Chapter 2: No One of Note

In the last several years, I had killed over a dozen men and women with my own hands. I had fought giant frostbite spiders, been hunted by a troll through the catacombs below Sanctuary, broken the heart of a centuries-old vampire, and faced near-impossible odds in battle. At fourteen, I was a full-fledged member of the Dark Brotherhood. I thought that I was prepared for any pain or terror that life might bring me.

I found that standing in front of a room full of strangers and talking about myself was by far the most terrifying thing I had ever done.

"My name is Aventus Aretino," I began. "I'm originally from Windhelm."

I paused, looking around at the faces of my classmates and the other students, their eyes fixed on me. The full student body of the Bards College was present in the practice hall for orientation. The teachers were in the back of the room, save for Headmaster Viarmo, the Altmer who was in charge of the college. He was sitting next to the lectern I was standing behind, watching me intently with his intense golden eyes. The collective weight of the crowd's gaze made me sweat; a slow, cold rumble rolled through my stomach, and I clenched my throat to avoid vomiting.

"I don't really have much to say about myself," I continued lamely once my gut had stopped churning. "I'm not a very interesting person."

"I very much doubt that, Master Aretino," Viarmo said as he stood and nodded me back to my seat. My eyes widened; was he going to tell everyone what he knew about me? As I shakily walked away he continued, "One of the first lessons you will all need to learn as bards—as Aventus has demonstrated—is how to portray yourself as the most interesting person in the room. It's not enough to be a good musician or a good storyteller. A good bard must be a master of self-promotion."

"Does that mean a bard should lie to make himself sound more interesting?" I asked as I sat down.

"A bard never lies if he can help it," Viarmo scolded. "However, there is nothing in our code of ethics against presenting the facts with particular emphasis." The Altmer pulled an apple from his pocket and made it dance across the back of his hand as he spoke. "I could say that an apple is red and sweet, but 'red' and 'sweet' are common words. Everyone knows them. If I instead say that this apple is a stunning shade of crimson, with a piquant but honeyed flavor, though…" He took a bite from the apple for emphasis. "Emphasis and vocabulary are vital to our work."

"Sounds like a bunch of flowery nonsense to me," I said before I could catch myself. The students near me chuckled and snickered.

"Flowers are beautiful, Master Aretino," Viarmo said with a scowl. "Everyone loves flowers—even if they depend on roots and grains to live."

I flinched with the rebuke, and I could hear some of my classmates chuckle. Viarmo continued his lecture but I was only half-listening. I had a chair near the window, and my eyes kept drifting to the beautiful view outside. The ocean below Solitude was a different shade of blue than the dark ocean north of Dawnstar or the grey waters around Windhelm, crystalline and reflective in ways that I didn't know the sea could be. Ever since I had gotten my first good view of the ocean from the city, I had begun to understand why Hecate loved it so much.

I was up before dawn my first day at the Bards College. It had been my habit to get up early for the last several years, and I didn't sleep very much. Successful assassins learned to sleep little and sleep lightly. Unsuccessful assassins wound up with their throats cut. At least, that's what Nazir had always told me.

Thinking about the Redguard—our Speaker and our family's resident chef—made me melancholy for home, so I resolved to spend the morning doing something productive to take my mind off how much I missed everyone. I pulled on a pair of trousers and a loose shirt, then quietly slunk out of the room to avoid waking Ataf. The dormitory was arranged with rooms on either side of the hallway and a communal bath at the end of the hall.

Solitude was advanced enough that they had something I had never seen before: running water. The wash basins had small metal spigots over them that turned to produce a stream of cold water. I was clever enough to figure it out after a moment, but I was grateful that no one was around to see my fumbling attempts at looking for a water pump. There was also a curtained-off area on the other side of the chamber; checking behind it, I found an Imperial-style bath, big enough for a dozen people to wash at the same time if they were particularly friendly. Given the number of rooms I had counted on my floor, I figured that it wasn't meant that everyone who lived here would bathe at the same time.

I stripped down and lowered myself into the water, pleasantly surprised to find that it was quite warm. I didn't know how they kept it heated, and didn't particularly care. A warm bath was a luxury back at Dawnstar Sanctuary, and most of the inns I had stayed at since joining my profession charged extra if you wanted a bath at all. I didn't relish the idea of bathing with other people, but it didn't bother me all that much either. In the Dark Brotherhood, you got used to sharing personal space with others.

