Lorgren opened the door to the Riverwood Trader, Therion following behind him. Camilla looked up from her seat next to the hearth, giving the uniformed Imperial a lingering, appreciative look. The young, blonde smiled shyly at her, earning him a scowl from Camilla's brother, Lucan, as he looked up from stocking the counter.
"Welcome to the Riverwood Trader- Dragonborn!" Lucan exclaimed as he spotted Therion, his eyes wide.
Camilla gasped, leaping from her chair.
"What- Oh," Therion said, examining himself for the first time. He had given little thought to his appearance, driven solely by the desire to get supplies and bathe. His chest and tattered clothing were both smeared unpleasantly with dried blood. The other soldier's 'death warmed over' comment suddenly seemed almost generous, as he examined his half-healed cuts and bruises. "Pardon my state of undress. I'm in the market for new clothing, as you can see."
"Of course…" Lucan said, looking dazed as he nodded and went through his shelves.
Camilla stared openly at Therion's body in mute abhorrence.
"This is dreadful," she finally said after recovering from her initial shock. "It was the Thalmor, wasn't it?"
Therion nodded.
"This is too much!" Camilla shouted, looking enraged. "We left Cyrodiil after they ruined everything, and now they're determined to do the same to Skyrim!"
Lucan looked at his sister nervously. "Camilla…" he said gently, trying to calm her, knowing her self-preservation instincts went out the window when she became righteously angry. Therion accurately guessed her brother was picturing Camilla grabbing a sword twice her size and running off to the nearest Thalmor embassy.
Therion walked over to Camilla, gently taking her chin in his hand and lifting her eyes to meet his.
"Nothing will ruin Skyrim," he said softly. "On my honor."
Camilla looked convinced by his words, her ire subsiding, and a faint blush forming on her cheeks.
Beyond confessing to Farengar that his honor, and his word, were dubious at best, few people were aware that he swore oaths indiscriminately. Also, that he employed allurement and seduction whenever possible to achieve his own ends... although results varied with Nords.
Therion removed his hand and turned to Lucan, who merely looked irritated with the flirtatious Dragonborn. Laying out a set of clothing on the counter, Lucan paused, noticing Therion's lack of coin purse.
Setting his Nightingale armor on the counter, Therion turned the chest piece inside out and moved his thumb across one of the seams. From a hidden pocket in the lining, invisible to Lucan's eyes even as he watched the mer reach into it, he produced a sapphire and set it between them.
"I'll take soap, towels, and any food you can spare. Tasting Orgnar's Skeever pot pie once was one time too many," Therion said sincerely. In retrospect, it had been the worst drunken decision of his life, and that included stealing goats with the Daedric Prince of debauchery.
"I have some bread and dried meats," Lucan said, gathering his order. "Say, any thoughts on the moot? The country is rumbling with excitement over it."
Therion had completely forgotten about the moot and said as much. Broadly speaking, he had no interest in the convening of Skyrim's Jarls to select the next High King or High Queen of Skyrim. The meeting would be so much pageantry, followed by the selection of Elisif. Therion knew the only thing that would change in Skyrim from her appointment, was the type of crown she wore on her head. Whatever her short comings, Therion appreciated that she was a known quantity. Whatever the Empire wanted, she would do. The only trick then, was telling the Empire what to tell her.
"Elisif has been traveling Skyrim, garnering support from the Jarls," Lucan went on, enjoying sharing a tidbit of gossip. "She's currently in Markarth, discussing ways of bolstering the city's defenses against the Forsworn with Jarl Igmund."
Therion suppressed the desire to curl his lip in disgust at the mention of Igmund, feeling his detest for the man. Instead he gave Lucan an intrigued 'hmm'. Skyrim would never have had a civil war in the first place, if the Jarl of Markarth had possessed a spine.
"Maybe the moot will choose the Dragonborn?" Lorgren wondered aloud, speaking for the first time since he entered the shop.
Camilla, Lucan, and Therion gave him mirrored looks of disbelief.
Lorgren stared back at them in confusion.
"Ah, no," Therion explained, "Skyrim chooses its succession from the monarchy. And if there is no one available from the monarchy, then from the jarls. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but the moot would sooner set fire to the country than let a mer rule it."
"Oh…" Lorgren said, a little surprised. "Even though you're…?"
"I'm mer, Lorgren," he said, echoing his earlier words to the young soldier.
"But if you were a Nord?" Lorgren asked curiously.
Therion laughed silently at his complete lack of tact.
"Then I would probably be considerably less attractive and I would have been dead ages ago," he said with a wink, avoiding the question.
Therion bid Lucan and Camilla farewell and left.
