Chapter 12: Deep Freeze
"Don't fidget so much," Dagny said as she fretted with her own hair. "You look like you have fleas or something."
"These clothes itch," I complained. "I'm not used to wool."
"You wear wool all the time," she pointed out, tucking a loose strand of hair back into place. It had been perfect when we left her house an hour before, but I suppose the jostling of a carriage had loosened it. At that, she was still doing better than I was.I felt sweaty, itchy, and like my hair was threatening to burst off my head and go flying away.
"Not dyed like this," I retorted. I gestured down at my new outfit. If was a garish, clashing three-tone tunic in purple and green with a few splashes of yellow for variety. "The dye itches."
"It does not," she snapped, looking at me with a frustrated expression. "You just don't want to wear what I picked out for you, and you're projecting."
"Maybe a little," I confessed. "This isn't the sort of thing I wear normally."
"Of course not," she sniffed, turning to look back at her hand mirror to work on her makeup. "You can't wear your usual clothes around people of importance."
I had no idea how she was doing something so precise in a moving carriage without looking like a clown. I looked back down at myself and sighed; she didn't need to look like a clown—I was already doing that effectively enough for the both of us.
"I still don't understand why I'm dressed like a jester." Honestly, Cicero's usual motley was far more subdued than the nonsense I was stuck in at the moment. "Don't the Altmer hate jesters?"
"But they love bright colors," she explained. "They prefer to dress like—how did Taarie put it?—like living tapestries. Of course, all the Altmer at Elenwen's Solarium will be part of the Thalmor, so they'll be stuck in those dreary black robes they wear on-duty. Still, it's best to dress the way your hosts prefer."
That part I got: You always wanted optimum camouflage when entering a hostile environment.
"This wasn't what I expected when I came over this morning," I told Dagny, touching her elbow lightly.
"Don't jostle me when I'm working," she said without looking at me. "And clearly you didn't know what to expect. That's why I made sure to have an extra holiday outfit for you, just in case." She glanced sidelong at me for a moment. "You're welcome, by the way."
"I'm just saying that a little forewarning would have been nice, is all." I turned to look out at the frosted Skyrim landscape beyond the carriage's narrow windows. Everywhere was snow and ice, and a thin, freezing drizzle was falling from the grey sky. I didn't envy our coachman on a day like this. Or Jordis, for that matter.
"What did you think he meant when my father invited you over for New Life Day?" she said with a hint of continuing annoyance in her voice.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Not this."
"I love New Life Day!" Jordis burbled as she danced around the living room of Proudspire Manor. I couldn't help but smile at her antics; it was almost like seeing Cicero again. But with fewer knives and mood swings.
"Me too," I told her, buttoning up my long coat. I was wearing one of my nicer outfits today—a maroon tunic and black trousers, topped with a fur-lined coat. It was in Solitude's colors, which I thought would be a nice message for Jarl Balgruuf, and it was something that Dagny had helped me pick out, which always made her happy.
Sometimes I wondered if I was getting too bogged down in the games that Dagny and her sort of people played. Instead of just enjoying my favorite holiday, I was busy "sending messages" and "dressing appropriately." It was sort of tiresome, but ultimately I'd had to conclude that if it made Dagny happy and made Jarl Balgruuf more comfortable with me, then it was worth it.
"You're not going to fight with Nelkir, are you?" Jordis suddenly asked me. I froze; I had never mentioned my falling out with Dagny's little brother to her.
"What do you mean?" I responded cautiously.
"It's just that every time Dagny mentions Nelkir, you tense up," she replied nonchalantly, trying to button on her own coat with mitten-covered hands. "Seems like you're angry at him for some reason."
"I'm not angry at Nelkir," I lied. Truthfully, I wasn't as mad at the little brat as I had been when he pulled his "prank" on me, but I certainly wasn't happy with him. Avoiding him for a few weeks was supposed to have given me some time to cool off, but all it had really done was turn my sharp anger into a dull one. I didn't want to punch his teeth in anymore, but I probably wouldn't take the time to put him out if someone set him on fire either.
"Mm-hmm," she replied, just as noncommittally. I reminded myself to keep a closer eye on Jordis. She might not be the sharpest sword on the rack, but she was way more observant than I had given her credit for. That could be trouble for me in the long run. I still had a year and a half of school left before I could return to the Dark Brotherhood, and a lot could go wrong in that amount of time.