Though the bath was pleasant, I didn't stay long. I toweled off, dressed again, then headed outside. The bards didn't seem to be awake yet for the most part, so the building was nearly silent as I made my way to the rear doors. The pre-dawn city was quiet as well, and cold. Solitude had better weather than my native Windhelm, but autumn mornings in Skyrim were still frigid. I shivered, cursing myself for not having put on a coat, and looked around.

The rear exit of the Bards College opened onto a broad stone plaza with crenellated walls that looking out over the Carth River and to the Sea of Ghosts beyond. At the middle of the plaza was a tall post festooned with drooping and faded ribbons; the stones around it were blackened, as if by fire, and several other patches bore old scorch marks as well. I wondered if it was a legacy of the local festival Hecate had mentioned to me, though I couldn't remember the details right away. Something about burning?

Shaking away the attempt to remember, I put my fingers to my lips and whistled. It wasn't long before I got my response, a low and mournful howl from close by. I smiled at the sound. It had been painful to leave Pavot at Proudspire Manor rather than bringing him with me to the college, but Headmaster Viarmo had been insistent that since I had a place in the city to keep him other than my dormitory, I should keep him there. Jordis had promised to watch after the ice wolf, but I had little faith in the housecarl's ability to take care of herself, let alone a two hundred pound semi-domesticated predator. Hearing Pavot's howl warmed my heart. I would have to stop by and bring him a rabbit after class.

While my heart was warmed, my body was shivering with the cold. I started stretch to loosen my muscles—which were very stiff after not getting to exercise for the last several weeks, due to my injuries—then jogged around the circumference of the plaza to get my blood pumping. By the time I was ready to begin my workout, I was much warmer. The orange glow of sunrise began to smear across the horizon, bringing with it a warm breeze from the east. Even though it was still cool, I stripped off my shirt to avoid getting it sweaty while I trained; I planned on taking another trip to the baths once I was done here.

With my skin prickling from the cold, I dropped into my fighting stance, facing the pole at the middle of the plaza like a lethal enemy. I held my hands out in a warding posture, then started circling inward toward my mock-opponent. In a fight, you never wanted to run at your enemy head-on; controlling the pacing of a fight was vital, and that meant practicing footwork.

Once I had done a full spiral rotation in to the pole, I switched to an aggressive posture and threw a tentative punch at the wood. It seemed sturdy enough, so I started in full-force. I kept moving around the pillar as I punched, kicked, arm-blocked, and palm-struck, building strength and speed by running through the practice exercises that Nazir and Cicero had taught me. Punching wood was somewhat harder than punching flesh or training dummies, so my knuckles and palms ached after a few minutes. I kept at it, though; one of Nazir's complaints about my hand-to-hand abilities was my weakness in unarmed combat, so building that up while I was away at school was an important goal for me.

By the time I finished my combat exercises, the sun had crested the horizon. I took a few minutes' rest to just stand and watch it. The sun seemed somehow brighter in Solitude, the ocean bluer. Dolphins breached the surface of the sea as the sun rose, their sleek bodies catching the light and breaking it into thousands of radiant shards. It was beautiful.

I finally shook myself out of my reverie, which had lasted somewhat longer than I intended, so that I could finish my morning training. After combat practice came general calisthenics and acrobatics. While I didn't have a full gymnastics course here, I could use the environment for the same benefit. I jogged around the plaza again, this time at double speed and across the tops of benches and planters instead of on the ground. I flipped, tumbled, rolled, and wall-ran to build my general mobility. I did sit-ups, push-ups, and chin-ups, using the branch of a tree as my lifting bar.

By the time I got to the last exercise of my regimen, I was sweat-soaked and shaking with the exertion. My back was killing me and my gut roiled. After this, it would be time for a quick bath and some breakfast. Thinking about food made me think of Nazir again; breakfast just wouldn't be the same without his excellent cooking, or his commentary on my training program.

To banish the looming wave of homesickness I could feel bubbling up, I rolled over onto the palms of my hands and stood up on them. Hand-standing took a lot of concentration; you had to be perfectly balanced and perfectly centered. It was an exercise of the mind as well as the body. Once I was in a perfect handstand, I started flexing my elbows, slowly lowering myself until the top of my head touched the stones of the plaza. Then I pushed myself back up into the full handstand again.