He hurried to the White River, aching to feel the cool water and the peace he knew it would bring. At the bank, he impatiently stripped out of his repulsive, ragged clothing as he ran, leaping gratefully into the clean water. He swam out into the center of the river and, with a crack of magic from his right hand, let himself sink beneath the surface. Closing his eyes, he surrendered to the cooling relief, only moving occasionally to resist the pull of the current. With a relaxed sigh, he ran his hands through his hair, shaking his head until his hair dampened and floated in the tide. He lay blissfully on the bottom of the river bed for a minute, looking up at the rippling surface of the water, until he suspected his water breathing spell was close to done. Setting his feet against the sand, he pushed himself away from the river bed, swimming back to the surface. As he emerged into the crisp, night air, he saw Lorgren charging into the water, still in his armor.
Treading water, Therion chuckled at the soldier standing waist deep in the river.
"I thought you were drowning!" Lorgren called out to him, looking relieved.
"So you decided to sink to the bottom and drown with me in your armor. How thoughtful of you!" Therion answered with friendly sarcasm. "Toss me the soap."
Lorgren returned to the shore and dug through Therion's belongings, obediently tossing him the bar. His aim was off, and it went wide to the right. Therion stretched out his hand, and Lorgren saw it stop in mid air, then float over the the mer's open hand.
"That's amazing!" Lorgren called. "I always heard mer were really good with magic. I wish I could do that. Maybe I could use it to stop arrows?"
"You're from Cyrodiil, and you're impressed by telekinesis?" Therion asked in surprise, moving closer so they wouldn't have to shout back and forth while he scrubbed his body and hair clean.
"I'm from western Cyrodiil," Lorgren said, sitting down cross legged at the edge of the river. "Not many Imperials from the west can cast magic. At least, none that I ever met. They say it's because we're descended from Nords."
"Well, mer aren't born knowing magic. Altmer learn basic destruction, restoration, and illusion magic as children. And as for telekinesis," he said, rinsing the soap from his hair, "if you can see an arrow coming at you, it's probably too late."
"Guess I'm not missing out then," Lorgren said, selecting a flat stone and throwing it across the river, watching it skip several times before sinking.
Therion emerged from the water, retrieving his Nightingale armor, and set to work scrubbing it clean in the river.
"Couldn't you heal those cuts, with your magic?" Lorgren asked, eyeing the jagged marks on Therion's chest.
"You are full of questions, aren't you?" Therion asked. There seemed to be no end to the number of things the boy asked about.
"Yep!" Lorgren exclaimed with a grin, as if he heard the comment often.
"There are limits to what a body can take," Therion explained dispassionately, tossing aside the washed armor as he emerged from the river and dried himself with a towel. "And even if I could absorb any more restoration magic, I saw stars just trying to levitate that bar of soap. So I probably ought to avoid casting magic. But, old habits," he said with a shrug.
Lorgren quietly skipped rocks on the river and Therion enjoyed the quiet. The peace lasted less than a minute.
"How old are you?" Lorgren asked.
Therion looked heavenward, silently asking Auriel to grant him patience.
"Why do you wish to know?" he replied with disdain, slipping on his new small clothes and trousers.
"Well, if you were human, I'd say you were, mmm, early to mid twenties? And some people say elves live to be a thousand!" Lorgren said. "So, how do you guys age, is my question, I guess."
"I'm cutting you off," Therion said, buttoning his shirt. "You get one last question, and then I'm no longer obligated to answer anything. Are you sure you want to use your question on mer aging?"
Lorgren thought for a moment and then nodded.
"I'm one hundred thirty four. If you raised a mer and a man side by side, they would reach puberty and adult life with no difference. Once a mer reaches adulthood, their body ages dramatically slower to what you're accustomed to. You could liken your decades of life to our centuries, but only in changes of outward appearance. Mentally we develop the same as men, which is to say, a thirty year old mer is every bit as mature, as a thirty year old man, and he is treated as such. As for living to a thousand, it happens as rarely as a human lives to a hundred. It isn't impossible, but it's unlikely. Living to eight hundred is a grand achievement. Disease, war, violence, and just plain bad luck are likely to strike a mer dead long before old age has the opportunity."
Therion shook the water from his armor and tossed it over his shoulder.
"Speaking of age," Therion said as they began their walk back to the inn. "I have a difficult time believing you're old enough to be in the Imperial Legion. Did you sneak your way into the army?"
"I'm just short," Lorgren protested, folding his arms and scowling. "It's completely unfair. Everyone thinks I'm a kid."
"Maybe if you didn't sulk like one," Therion began with a smile when his ears suddenly perked up. "Move," he said, pushing Lorgren aside as he stepped back from the dirt road. A rider tore around the corner a moment later, pushing their horse at full speed.
The rider dismounted outside the inn, quickly nailed a paper to the door, and then was off again. Lorgren ran over to investigate the document, Therion following quickly behind him.
"There's been a Forsworn attack on Markarth!" Lorgren read aloud, eyes wide. "The Jarl of Solitude, Lady Elisif the Fair, is dead."