After her conversation with Louisa ended, Leola found it surprisingly easy to fall asleep. She trusted Louisa, and found that knowing she was watching out for them made her even more comfortable than before. Louisa woke them all an hour earlier than had been planned, and she sat with them for that planning session to figure out how to circumnavigate her sister and reach their friends without Oraina intercepting their communications.

It ended up being a much easier plan than expected. Ulfric wrote a letter, as his writing was the most unique - easiest to recognize, hardest to forge - and Elienne's instructions were to watch the pair until Oraina was away from them - gone to relieve herself, gone to get a drink, anything like that - and then give them the letter. All she was to say was "Don't let Oraina see this", and the letter explained the rest - starting with the fact that Oraina couldn't be trusted. Bottar and Shelur had to figure out their own way to get rid of Oraina, but they were resourceful and Leola knew that they could do it, even if it meant sneaking away from her once Cassius and Naniena arrived and leaving her uncertain where they had gone.

Elienne, as per the original plan, was to wait in the inn until she saw Bottar talking to Cassius and Naniena, and then to come straight to the tower so their group could start moving. Louisa would be accompanying them now, too.

"There are ten of us," Leola said softly, listing everybody off quickly. "The house has two doors - the front door and the back door. There's also a tower, but I don't think Samuel would be stupid enough to jump off the roof."

"He has your friend Minot in there," Louisa said, looking at Aventus. "If someone gets her untied, she'll make us eleven. He has back-up, though. Dorthe, Clinton, Frothar, Haming, and Hroar are all in there with him. Frodnar, Grimvar, and Virkmund are also there, but they're rotating guard duty over the house."

"How many spies are there around town?" asked Aventus.

"Myself, Oraina, Dagny, Kayd, and Lucia," she replied. "Minette's recently defected to Samuel's side, though. She's got something of a grudge against Leola."

"How did Samuel get so many people working for him? Sithis…I don't want to kill any of them," said Aventus. "Why Haming? The Dragonborn saved his life."

"Aventus, Haming's parents died because there was a dragon coming after the Dragonborn," Louisa said. "She saved so many people, but there are lots of people dead because of her. Dorthe's older cousin was an Imperial soldier who died at Helgen. Frothar and Dagny's father was removed from his throne when the Stormcloak army took Whiterun. The Dragonborn directly killed Virkmund's mother. Grimvar, he just has a grudge against you."

"Me?" asked Aventus.

"Yes," said Louisa. "Everyone who's working for Samuel has their reasons. The Dragonborn was a good woman, but she was no saint."

The group went quiet for a minute. Leola could tell that they were all thinking about her mother, figuring out reasons why the others might be working for Samuel. Leola didn't know any of them at all. Even Louisa and Oraina, who lived in Falkreath, right near where she'd grown up, were strangers to her. It was starting to seem odd to her that she'd never had any friends growing up - it had always just been her and her mother. Her mother never went into town, instead sending their steward until Leola was old enough to make the trips and the steward was dismissed - had he been dismissed, or had he been killed? Leola wasn't sure any more. She'd loved her freedom when she went into town, but what if people had known her as the Dragonborn's daughter?

"Should I get going now?" Elienne asked. "It might take a while before Oraina leaves them alone so I can drop off the note."

"Of course," said Erith. "If you're having a hard time finding a chance to get her away from them…you can make some sort of distraction."

"Louisa, does Samuel have any powerful mages working for him?" asked Elienne, a smirk on her lips.

"Hroar and Dagny are both quite skilled mages," Louisa replied.

"In what magic?"

"Oh, goodness…Hroar does a bit of everything, I think, while Dagny is mostly…illusion and restoration, I think?"

"Alright," Elienne said with a nod. "I know what to do, then. I'll be back once Cassius and Naniena are here."

"Of course," said Aventus, reaching over and putting a gentle hand on her arm. "Be careful, and good luck."

"Thank you," she said softly, before standing up and leaving the tower. The others all sat there in an uncomfortable silence, looking around at one another.

"So why exactly is Hroar working for Samuel?" asked Aventus finally.

"Because they're friends."

"What about Clinton and Lucia? I can't think of any possible reason for them to be working against us."

"Maybe Samuel paid them off," said Louisa with a shrug. "I really don't know. Frodnar is there because he's supporting Dorthe. Dagny and Frothar are both there in memory of their father - I don't know why Nelkir isn't helping."

"It's because Nelkir is only their half-brother," said Ulfric in a low voice. "He has a different mother, perhaps he feels more animosity towards his father because of that and is less inclined to help them out in what seems like avenging his loss?"

"Nelkir isn't Dagny and Frothar's full brother?" asked Erith, her eyes widening. "That…that might actually explain a lot of things."

"How did you know that?" asked Aventus, raising an eyebrow.

"The Dragonborn told me so," he said with a shrug. "We were talking after the battle for Whiterun, and she was saying that she pitied Balgruuf's children. She mentioned having found out that Nelkir was illegitimate, though she didn't say how she found out. It's just something I remembered now that you mentioned him."

"She knew a lot of things about a lot of people," said Aventus. "The amount of intelligence that she brought to the Dark Brotherhood - at least, according to Nazir - was overwhelming."

"It's so strange to me, to think that she was an assassin," Ulfric murmured, shaking his head.

"An assassin, and a thief, and a slayer of dragons, and a hunter, and a mother, and thane of the nine holds, and a champion of the Daedric lords, and countless other things too," said Aventus, lying back on his sleeping bag. "We get to pick and choose the ones that were most important to us. To me, for example, I'll always think of her as the one who saved the other orphanage children from that wicked Grelod, and then as the former leader and savior of the Dark Brotherhood, someone who paved the way for people like me to exist."

"I'll always remember her as the one who killed the dragons," said Erith. "She saved all of Skyrim with that."

Leola looked towards her father, and she could see tears in his blue eyes. She smiled slightly at this sight. "And no matter what anyone tells me, I'll always remember her as my loving mother and the best friend I ever had," she said softly. "The one who sang me to sleep, read to me, cooked with me, taught me to craft and sew, brushed my hair, and always reminded me how special I was to her and how much she loved me."

Ulfric looked away at hearing this, but not before Leola could see the conflict in his eyes. She knew that he couldn't figure out what he wanted to say. Obviously he had so much to remember about her, with how close they'd been.

"King Ulfric," said Erith in a soft voice. "Think about how she was the last time you saw her - not the night Leola arrived, but before Leola was born."

Ulfric closed his eyes, and all could see him thinking back to that night. "I - I remember her as a hero," Ulfric breathed finally. "Without her, I would never have become High King. From the first moment I saw her, sitting beside me on that cart heading to Helgen, she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever laid eyes on, but that night…that night she was so radiant. She was…" Tears were forming in the King's eyes, and Leola scooted herself over to sit closer to him, laying a hand gently on his back. "She was wearing a green dress…and her eyes were sparkling like I'd never seen before…she was dancing with all of the men - nothing bad, no, the men wouldn't dare try anything with her, they had too much respect for her - and she was drinking like she wanted to prove us all fools… Talos, she made me the man I am today more than anything else did, more than the years of training and fighting, more than the power of the Thu'um, more than anything… The war would have been won by whichever side she chose, and for some reason, she chose me."

Everyone was quiet, smiling as they listened to Ulfric's memories of the Dragonborn. Leola leaned in and laid her head on her father's shoulder, and though he was looking away and had his face hidden, she knew that he'd started crying by the faint shaking of his shoulders.