Down. Up. Down. Up. Perfectly balanced. Perfectly centered.

"Holy shit," I heard someone say behind me, which made me lose my concentration enough that I went sprawling onto the hard stones with all the grace and dignity of a poleaxed cow. As I laid there on the stones, trying to catch my breath, the familiar face of Ataf loomed into my field of view. "Sweet Divines! Are you okay, Aventus?"

"Fine," I grunted out, feeling weak from the effort and dizzy from a rough fall. I sat up, and something in my back twinged. I might have overdone it a little. "I'll be fine," I said with more confidence. Ataf offered me his hand, and I took it without thinking, letting him help me up into a standing position.

"I didn't mean to startle you," he said sheepishly, running a hand across the back of his head, curling his fingers though his dark-brown hair in nervousness.

"No worries," I said, walking over to where I had hung my shirt up on a tree branch. "I should be the one who feels embarrassed." He looked at me quizzically, so I explained, "For letting you sneak up on me like that."

"Do you have people sneaking up on you often?" he asked.

"Not really," I lied. "I just normally notice that sort of thing."

"I didn't even hear you leave the room this morning," Ataf noted. "I'm a pretty light sleeper, so I usually notice that sort of thing." He raised an eyebrow to emphasize using my own words against me and I laughed at the show. I stopped laughing and winced when I lifted my arms to get my shirt back on. I had definitely overdone it.

"Kyne's grace," Ataf cursed as he walked up to me. "You say you fell off a horse?"

"Yeah," I lied again. Actually, I had nearly been gutted by an angry werewolf, sprained my back crushing his skull with a construction block, almost been beaten to death by Stormcloaks, and then rode a horse non-stop for two days to find medical attention, at the end of which my wounds had festered and I lapsed into a coma. But "fell off a horse" sounded a little less unlikely.

"What about this?" he asked, pointing at a scar along my stomach, not quite touching it. "Or this?" he said, pointing to another one. "Or any of these?" he concluded, gesturing broadly at my torso and flank. I was covered in fading bruises from my recent injuries, but I was also covered in a multitude of small—and not-so-small—scars.

At fourteen, I had more marks on my body than some twenty-year veterans of the legion. Some of them, I had received in training; my trainers had made a point of cutting me occasionally when my guard dropped, just to keep me from getting lazy. Others, I had taken in battle. While an assassin preferred to not have to go toe-to-toe with his targets whenever possible, sometimes it wasn't possible to avoid. Also, I had to admit that I wasn't as good of a planner as some of my siblings, occasionally leading to unfortunate encounters that probably could have been avoided with a little forethought.

I considered the scar Ataf had pointed at last. It had been given to me by a very angry man who had shown me that a broken bottle could be just as good as a knife in a pinch.

"I have a lot of accidents," I finally said. Ataf looked at me with an expression I had come to know very well, thanks to my friend Babette. It was what I thought of as the "do you think I'm a complete idiot?" look.

"Aventus," he said patiently, "I don't like to pry-"

"Then don't," I said abruptly, perhaps a little more rudely than I had meant to. The hurt look on Ataf's face made me instantly regret my tone. "I'm sorry," I quickly said, more softly. "I didn't mean anything by it."

"No, it's okay," he assured me. "I'm nosy. People are always telling me that I shouldn't push so much." He reached out a hand toward me. "Still friends?"

I thought about it a moment, then finally took his hand. I hadn't meant to make any friends here, but I found that I couldn't help liking Ataf. He was friendly, but he also seemed to have a genuinely gentle spirit. Our long conversation about music the previous night had shown me a passion for performance that I found appealing, and his obvious concern for me touched my heart. I smiled as I shook his hand.

"Still friends," I said. His smile caught the sunlight, and the day seemed warmer already.

Classes at Bards College didn't start until the tenth bell, and they let out at noon for lunch before resuming two hours later. All told, students only spent about five hours each day in classes. It was a very different sort of schedule for me.

By which I mean, I wasn't used to having a schedule at all.

Other than my first few weeks in the Dark Brotherhood, when my excellent teachers were working overtime to turn an underfed orphan into a killer, I had pretty much kept my own hours over the last several years. When you took a contract, you were expected to deal with it promptly, but you could use whatever methods and means you liked. There were rarely any deadlines to meet, and the entire idea of any meetings more regular than dinner with whoever happened to be in Sanctuary was a little ridiculous. Assassins were expected to be self-motivated.