On the other hand, if I didn't ever go back…
I shook myself out of that line of thought and walked over to Jordis, buttoning up her coat to distract myself. She muttered an embarrassed "thanks" before smiling broadly again and almost skipping to the door. I smiled too; her good cheer was infectious. My smile felt melancholy, though, almost brittle. New Life Day made me miss my family something terrible, and the guilt I felt at thinking about possibly leaving them forever only made it worse. All of this was so much simpler when I was home with Hecate and Cicero and the others. Nothing was simple here in Solitude, not even my favorite holiday.
"Let's get moving. We don't want to be late," I said, trying to keep my tone light. Jordis was fumbling the door handle as clumsily as she had been fumbling her coat buttons, so I opened it for her. "Have you considered putting on your mittens after getting ready?" I asked her.
"But then my hands would be cold when I went outside," she told me, her tone indicating that it was so obvious she shouldn't need to explain it. I just shook my head and chuckled, my smile feeling more real with every passing moment.
I finally managed to get the two of us bundled out the door, Pavot hot on my heels. It almost felt like wasted effort, since we were going all of twenty feet to get to Dagny's house-it was literally the next house over-but Skyrim's winters were serious business. This New Life Day was as overcast and full of snow as I could have expected, turning the normally beautiful streets of Solitude into a grey reflection. It made me think of Windhelm, my home city, and I felt a pang of melancholy that I tried to stamp down. New Life Day was supposed to be a happy day.
I knocked on the door, tensing myself in preparation of seeing Nelkir, but I should have guessed that he wouldn't be answering the door for callers. Instead, I found myself looking into the red eyes of Jarl Balgruuf's housecarl, Irileth. I smiled and nodded at her in greeting.
"Happy holidays," I said with real cheer.
"Happy holidays," she replied in her normal harsh tones. I had begun to understand that Irileth didn't actually hate me personally; I thought that maybe she just hated everyone who wasn't Jarl Balgruuf or his children, just to be safe.
"Happy New Life Day!" Jordis burbled, moving forward with her arms spread wide. Irileth took a step backward in surprise, her hand dropping to her sword.
"Hug me and lose a hand," she warned. Jordis' face drooped comically and I couldn't help but laugh as I patted her on the back in commiseration.
"May we come in?" I asked, summoning up all of my manners.
"Of course," Irileth responded. "You're expected." Her glare left no guess as to what I could have done with myself if I hadn't been specifically invited over. "Dagny is waiting for you upstairs. She said to send you up right away when you got here."
I nodded, somewhat surprised, and took off my overcoat before heading to the stairs. Dagny and Pavot milled about the foyer, drifting slowly toward the blazing fireplace under Irileth's watchful eye. I chuckled again and took the stairs two at a time up to Dagny's room. I had been here before, but never without Frothar on hand to act as a chaperone.
The door stood open a few inches, and I pushed it open and walked in without thinking. I managed to get two steps into the room before I realized that Dagny was naked from the waist up, her back turned to me. Below the waist, she was wearing only a filmy petticoat that stopped at her knees. My eyes roamed her bare calves and the curve of her shoulder while my mouth worked and I sputtered.
Gods, you would have thought I had never seen a naked woman before. Given how lax privacy had been back at Sanctuary and how public bathing was, I'd been exposed to nudity-male and female-more times than I could count. But this was the first time I'd seen Dagny this close to naked, and that made it somehow more forbidden, somehow more real.
"Close the door, would you?" she asked, barely turning her head toward me. "And close your mouth too. You're drawing flies." Her tone was sharp as usual but somehow playful, almost amused.
I pushed the door closed and turned my shoulder toward Dagny, not quite able to look away completely even though I knew it would be more courteous to do so. At least I was able to keep from openly staring at her.
"Happy New Life Day," I said lamely.
"Nothing happy about it if I can't hurry up and get ready," she responded, holding up one dress and then another with a critical eye. "This would be difficult enough already, even if Father hadn't given the help the day off. Something about 'holiday spirit' or somesuch nonsense. Do you know how hard it is to do my own hair without a maid's help?"
"I don't think you need any help to be pretty," I said without thinking about it.
Dagny turned toward me, smiling for real this time. My eyes darted down to her breasts before I could control them, and I was more than a little disappointed to discover that she had shrugged into a corset at some point while I was trying to not look at her.
"You're sweet," she said, patting me on the cheek, "but you don't get points for kissing my ass. That's only to be expected."
"But how about for kissing other things?" I asked, leaning toward her.
