keeping the guards' weapons for their own use, and went on their way to pillage the elves' secrets.