The Bards College was very different. After finishing my morning exercises and taking a quick rinse in the bath, I had joined Ataf for breakfast in the school dining hall. The setup was a little surprising to me. Rather than have a standard time when food was served, the dining hall had full-time cooks who made hot meals for anyone who stopped in at any time of the day. Nazir had always been very clear with us: Show up when food is hot or eat it cold. There was also a small buffet of cold meats, bread, cheese, and fruit for anyone who didn't feel like they had the time to wait for that, as well as a crock of soup with a naphtha burner under it to keep it warm.

The whole thing just seemed very impersonal to me. I suppose that living in close quarters with a family—even an adopted one—had made me more social than I once was. A small posted sign listed what was available for the day near the counter. I barely recognized any of the food listed, so I just asked for the same thing Ataf got. I was so out of my element that I felt like I was wearing a big sign draped around my neck that declared how inappropriate it was for me to be here.

I let Ataf take the lead on deciding where to sit as well. At this time of the morning, only a few students were in the hall, and I didn't know any of them. To my surprise, Ataf led me to a table that already had people sitting at it.

"Good morning, everyone," Ataf said merrily as he sat down. I sat down next to him, and he gestured at me. "This is my roommate, Aventus Aretino."

"You have a roommate?" asked an older Nord boy with grey-white hair. I couldn't tell if it was natural or if he had dyed it that color, but it matched his ice-blue eyes and snow-pale complexion. "Since when?"

"Since yesterday," Ataf replied. "I was surprised too."

"It'll be good for you," said the Imperial girl sitting across from us. She had dark brown hair cut short, just below her ears in a forward-sweeping style. I wasn't familiar with the name of the style but it suited her; it made her severe face a little softer, adding curves to an appearance that was otherwise mostly sharp angles. She wasn't pretty in the usual sense, but she was definitely striking. "You would have gone stir-crazy living in a double room all by yourself."

"Anytime you weren't bothering us in our room anyway," teased the tawny-haired Nord girl sitting next to the Imperial. "At least now you'll have company."

"Aventus," Ataf said, pointedly ignoring the commentary from the other students, "allow me to introduce Jorn, Aia, and Illdi." Each of them nodded in turn as he said their names.

"Aia Arria," said the Imperial girl, reaching across the table to take my hand. I half-stood and clasped wrists with her briefly before sitting back down. "It's good to see another Imperial in the college. Are you local?"

"No," I replied. "I'm from Windhelm."

"Windhelm?" asked Jorn in surprise. "Have you ever seen Ulfric Stormcloak?"

"It's a big city," I told him. "I saw him once at a public speech with my mom, but he was a long way off. We could hear him all the way in the back, though—just like he was standing next to us."

"That's the power of the thu'um," Illdi interjected. I was quite familiar with the ability some men called Shouting, but rather than say that, I just nodded.

"Aventus assures me that there's nothing interesting about him at all," Ataf said, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow at the others. I sighed, hoping that they wouldn't take his bait. "I mean, he's only an Imperial from the Stormcloak capital, whose mother has regular business in Solitude, and who happens to be the youngest bard in the college. Nothing special about any of that."

"I thought you were the youngest bard at the college?" Illdi asked.

"Not anymore," the young Redguard replied. "Aventus tells me that he's only fourteen."

"Seriously?" Aia asked, looking me up and down like a side of meat. "Are you sure you're an Imperial?"

"Yes!" I snapped, feeling my face heat up in a blush. "I wish people would quit asking me that!"

"Sorry about that," Jorn said with a disarming smile. "For people training in how to be diplomatic, we sometimes wind up tasting more shoe leather than we'd like."

"It's okay," I said, trying to calm down a little. "I just hear that a lot." I looked around at the faces of Ataf and his friends, trying to find a way to push myself out of the center of speculation. "So how did all of you meet?" I finally asked.

"Well," Aia started, "Ataf was kind enough to help me with my things while I was trying to move in. I had a few personal effects-"

"By which she means three cargo chests full of clothes," Ataf interrupted, pantomiming at rubbing his lower back. Everyone laughed, though Aia picked up a pea from her breakfast and threw it at him.