"No time for that," she chided, pushing me back. She turned away from me again. "Lace me up in the back. Make sure to make it tight. If I can breathe normally, it's too loose."
"I don't see the point of these things," I complained, even as my hands went to my designated task.
"You wouldn't," she said without looking back. "I mean, look what you're wearing now."
"What's wrong with these clothes?" I asked, feeling more than a little hurt. I had actually made a point of dressing nicer than usual, since I wanted to impress Dagny's father.
"For a diplomatic meeting?" she retorted. "It would be easier to list what's not wrong with them. Fortunately, I foresaw this possibility and picked out a few things for you the last time I was at the Radiant Raiment."
"Diplomatic what now?" I said, my hurt feelings turning swiftly to genuine confusion.
"Father will be heading out in a few moments with Irileth and Frothar," Dagny continued on, not seeming to hear my question. "Nelkir will most likely ride in their carriage, so we'll have one to ourselves, which would normally be scandalous but I assume my honor will be safe in the presence of the Dragonborn's son."
"Wait, wait!" I insisted. "That's supposed to be low-key."
"Aventus," she said, emphasizing my name in a way that made my cheeks burn and hackles raise, "it's a court function. Everyone there will already know."
"I still don't understand what's going on!" I protested.
"That's obvious," Dagny said with a sigh. She picked up two outfits, both in my size and both colored like a peacock having a wrestling match with a crazed painter. "Pick one out and get dressed. You can use the drawing room to change."
I took the one that was incrementally less garish and sighed. I still didn't understand what was going on, but it was generally better to go along with Dagny when she got like this than try to resist her.
New Life Day wasn't going at all like I expected.
The next hour was a whirlwind. Dagny made sure I was dressed "properly," and that my hair-always unruly, perpetually in need of being cut-was styled more smoothly than usual. I didn't even get to see Balgruuf or Frothar before they left, though I wasn't sad that I had missed Nelkir in all the rush.
Finally, Dagny and I piled into a carriage, with Jordis being condemned to the buckboard with the driver, since the interior was only big enough for two to sit comfortably. I would have happily crowded in for the warmth, but Dagny insisted that the two of us be alone. Any hope I had of pleasant distractions on the way to wherever we were going dissolved as Dagny continued to work on her makeup, arrange her hair, and generally act like I was out of my mind for thinking that New Life Day was meant to be an intimate affair with family and close friends.
"Holidays are just an excuse for a good party," she said as we approached the Thalmor Embassy.
"I wouldn't imagine the Thalmor like partying very much," I sulked. All I could think of was the black-clad torturers and murderers that Jarl Ulfric's people constantly warned about while I was growing up in Windhelm. The Thalmor were supposedly monsters, even for elves, who wanted nothing more than to drive the worship of Talos extinct. I didn't give a whit about Talos, of course, but the image of grim elven inquisitors was ingrained in my mind.
"The Thalmor host every few years, and it's their turn," Dagny explained. "With the civil war going on, they want to make a good show of support for the loyal jarls and their courts, so it's going to be particularly lavish. Father knows it will be a good opportunity to win support for his eventual campaign to retake Whiterun, so it's even more important than usual for us to be there."
"And for the Dragonborn's son to be seen siding with the Imperial loyalists?" I asked bitterly. "Is that really the only reason Jarl Balgruuf asked me along?"
"What other reason would there be?" Dagny asked, seeming to be genuinely confused by my questions. I turned away from her to keep her from seeing the hurt look on my face.
I didn't speak to her again until we had arrived at the Thalmor Embassy. She didn't seem to notice, which only made my foul mood deepen.
As the carriage pulled up to the main gates of the embassy, I looked out the windows. I was surprised to see a building that looked very much like a traditional Nord manor, surrounded by a low stone wall and with high-gabled roofs. The peaks of the roofs even had a tall wooden windbreak, something I had always thought looked sort of like a fish's fin. All in all, the buildings wouldn't have seemed out of place in Solitude itself-or in Windhelm for that matter.
The windows were a different story, though, and the one thing I found out of place in the structure. They were leaded glass, crosshatched with iron; they were opaque with color but also latticed enough to be secure against infiltration. I doubted that even Babette could have crawled in through a broken window panel, and lead glass was difficult to break without making tremendous amounts of noise.
Even if the buildings looked familiar, the occupants did not. While the carriages queued up to the main gate were disgorging mainly Nords and a few Imperials, the gates themselves were guarded by tall, imposing Altmer wearing golden armor. It gleamed even in the dim light of the gloomy day, and the elves wearing it had impassive faces, as though the cold were nothing to them. If I hadn't spent so much time with Garnag, I might have missed the faint shimmer of sorcery clinging to them; they must have been using magic to keep the cold at bay.
