Outlanders (Morrowind Crossover) Options

[WellTemperedClavier]

Episode 1: Outlanders

Chapter 1

Daria decided that she hated Sera Ondryn's smile. Most of the Dunmer she'd seen preferred to scowl, and if a typical Dunmer smile was anything like Ondryn's, that was probably for the best. He kept it on as he introduced himself in a soft and tremulous voice, the solicitous expression made all the creepier by the fixed gaze in his red eyes. Standing at the head of his adobe classroom, its deep and dusty shadows somehow made darker by the flickering light of a half-dozen tallow candles, Ondryn smiled even wider. The students, seated at long wooden benches, writing slates on their laps, remained stone-faced.

"Outlander," he said. "It's kind of a scary word, isn't it? Hearing it makes you feel like you don't belong."

No one had called Daria an outlander to her face, but she'd heard the word plenty of times already. Not, she reminded herself, that she particularly cared what anyone here thought. The boors in her old hometown had been one kind of stupid, and the ones here were a different kind. But stupid never changed.

Daria grimaced. The thick lenses of her spectacles seemed to warp her shadowy surroundings, blurring and stretching the faces of her peers, all outlanders like her except for one Dunmer girl at her side. Daria took the glasses off for a moment and blinked a few times to re-orient her vision.

"But I'm here to help you feel like you belong. Great House Hlaalu is a friend to the Empire, and we believe there's a place for everyone, even outlanders! Outlander just means you're from somewhere outside Morrowind. It doesn't mean that we don't like you."

Daria checked herself. She was the daughter of an Imperial legal advocate and a Nord merchant. Reasonably well-connected. However xenophobic the Dunmer might be, the Empire still ruled them. What the hell.

She put her glasses back on and raised her hand. Ondryn's eyes caught the motion.

"Yes, uh... Doria?"

"Daria," she corrected. "If being an outlander doesn't mean you're a bad person, why is it always used as an insult?"

Ondryn gulped. "Well, uh... look, just let me get through this part, and we can have some discussions later. Anyway, everyone here is welcome..."

Daria narrowed her eyes. She'd hoped to offend him, at least, but Ondryn seemed too squishy to get angry at anyone. This would be a boring session.

The Dunmer girl leaned in.

"Don't expect him to answer any questions. He's got the speech memorized. Just enjoy the nice man's soothing voice."

"How am I supposed to follow him if he's so disingenuous?" Daria wondered again why this Dunmer was with the other foreigners.

"I can fill you in later. I've done this three times."

*********

The weather worsened as Daria stepped out of the Drenlyn Academy compound. Sheets of rain fell from the thick and curdled gray sky, smashing into the adobe roofs and turning the Odai River into a churning soup. Porters packed the streets, bent under the weight of crates and bulging sacks.

Suffused through the rain was the thick and sour smell of the local cuisine. It all came from kwama. Kwama bugs and kwama eggs: smashed into paste, drained and served as soup, roasted in their shells, or served with bitter hackle-lo leaf. But always sour, like bad cheese left out for too long in the sun. The smell seeped into every mud-brick apartment and paving stone in Balmora, and she was pretty sure the rest of Morrowind smelled the same way.

She'd never wanted a loaf of bread so badly in her life.

A gaunt Dunmer farmer walked past, his gray hands clasping the reins of his two-legged pack lizard. Daria was pretty sure the creature was called a guar. Or maybe a kagouti? Its beady lizard eyes studied her for a moment, Daria's pink skin and round face perhaps a novel sight for such a creature.

The Dunmer girl from the orientation stood next to the lantern, her crimson eyes observing Daria. Her gray skin marked her as one of the natives, but her clothes, a shabby red coat and black trousers, were pure Imperial. She wore her black hair in a bob cut, the ends on the ragged side. Her first name, Janieta, shortened to Jane, was also Cyrodiilic.

"What's your story?" Daria asked. "You're not an outlander, so why were you in the orientation?"