"Anyway," she continued, "Ataf helped me move in, which is when I met Illdi here." The Nord girl nodded and smiled. "The two of them were in my room, comparing class schedules. I had thought that I would get a private room, considering that my father is a person of some importance, but living with Illdi hasn't proven too terrible."

"Aia is a very talented person," Illdi said, looking at the older girl with stars in her eyes. "I'm lucky to have her living with me." The two girls exchanged a look of affection that passed so quickly that I thought perhaps I had imagined it. "I need all the help I can get."

"You say that your father is someone important?" I asked Aia.

"Achaius Arria," she said, as if I should know who that was. At my blank look she continued, "He's a senior liaison to the Imperial military forces in Solitude."

"He's an advisor to General Tullius," Jorn clarified. I nodded my thanks to him.

"He's here on a three-year rotation from Cyrodiil," Aia continued. "I'm at the Bards College to stay in practice until we go home."

"Aia's got a bright future ahead of her at the Imperial Academy for the Performing Arts," Ataf said enthusiastically. "Though I think that Illdi's better than she gives herself credit for." He looked over at the Nord girl with a goofy smile; I feared that my roommate was just setting himself up for disappointment, but it wasn't my place to get involved.

"What about you, Jorn?" I asked the snow-pale Nord boy, keeping the topic moving steadily away from me.

"I'm from around here," he replied, picking at his food. "My family lives in Solitude and knows Ataf's family. We'd met a couple of times before we both got sent here."

"So you're from around here too?" I asked Ataf.

"Not quite," he said. "My family is from Hammerfell, though they've been living in High Rock since before I was born. My father owns a mercantile company with an Imperial contract, so he brought me and my brother along with him to Solitude on buying trips a lot when I was younger." He nodded to the Nord boy. "Jorn's family owns the shipping company that we used to work with locally."

"Used to?" I asked, confused. "What happened?"

"The Blackblood Marauders happened," Jorn said with a grimace. "They sank half of our ships, stole our cargo, and killed decent men working for my father." He shook his head angrily. "Those pirate bastards cost us a fortune—and our contract with the Empire, once we didn't have enough ships to keep up with demand."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said sympathetically. "The shipping companies out in Windhelm were having problems with pirates the last time I was there too."

"Is it true that the Stormcloaks keep Argonians as slaves?" Illdi asked, leaning forward. "I heard that Ulfric Stormcloak hates the beast-kin so much that he has his soldiers shoot any Khajiit they see, but they round up Argonians to make them work on the docks as slaves."

"That's not so," I told her. "The Argonians don't get paid very much, but they're not slaves. And Khajiit aren't killed on sight; they're just not allowed into the city." I paused, thinking about it for a moment. "But that's just damning Ulfric with faint praise. The way he lets people treat the Dunmer refugees in Windhelm is criminal."

I was thinking about a particular incident where two men had harassed a dark elf woman to the point of tears in the middle of a crowded city plaza. No one had helped her. At least I had gotten the satisfaction of killing one of those men later. I sometimes wondered where Angrenor Once-Honored was these days; I had seen his cruelty, but he had also been quite kind to me.

"We hear all sorts of things in Markarth," Illdi said, breaking me out of my reverie. "Ulfric has a history there, so it's hard to tell what's true and what's just rumor."

"I hear the Dragonborn is siding with the Stormcloaks," Ataf said dourly, his usual good humor gone. "Pretty soon, we'll all have to bow to Eastmarch or get out of Skyrim."

"The Dragonborn would never side with Ulfric Stormcloak!" I nearly shouted, far more passionately than I had intended. The others looked at me curiously; I composed myself quickly and continued. "I mean, everyone knows that Ulfric's lieutenant is a fake now. The real Dragonborn has started making appearances at court here in Solitude again."

"I heard that from my father," Aia confirmed. She paused, tilting her head to look at me anew. "Though I'm curious how you know about it. Are your parents with the court?"

"Yeah," added Jorn, "we've told you our stories. What about you? Who are you, Aventus Aretino?"

"And don't give us that 'I'm not interesting' stuff either," insisted Ataf.

I sputtered and choked, taking a drink to cover my stalling. My efforts to move the conversation away from me had clearly failed. Now I had to come up with something to tell them that wouldn't see a repeat of this in the future.