Garnag had once told me that the Altmer had the most magical potential of all the races of men and mer, and that virtually every member of their race-from the highest lord to the lowest soldier-learned at least some magic. I was seeing proof of it with my own eyes, and it was a little bit intimidating to say the least. Of course, that was probably the point; I had also heard the Altmer preferred to rule through fear whenever possible.
The carriage finally came to a stop, the door opened to reveal the wizened face of a Bosmer footman. This was something else I had heard about the High Elves; they preferred other, "lower" elves as servants, since it was unseemly to have an Altmer in a position of servitude. I stepped out first, remembering my etiquette, then turned to offer Dagny a hand out of the carriage. The footman placed a wooden step below the lip of the door, making it easier for her. I supposed that I should have waited for the step myself, but I was tall enough that I didn't see the point.
Dagny took my hand and gracefully descended from the carriage. I couldn't help but admire her then, despite my anger. She really did look like a princess.
The footman led us to the main doors, where another servant announced us to the room. A few heads turned, but "Lady Dagny of Whiterun and escort" didn't really call the sort of attention that I dreaded. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.
"Ah, Dagny, my girl!" boomed a voice from our left, and my blood went cold. "And Aventus, lad! It's good to see both of you, especially together."
"Thane Erikur," Dagny said politely, inclining her head to the overweight, gaudily dressed man as he walked toward us from the crowd. Part of me was pleased to see he was still limping from where Runa had put a knife in his leg many weeks back, but the rest of me was just unhappy to see him at all. "Happy New Life Day to you."
"And to you, child," he said beneficently, as though he were the cause for the holiday. He beamed widely at me and extended his hand. It took me just a second to remember to extend my own, but I don't think he noticed. I shook his greasy paw with all the dignity I could muster and nodded my head, trying not to speak. After all, the last time I had seen this man, I had been masked and threatening to kill him. It would be a little awkward if he recognized my voice now.
Somehow, we got through a round of small talk with Erikur without me doing much more than nodding along and occasionally doing my best fake laugh at his anecdotes. I knew that Dagny found the man just as repulsive and venal as I did, so I was vaguely amazed at how genuinely interested she seemed in his stories and jibes.
I might have been an assassin with a double life, but Dagny knew more about wearing a mask than I ever would.
When Erikur finally made his apologies and departed, I breathed a sigh of relief. "Are we going to have to do much more of that sort of thing?" I asked Dagny quietly.
"Of course," she responded nonchalantly. "We have to make a good impression, after all."
"This really isn't-"
"What you were expecting, I know," Dagny interrupted, her mask cracking with annoyance. "Well, what were you expecting, Aventus Aretino? Hot chocolate in front of a fire while my father told rousing stories? Holiday songs with Nelkir? I'm sorry if you're put out by the demands of our position, but you need to grow up."
"Grow up?" I asked dumbly, my cheeks flushing as I stepped away from her. I could feel my pulse beginning to race with anger. I kept my voice low and still, trying my best to avoid drawing attention to us more out of habit than because I actually cared what these people thought. "How dare you."
I felt foolish for being so angry, but at the same time I felt righteous. Dagny knew how I felt about these sort of things, and she had basically ambushed me with it. Now she had the gall to accuse me of being childish!
"It's true!" she hissed, pitching her own voice low but sharp. "You always act like we're just supposed to do what we want and damn whatever is expected of us, but that's not the way the real world works. We only maintain our position by having friends-and this is how we make those friends. I know you're not stupid, Aventus, but by the gods it pains me to have to explain this to you."
"I wouldn't know," I replied petulantly, feeling more like the child she had accused me of being with every passing moment. "After all, I'm just a commoner, right? Low-born and barely worth mentioning."
Dagny spared a look around the room, her honey-brown eyes darting back and forth. I realized that I had started to get a little too heated, that my voice was getting out of control. I straightened up and smoothed my gaudy clothes with as much dignity as I could muster.
"I'm going to get some punch," I said calmly. "Would you care for anything?"
What I didn't say was, "I'm mad at you, and I need to get away for a little while."
"No thank you," Dagny said, her voice even and level.
What she didn't say was, "You're being childish. Don't come back until you can act like an adult."