"Don't let the looks fool you," Jane said. "I'm as outlandish as you are."

"But you're a Dunmer."

"Yes, I'm Dunmer and an outlander." Her angular face hardened for a moment, but then relaxed. "Just being Dunmer isn't enough for Morrowind. You have to be born here, too. I spent my first five years in the Imperial City."

"Five years away from Morrowind and you're an outcast?"

"Oh, well, those were five critical years. I mean, if you don't get potty trained in the traditional Dunmer way, you'll never fit in."

"Just so long as you are potty trained."

Jane smirked. "Come on, I know a place where they occasionally serve some outlander drinks for people like us. If nothing else, we can dry out for a bit."

Daria tightened her green woolen robe and followed Jane west along the river. Her mother had told her to try and make friends. Jane hadn't done anything to annoy her yet, so that was a start.

"What's that you're wearing over your eyes?" Jane asked, her smoky voice pushed to the limit to be heard over the crowd.

"They're called glasses. I'm basically blind without them."

And basically blind with them considering the rain. She raised a hand to keep the ungainly device in place. It didn't take much for the things to slip off the bridge of her nose. Her family had money, but not to the point where they could casually buy a replacement pair, especially not out here.

"Huh, I've never seen anything like that. Is it a Dwemer artifact? I've heard you can buy those if you're Imperial."

"No, it was made in Anvil by a specialist. If you want to judge me for them, go ahead. I'm used to it."

"Nah, they're a good look. Not often I see something genuinely new in Balmora."

*********

True to Jane's word, the Lucky Lockup was dry.

Daria and Jane sat at a table next to a support post and beneath a reassuringly familiar metal lantern. Faded tapestries covered the rough adobe walls to ward off the northern chill. The smoky air buzzed with murmurs in a dozen different languages. A free Argonian woman sat on a rug in a shadowed corner, her emerald-scaled hands gently beating a pair of hand drums with a tempo as steady and smooth as a spring rain back home.

The publican sold Cyrodiilic brandy, but not at a price either of them could afford. Jane instead ordered a bottle of a local drink called shein, along with a loaf of bread and a bowl of sour-smelling scrib jelly.

"The food isn't bad, but it does take some time to get used to it," Jane said as she dipped her bread into the mashed insect guts.

Her stomach churning, Daria sipped the shein from her earthenware mug. The drink wasn't bad, actually: bitter with a faintly sweet aftertaste. Outside the building, the castle-sized silt strider standing at port let out its long and mournful wail, redolent of the ash-swept land it called home. The whole cornerclub seemed to shake at the noise. At least Daria didn't flinch that time. She must be getting used to things.

"I don't get it, Jane. You've been at the academy for years. Why do you keep retaking the orientation?"

"It's a good way to network. No self-respecting Hlaalu noble will hire an outlander like me to paint them, but there are plenty of upstart outlander merchants with kids at Drenlyn who'd just love to get their images captured by a native artist."

"A native?" Daria raised her eyebrows.

"As far as they know. I paint them in the usual Imperial style so they don't get all uncomfortable. Make the angles a little sharper. That way, it seems suitably native and Morrowind-y. Then they hang it up in their homes and no one's the wiser."

Daria nodded. Life in Morrowind was a lot more complicated than she'd been led to expect.

"My family sent me here to be trained as a savant," Daria said. "In the hopes that someday I can use my knowledge to help rich families avoid taxes and skirt the law."

Jane's lips turned up in a hard smile. "Then you'll have plenty of opportunities here in Balmora."

"From what you say, I'll have to stick with outlander families like mine."

"Oh, not at all."

Daria frowned. "Didn't you just say that Hlaalu nobles wouldn't hire outlanders?"

"They won't hire misfit Dunmer like me. They think I'm a traitor for not being born in Morrowind. You, on the other hand, are Imperial—"

"I'm only half," Daria corrected. "My father's a Nord."