"Guys," Illdi chastised while I was recovering, "don't pressure him. We just met Aventus; we don't want to run him off, do we?" She smiled at me graciously, and I gave her a relieved nod in return. "We're all going to be in class together, so we should try to get along. Aventus will tell us about himself when he's ready."

"Very well," Aia said dismissively, like a jarl holding court.

"We're going to be in class together?" I asked.

"Classes are arranged by ages," Jorn explained. "Some of the people who come to study at the Bards College are adults looking for a new path in life. Others are the sons and daughters of bards looking to follow in their parents' footsteps. We have people here as old as thirty and as young as… Well, as young as you, Aventus."

"The teachers break up people into age ranges," Illdi continued. "After that, they divide each group into classes of four to eight."

"There are twelve classes to handle around sixty students," Jorn picked back up. "The Bards College is big on class unity, so people from the same class are assigned to live near each other in the dormitories."

"We're all on the same floor," Ataf finished. "Jorn has a single room right next to ours, and Aia and Illdi share a room across the hall."

"I was supposed to have a roommate," Jorn added, "but apparently he withdrew at the last minute."

"Is it normal for boys and girls to be on the same floor?" I asked. I had gotten used to mixed-sex accommodations as a member of the Dark Brotherhood, but I had been under the impression that most people weren't comfortable with that sort of thing.

"At the Bards College it is," Ataf laughed. "I was a little shocked too, but we're working out bathing schedules and stuff like that. It's one of the reasons I was talking to Illdi the day Aia showed up."

"And he's got a crush on her," Jorn whispered to me, leaning close so that the others couldn't hear.

"I don't understand the fuss myself," Aia said loftily. "Back in Cyrodiil, mixed-gender bathing is the norm. I've been taking baths with my brothers and cousins since I was little."

"But have you ever bathed with strangers?" Jorn asked pointedly.

"Of course not," she scoffed. "My family has always had private baths."

"But it doesn't bother you?" Ataf asked. "The idea of being naked in front of strangers?"

"The bath is a private place," Aia insisted, "even when it's public. You simply aren't supposed to notice nudity. It's impolite." She frowned and looked at Jorn. "How do Nords bathe then?"

"A lot of them don't," he laughed. "Those of us who don't like smelling of horker fat and rancid meat usually wind up stripping to a loincloth and bathing in a river."

"That makes me feel cold just thinking about it," Ataf shuddered.

"Well, we're all going to have to get used to it," Illdi said, Nord practicality shining through like a beacon. "We've got the floor to ourselves, so it's just the five of us sharing a bath. We can work out schedules if you like, but that seems like a big waste of time to me."

"Wait," I asked, "there are only five of us on the whole floor?"

"There were going to be six originally," Jorn said, "but that's basically right. The number of students at the college is at an all-time low, thanks to the war. Since classes are arranged by age, and they put classes together in the dormitories, we're the youngest class in the school. Illdi, Aia, and I are all sixteen, and Ataf is fifteen."

"The next youngest student in the college right now is eighteen," Aia continued. "It just happened to fall that we're alone on the 'juniors' floor."

"Then why don't they just each give us a private room?" I asked.

"I guess they want us to have more social interaction?" Ataf asked, obviously not really sure himself. "All I know is that the housing matron tries to pair everyone up if possible." Ataf saw my look and continued before I could ask the question forming on my lips. "You haven't met her since you just got in yesterday. She's a little dotty, but nice. An old Nord lady, name of Braste. You'll probably see her after classes are over today, when she comes through to see if we need anything."

"Personally, I can't wait to meet Headmaster Viarmo," Aia gushed. "I hear he's one of the finest musicians and poets in all of Tamriel."

"You've been here for weeks, and you haven't met the headmaster yet?" I asked.

"He's a very busy mer," Aia insisted. "He's supposed to give us our orientation speech at the start of our class, then we'll meet the rest of our professors. I've already met a couple of them. So talented!"

"I wonder what Viarmo is like," Jorn mused. "I hear that he's way nicer than most Altmer."

"Altmer aren't that bad," Aia rebutted. "They're everywhere back in Cyrodiil, ever since the war ended. They can have a bit of an attitude, but I imagine that it's hard to not feel a little superior when you're nearly immortal and can use magic intuitively that it takes men a lifetime to master."

"I guess," I allowed reluctantly.