She was outwardly calm, but I could see heat blossoms on her cheeks. Part of me felt triumphant that I had managed to disturb her mask enough that her real emotions showed through, as though I had scored a point in some wicked game. Part of me was angry at myself for making her upset, but it was being drowned out by my wounded pride.
Maybe things would have gone differently if I had listened to that part of myself-the better part, the part that cared for Dagny more than it cared for my stupid, selfish pride.
But I didn't. And the rest of the day went right to hell because of it.
I spent most of the morning hovering near the punch bowl, completely ignoring Dagny's lessons. She had emphasized the importance of movement in these sort of situations, about how a person should be standing still only when part of a conversation or during very brief breaks for refreshment. "Only unimportant people can afford to stand still," she had told me once.
Well, at the moment I was feeling pretty damned unimportant.
I chatted tersely with the various dignitaries and guests who wandered by, but my chilly tone rapidly sent them on their way. Most of them didn't seem to know who I was beyond Dagny's escort, and their probing questions annoyed me. At least Erikur had been right about one thing: only a few people in Solitude's court knew that I was the Dragonborn's son, and the secret hadn't spread far beyond their circle yet. I appreciated that even loose-lipped courtiers knew the value of a well-held secret.
I didn't realize how strong Altmer punch was, or I might have taken it a bit slower. As it was, all I was tasting was fruit and the faintest hint of liquor, but I was rapidly mainlining very strong booze with nothing more than a few shrimp puffs and vegetable slices to bolster my stomach against it.
My attitude began to slide from chilly to surly as I got drunker, and by noon I was probably at least as annoying as Erikur. Certainly, I was getting more dirty looks than he tended to, even behind his back. The part of me that was still angry at Dagny-and it wasn't an insignificant part-reveled in the nasty looks and whispers I was getting from the courtiers and their retinue.
"Sir, I think you've had enough," finally came a voice from behind me. I didn't know the speaker, but I knew the tone. Hadn't I heard that same phrase directed at Nelkir any number of times during our day out? Thinking of Nelkir pushed my mood right from surly to genuinely pissed off, and I rounded on the speaker ready to start a fight.
The sight that was waiting for me made me think twice. Standing a few feet from me was a High Elf dressed in the gold armor of a Thalmor warrior. They had looked imposing outside the embassy, but standing this close, he was downright menacing. I was tall for an Imperial-tall enough to sometimes be mistaken for a Nord-but this Altmer towered head and shoulders over me, though he was probably no heavier than me. His willowy limbs didn't seem weak, though, and wearing that plate armor of his surely meant he had real muscles underneath.
The palpable aura of intimidation rolling off him cut right through my booze-induced haze, and I realized that he was using some sort of low-grade fear magic on me. I didn't appreciate being bullied at the best of times, certainly not by some jumped-up guard with delusions of grandeur. Deep inside, I was counting the number of ways I could kill him before he could even draw his weapon-but I realized that none of them would make his death unnoticed by the crowd that filled the main hall all around us.
"And what if I say I haven't?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. I knew how petulant it sounded even as I said it, but I would be damned if I just rolled over for anyone who came along, thinking they could order me around.
"You should come with me, sir," the guard said, ignoring my question. "I'll take you to a back room, where you can get some space to clear your head." He started to hold out a hand to gesture me in the right direction.
"You don't want to touch me," I growled as his hand hovered near my shoulder. His impassive face finally showed some emotion as his lip quirked up in a sneer.
"No," he agreed. "I certainly don't."
Something in his disgusted look pushed me over the edge. I tensed my shoulders and bunched my fists, ready to throw caution to the wind and teach this pointy-eared bastard a lesson. Before I could carry through, something in my stance must have given me away; I have no doubt that I was advertising my intent from a mile off. The guard took a quick step back from me and flicked his eyes over my shoulder, nodding very slightly.
I took it for a ruse-right up until the feeling of every nerve in my body locking in place hit me like a boulder from a catapult.
Suddenly, I couldn't move a muscle. My whole body felt unaccountably heavy, and I would have toppled to the ground if I hadn't also become paradoxically weightless. I realized that I was hovering in place, my feet an inch or so off the ground, while I was too paralyzed to even blink. A Bosmer servant materialized out of the corner of my eye, taking my elbow while the guard in front of me turned and led the way out of the main hall. I could hear footsteps behind me, probably the spellcaster who had paralyzed me, but I could no more turn to look at him than I could have been expected to drink the Sea of Ghosts dry.