"Excuse me," said a young woman as she walked up to the table. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but Headmaster Viarmo would like to meet with you before classes begin."

"I'm honored," Aia said as she started to stand.

"Not you, Mistress," the woman said. "I'm to fetch Master Aretino."

The others looked at me, eyes wide and curious. Aia sat down, her face turning red and her lips twisting into a pout. I felt my own cheeks begin to burn.

"There must be some mistake," I stammered, searching for something to say. "Have I done something wrong?" I finally sputtered out. Better for them to think I was in some sort of trouble than that I was getting special treatment.

"I couldn't say, Master Aretino," she replied. "He only said that he wanted to speak to you."

"Sorry, guys," I said as I stood up. "I'll see you in class."

"Sure, Aventus," Ataf said amiably.

"And he says he's no one special," I could hear Aia muttering as I walked away. "My father is a diplomatic consul, and…" By then, I was outside the dining hall and couldn't hear anything more.

All I could think was that the headmaster had better have a good reason for this. I wasn't supposed to be getting any special treatment, and he was already dragging me away from breakfast for a private interview. I sincerely hoped that this wasn't going to set a trend for the next two years.

"Ah!" exclaimed Viarmo as I entered his spacious office. "A pleasure to meet with you at last, my dear boy. Please, come in!"

I walked into the headmaster's office, gazing around in wonder at the plethora of musical instruments, books, scrolls, maps and other trinkets that decorated the shelves and walls of the room. His desk was a huge oak fixture, covered in sheet music, spare parchment, and ink jars. An old mug sat on one corner of the desk, filled with various kinds of quills; a ramekin full of nibs sat next to it.

Viarmo shook my head briefly and then gesture for me to sit down in a plush, overstuffed chair in front of his desk. He didn't move to the stiff-looking seat on the other side, instead simply brushing a corner of the desk clear and leaning against it. Viarmo was a golden-skinned Altmer, easily seven feet tall, though like all of his kind he seemed stretched somehow, thin and lanky. He wore rich blue robes that accented his coppery hair and neatly-trimmed goatee.

"Are you settling in all right?" he asked. I nodded, which brought a smile to his face. "Good, good. I was hoping to get a chance to meet with you yesterday, but my meeting with your mother took somewhat longer than either of us had thought it would. As well, I have responsibilities with Elisif's court."

"You're a very busy mer," I said. "I don't want any special treatment."

"Your mother said something very similar the first time I met her," he laughed. "You're a chip off the old block, as humans sometimes say."

"She's not my real mother," I pointed out.

"Nonetheless," he insisted, "I can see her influence on you. Our families aren't the people we're born to—or not just them, at any rate. It's all of the people who love us and want the best for us. We're influenced by those people, and we influence them in turn." He thought for a moment, stroking his goatee. "To some degree, being a bard is learning how to influence people and make friends without that sort of bond."

"Was there something you wanted to see me about, sir?" I asked, fearing that Viarmo might go on at length if I didn't bring him back to the point.

"Excuse me," he apologized. "I tend to ramble. It's a side effect of a lifetime of public performance." He rifled through the papers on his desk for a moment before pulling out a folder, looking in it, and tossing it back on the desk. "Mostly, I wanted to see what sort of person the Dragonborn's son was before we get too deep into the teacher-student relationship. Your mother is a friend of mine, but she's also one of the most historically important people I've ever had the privilege of meeting."

"Have you met Ulfric Stormcloak?" I asked, curious because of Jorn's question to me earlier.

"Once," he admitted. "He's a powerful personality, but nowhere near as important as Diana."

"Isn't he single-handedly responsible for the civil war?"

"That's debatable," Viarmo said with a slight smile. "I can already tell that Giraud is going to love you or hate you." He spoke up before I could say anything, "Giraud Gemane is our Dean of Histories. He'll be teaching your class on the Empire's musical history this semester." I nodded, and he continued. "Even if you accept that Ulfric is the sole cause of the war… Well, wars come and go, Aventus. A century from now, Ulfric Stormcloak will be a footnote in the annals of history—if he's lucky. But Diana Dragonborn? The savior of Nirn? People will be singing her praises for the rest of the Era."

"How do I stack up then?" I asked, somewhat sullenly. I didn't like being compared to other people; being compared to the Dragonborn was hardly even fair.