Within moments, they had ushered me out of the dining hall and into a back room without anyone being the wiser. If they had been intending to kill me, I would have met a gruesome end within moments. Even the Dark Brotherhood could learn some lessons about "disappearing" a person from the Thalmor, I think.
Fortunately for me, they were only interested in getting me out of the public eye before I could humiliate myself-or bring shame to the embassy by letting me make a scene. The Bosmer deposited me in a sitting room, propping me up against a high-backed, overstuffed chair; a minute or so later, when my muscles finally relaxed, I sank into it with barely a thump against my backside. It occurred to me that they must have had to do this sort of thing before-and then it occurred to me that, given the very long life spans of High Elves, perhaps they had done it a great many times before.
The Altmer guard dropped back to the door while the Bosmer servant crouched next to me. He poured a cup of water from a pitcher on the end table next to my chair and offered it to me.
"You should drink," he said, not unkindly, when I paused before taking it. "Paralysis leaves you dehydrated-that and the alcohol, I mean."
I had seriously been considering throwing the cup across the room, but looking into the wizened brown face of the mer before me, I realized that none of this was his fault. Punishing him for my own bad behavior and the Altmers' reactions to it would be counterproductive. Finally, I took the glass and sipped from it, nodding my thanks.
"Good, good," he said as I drained my second cup of water. The Bosmer looked back at the guard and nodded to him. "I don't think he'll be any trouble now, yes?" I nodded vigorously, trying very hard not to look daggers at the Thalmor guard.
"He can come back out to the main hall when he's sobered up," the Altmer responded, looking at the servant and not me. I realized that, to a Thalmor, even a lowly house servant was better than me. To him, humans were lower than slaves. "Make sure he's sober when you send him out, or it's your skin."
"Of course," the Bosmer said, nodding in agreement. When the Thalmor was gone, he turned to me, his eyes turning disapproving but still sympathetic. "You seem a bit out of place here, young master, if you don't mind me saying so."
"You're not wrong," I told him, wetting my fingers from the bottom of the cup and rubbing them against my eyes. "I came here with my…" I paused; what was Dagny to me? "With a girl," I finally managed to conclude, sounding lame even to my own ears.
"Came with two, as I recall," he replied, and I suddenly recognized him as the footman who I had met outside earlier. "Both Nords, both pretty-for humans."
"The other one is my housecarl," I told him. He looked me up and down again, assessing.
"I thought you were an Imperial," he said.
"I am," I interrupted, knowing what was coming next. "My family is here in Skyrim, though, and my mother…" I trailed off again, not knowing what to say about Hecate to an elf. She had never seemed to care much for the Thalmor, and I didn't want to risk giving information to people she might consider enemies.
"Your mother became important suddenly," he concluded, nodding to himself. "That sort of thing's happened quite a lot lately, thanks to this local unpleasantness." I nodded after realizing he was talking about the civil war. I supposed that the whole thing probably seemed terribly provincial to people from the mighty Aldmeri Dominion.
"Thank you for the water," I told him, feeling more like myself. "It was very kind of you."
"Just doing my job," he said, standing up and brushing his servant's livery as though it might have acquired a layer of dust in the few minutes he was helping me. He turned and started walking toward the door, then paused a moment, as though trying to make a decision. He finally turned back to me. "Might I speak freely, sir?"
"Of course," I said. The idea that people might not speak freely was stranger to me than the other way, honestly.
"The mighty rarely consider the feelings of the meek," he told me. "If you intend to pursue this life, you may wish to consider growing thicker skin. It will serve you well in the long run." Then, feeling that he had perhaps said too much, he turned smartly upon his heel and left.
I sat in the drawing room for a few long minutes, feeling terrible sobriety creeping in around the edges and bringing with it a powerful melancholy. I felt like a fool; I had gotten drunk in public, gotten blindsided by a common guard, and been saved from humiliation only by virtue of my hosts wanting to spare themselves from shame.
Dagny was angry at me, and she wasn't exactly wrong to be… but at the same time, I felt put upon. Who was she to tell me how to live my life? I had been living the life I wanted to live for years, up until I came to Solitude. Now, everything seemed so complicated and murky.
What good was my life if I wasn't doing the things I wanted to do?
I thought about it for a few moments longer before I realized something. I had come here with two women, but I'd only made time for one of them. Dagny was so demanding that I hadn't even seen Jordis since we had arrived at the embassy. If Dagny was angry at me, I should go spend some time with my friend instead of just feeling sorry for myself. At least Jordis didn't expect me to be someone I wasn't.
It took me a while to find a servant who wasn't in a hurry and who was willing to answer questions. Finally, a Dunmer maid was able to direct me toward a small secondary dining hall down several twists and turns from the main hall. The door was unmarked and out of the way; I frowned when I saw it, because I should have expected it when I had gotten here. The glamour and beauty of the embassy, the bright colors of the courtiers, and the imposing armor of the guards had all distracted me from the truth.
Dagny might be able to say that "housecarls are like family," but they got sent to eat with the servants nonetheless.
I pushed open the door to a dull and cheerless room with a low-burning hearth. A dozen or so men and women were sitting around three tables, food and drink of far lower quality than that served in the main hall sitting on platters between them. Most of them looked up when I walked in the room, and a few dropped their hands to their weapons by instinct, but I ignored them all to find the one I was looking for.
Jordis sat alone at a table far from the fireplace, her face disconsolate as she toyed with half of a sweetroll on a plate. Her expression was gloomy and forlorn, but she was still wearing her heavy plate, making her look like a child wearing her mother's armor. I walked across the room, ignoring the eyes of the other housecarls and servants, and sat down across from her.
"Happy New Life Day, Jordis," I said with a smile.
She looked up, seeming surprised to see me.
"Happy New Life Day, Aventus," she replied automatically. "What are you doing back here? Is the ball over?"
"Not yet," I said nonchalantly, reaching across and grabbing the rest of her uneaten sweetroll. I picked off pieces and ate them quickly, savoring the taste of real food, even if it was cold. Now that I was sobering up, I was viciously hungry.
Jordis got a suspicious look on her face and leaned forward, sniffing. "You've been drinking!" she whispered emphatically. "Your mother will be so mad at me!"
"I won't tell her if you won't," I responded, knowing that Hecate wouldn't give two figs about me drinking as long as I didn't jeopardize the Brotherhood while doing it. I gave Jordis a weak smile, and she gave me a more sincere one back.
"What are you doing?" she asked again.
"Where's Irileth?" I asked in return, ignoring her question. I hadn't noticed the red-eyed Dunmer among the people back here.
"With Jarl Balgruuf, of course," she said. "All the jarls keep their housecarls with them all the time at things like this. The rest of us have to stay out of sight to avoid insulting the Altmer. It's like… I guess if we were all out there, it would be like saying the Thalmor can't be trusted to protect their guests."
"That makes sense," I said. "We're leaving."
"Wait, what?" she said as I reached across the table and grabbed her hand.
"Get your things," I said again, looking her in the eyes. "We're going."
"But Aventus-" she started, then quickly grabbed her cloak off the hook by the door as I started half-dragging her out of the room. Some of the housecarls were snickering at the sight of a teenaged boy dressed like a drunken peacock dragging a grown, armored woman around like a rag doll, but most had the good grace to just start studying their mugs and plates.
"I'm sick of this place, and I'm sick of these phonies," I told Jordis after we got out into the hall. "We'll take the carriage back to Solitude, then send it back for Dagny."
"Aventus, stop," Jordis said, pulling her hand free from mine and stopping dead in the hall. "Why are you doing this?"
"I'm sick of trying to pretend to be something I'm not," I told her, feeling my face sag. I was struggling to keep my voice level, and I hated how whiny I sounded. "I wanted to spend a nice New Life Day with you and Dagny and her family, and instead I got hijacked along for this… this debacle! I just want to go home."
"You're not pretending to be anything," Jordis said, reaching out to smooth my hair back from my forehead. It was a motherly gesture, and it almost sent me over the edge into tears. "You're a fine lad with an important family, and important people do important things. Honestly, I'm just happy to be brought along."
"Wait," I said, confused. "You knew this is what we would be doing?"
"Well, yeah," she said, shrugging. "Someone important like Jarl Balgruuf can't just spend a holiday at home. He has to go out and do things with other important people. Important people like you, Aventus."
"What about you then?" I asked her, my heart clenched in the fist of a deep and painful anxiety. "It's not fair to invite you and then stick you in with the servants!"
"I am a servant," she said plainly. "There's nothing shameful about it. I serve your mother-and I serve you, Aventus Aretino. Maybe you don't understand it, but that's the way it is. And truly, I'm just happy to be invited-to feel like people want me around. I'm so used to getting told that no one needs me… It just makes me happy to get to do my job."
"You didn't seem too happy back there," I told her, jerking my thumb in the direction of the servant's hall.