"Master Aretino," he said formally, standing up again, "I can already tell that you're going to be someone great. I don't know if your destiny is as a bard or not—and quite frankly, I was more surprised to hear that Diana wanted you enrolled here than that she had a son no one knew about—but I feel that you're going to be a person of some note." He paused, then chuckled. "If you'll forgive the pun."

"I'm no one special," I insisted, not really understanding the pun he was talking about. It had gotten to be such a rote thing to say that it slipped out of my mouth without even really thinking about it.

"Your mother said something very similar to me the first time we met," he repeated before standing up and leading me to the door. "She was wrong too."

My mind finally drifted back to the orientation. I had half-heard Viarmo introducing the school's various teachers, but there were only three of them that mattered to me.

Giraud Gemane, the Breton who Viarmo had mentioned, would be teaching my class over Imperial musical history. Inge Six-Fingers was an older Nord woman; I couldn't tell if she lived up to her surname from this distance, but she would be teaching our class on the fundamentals of stringed instruments, as well as co-teaching another class with Giraud, this one over the history of music in Skyrim. Our final class would be over the fundamentals of wind instruments and vocal music, taught by a middle-aged Imperial woman named Pantea Ateia.

All told, my four classmates and I would be spending every Morndas through Fredas in class, generally from about tenth bell to noon, then from second bell to dinner. Viarmo explained that we were expected to practice on our own outside of classes as well, and many of the teachers would be leading morning and evening practice sessions for those of us who felt the need for extra attention. We would have Loredas and Sundas to ourselves; while we were not forbidden from leaving the college grounds, it was strongly discouraged from doing so except on the weekends.

I was introduced to the concept of homework. It seemed like a trick of some kind. We were supposed to attend classes, but then we had things to do outside of class that were necessary to get a good grade? Why not just have that be part of class time?

And then the entire concept of grades seemed odd. As an assassin, it was pretty obvious when you succeeded or failed at a task, considering that failed assassins were usually dead assassins. Having our teachers judge whether our work met with their approval or not almost seemed like a conflict of interest. If they were teaching us, didn't it reflect badly on them if we didn't learn well enough to get a good grade? So wouldn't they be inclined to give us better grades to make themselves look better?

The whole thing was just strange to me, but I guessed that normal people dealt with this sort of thing all the time. Life as a contract killer was so much simpler.

"And with that," Viarmo concluded holding his hands wide as if to embrace the whole student body, "I welcome you to the Bards College of Solitude."

The students around me began to applaud so I joined in, even though I had missed most of Viarmo's speech. I wasn't sure, but I could swear that the Altmer headmaster actually winked at me as he walked by, as though sharing some private joke. I was a little startled when Ataf's hand fell on my shoulder, but I managed to avoid either flinching or breaking his fingers, both of which were natural reactions for me at being touched unexpectedly.

"Come on," he said, "you don't want to be late for our first class."

"Sure thing," I agreed, picking up the leather satchel that held my books and parchment from under my seat.

"So what did Viarmo want from you earlier?" he asked as we walked together.

"Nothing particularly," I said. "There was some sort of mix-up with my paperwork."

"And the headmaster just happened to want to deal with it personally?" Ataf said doubtfully. "Aventus, you're going to have to get better at this whole lying thing if you're going to keep it up for two years."

"Sorry," I said sheepishly, not even sure what I was apologizing for. "Look, I just don't want any special treatment. From anyone."

"Unlike Aia," my friend laughed, "who seems to want it from everyone." He clapped me on the shoulder and kept walking. "You seem like a decent sort, so I'll let it slide. But eventually, you're going to wind up telling me the truth."

Divines, I hoped not.

It occurred to me that I had spent much of my life mastering the art of being invisible—to the point that I was no longer comfortable doing even the basic things that normal people took for granted. I had been taught to not pry into others' lives, but normal people talked about themselves and each other almost constantly. I had lived in the shadows so long that I had become like the Falmer, a blind thing afraid of the light.

Perhaps that was what Hecate had wanted me to learn by coming to Solitude: how to survive in the light as well as the dark. If so, I intended to live up to her expectations for me. My natural inclination might be to shy away from the public eye, and I had secrets that had to be kept at all costs, but I could still find ways to excel and to win people over. As I walked into the first classroom I had ever been inside, I steeled myself for whatever came next.

It was time.

…to be continued…