"Oh, that?" she asked, bringing up her index finger to her lip and chewing on it slightly. "I was just thinking really hard about the food that must be out in the dining hall. Shrimp puffs and chilled fruit and those little sausages…" She trailed off, a wistful look in her eyes. "All the good food goes to the important people. I was just sad about that, was all."
"I'm not important," I insisted. "I'm no one special."
"Of course you are," she replied, sterner than I was used to hearing from the meek housecarl. "Anyone who meets you can tell, Aventus. You're going to do great things someday. And that doesn't have anything to do with your mother, or your girlfriend, or her father. It's you."
I finally couldn't take it anymore and just broke down crying. My shoulders heaved and tears ran down my face while Jordis awkwardly hugged me as best she could while wearing plate armor. Her face was so stricken when I looked at her that I burst out laughing in the middle of crying. She smiled wanly, clearly confused what she should be feeling right now.
"Thanks for that, Jordis," I told her, wiping my eyes with a handkerchief.
"You should get back to Dagny before you're missed," she said. "And don't worry about me, Aventus. I'll be fine."
"Just to make sure about that, I'll be spending tonight at Proudspire Manor," I told her. "We're going to drink hot chocolate and sing songs and roast chestnuts until I'm absolutely sure you're good and sick of it." She smiled brilliantly and hugged me again, hitting me in the throat with one of her pauldrons. Then she turned and skipped away, her armor jingling with every movement.
"Happy New Life Day, Jordis," I whispered, rubbing my hand against my throat where she had hit me. "Happy New Life Day to me too."
What Jordis had said stuck with me, and it made me come to some important decisions that I had been putting off for a while. I couldn't just leave things as they were forever, letting others make decisions for me. I had given up too much-done too many things-to not live my own life the way I wanted to live it. I realized I needed to talk to Dagny.
I just hoped it wouldn't be for the last time.
"I see you're back," Dagny said when I found her again, her tone cold and unconcerned. I tried to discern whether or not she had any real feeling for me under it, but her mask was back in place and as impervious as ever.
Impetuously, I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. She started suddenly, looking around at the assembled courtiers as though I had reached out and goosed her nipple in public.
"What are you doing?" she hissed. "That's not proper! We're not even engaged yet!"
"I don't care about proper," I told her, shaking my head. "I care about you a lot, Dagny, daughter of Balgruuf-maybe even love you. But that's not enough." She seemed even more shocked at this, her mask cracking and her eyes becoming almost wild.
"What are you saying, Aventus?" she asked me.
"I'm saying that I can't stay with someone who thinks I'm not good enough for her," I said plainly. She started to say something, but I held up a hand to interrupt her. "Every time I'm with you, you make me feel like I'm less than you because I'm not highborn. I think you genuinely care about me too-otherwise you wouldn't have done so much for me. But I can't live like that."
"Aventus…" she said, her eyes steeling and her mouth setting into a pout.
"Let me finish," I insisted. "I'm not going to shame you by abandoning you at a fancy party, but after today, I'm done. If you can't start treating me as an equal, don't treat me like anything at all. I care about you too much to want to hurt you-but I've got too much self-respect to let you keep hurting me."
"Why now?" she asked, her voice remarkably composed. "Why would you say this to me now?"
"It's New Life Day," I finally said after a few moments. "It's a time for new beginnings." I took her hand gently and kissed the back of her fingers. "I'd like a new beginning with you, if you can give me that." I let her hand go and stepped back, putting a proper distance between us. "If not… I understand."
Dagny curled her hand up to her chest and paused, seeming to think about it. Just then, the music picked back up, and she held her hand out to me.
"Dance with me," she said. It wasn't a promise.
"Of course, my lady," I replied. It wasn't a demand.
We danced, we chatted, and we mingled, until dark came early, as darkness comes in midwinter. All of it was proper as could be, and as empty. When the time finally came to go home, we rode back to Solitude in silence, both of us consumed with our thoughts.
Was this how a relationship ended, I wondered? Not with a bang, but with a whimper?
I wanted to take it all back, to say that I'd do anything Dagny wanted if only she'd stay with me, but my self-respect-and my stubborn pride-won out in the end. I knew that ultimately, I couldn't stay with someone who couldn't respect me. The burden was on her now, and I tried to reach some kind of peace with the idea that she wouldn't choose me in the end.
After all, she had her own pride to think of, the pride of a princess. And what was a lowly commoner boy to that?
I couldn't help but believe that it was nothing at all, no matter what Jordis might think.
...to be continued...