"Trust me, it's all the same to them. The point is, the Hlaalu hate the Empire but love to ingratiate themselves with the Empire's rich. Or failing that, the Empire's moderately prosperous."

"So, in Morrowind, corruption and favoritism are rampant, the nobles stack the deck against everyone else, and life is all around miserable?"

"Yup!"

"Nice to know some things are the same the world over."

Jane took a bite of bread. No longer able to deny her own hunger, Daria tore off a piece. Bracing herself, she stared at the bowl of scrib jelly, gray and glistening in the lantern light. She took her bread, scooped up a big chunk of the stuff, and jammed it into her mouth before she could chicken out.

A roiling shock ran from the tip of her tongue to the pit of her stomach the moment she tasted the jelly, thick and viscous and oh-so-sour. She forced her teeth to close on the bread, the familiar texture fighting a losing battle with the slick alien condiment. Something crunched, maybe a tail segment or a leg. She didn't want to know.

Somehow, she choked it down. She swallowed and then grabbed her cup, raising it to her mouth for a deep gulp. The harsh taste of fermented comberry obliterated the jelly's noxious flavor.

Jane gave a little cheer and clapped. "You did it! Trust me, it gets easier."

"How do you people eat this stuff?" Daria wondered. She drank some more shein.

"We people?" Janieta raised an eyebrow. "Far from me to defend Morrowind, but when bugs are all you have, you get creative with what you consider edible. This stuff will fill you up."

"I guess it was pretty hearty," Daria said, feeling a little abashed. She didn't like the Imperials who looked down on the Mer, Beastfolk, and other races of Men. She was half-Nord herself. Dunmer society was awful—she knew they still enslaved Khajiit and Argonians in the remote parts of Morrowind—but it wasn't like the Empire forced them to stop.

It was just that nothing about Morrowind felt like home.

"The Lucky Lockup's not a bad place, as Balmora goes," Jane said, her eyes settling on a party of nervous gold-skinned Altmer, their narrow shoulders draped by mantles of still-fluttering dragonfly wings.

"I haven't seen many other places here, so I couldn't say."

"The Lockup gets lot of visitors. Caravaners from the South Gate, pilgrims spilling out from the strider port, Bitter Coast fishermen coming up the Odai. I sit here and I get ideas, and then I paint them. Or sketch them, at least."

Studying the transient population, Daria could see what Jane meant. The place felt like everywhere.

And also nowhere.

*********

The rain stopped by the time they left the cornerclub. Dark clouds fled at the rays of the setting sun, red as blood in the west. The air was clean, at least, no longer heavy with that doused campfire smell that usually hung over Balmora.

"I should probably get home," Daria said. "It was nice meeting you."

"Sure."

"Do you live around here?"

"My brother and I rent an apartment in Labor Town, not far from the Odai."

"Okay. I'm in the Commercial District. My mother—"

Daria paused as a familiar, high-pitched voice made itself heard over the chatter of the late afternoon traffic.

"... pastel yellow is so in right now! Everyone in Cyrodiil is wearing it."

The sight of Quinn's red hair, so bright and bold in the drab streets, confirmed it.

"Everything all right?" Jane asked.

"See that redhead over there?"

"The overdressed one?"

"Yeah. That's my sister," Daria said. "Overdressing is what she does."

Quinn walked with a quartet of Dunmer girls her age, all of them garbed in robes stitched with elaborate abstract patterns. They listened intently as Quinn neared the door of the cornerclub next to the Lucky Lockup.

"You said she's your sister?" Jane's voice tightened.

"Yes—"

"Daria, just trust me on this."

Jane bolted toward Quinn. The younger Morgendorffer didn't notice until Jane jammed her booted feet into a muddy puddle right next to her. Daria distinctly saw her new friend kick the filthy water right onto Quinn's gown before running off toward the riverbank crowd. The resulting screech could probably be heard throughout the entire province.

Quinn looked down at her ruined yellow dress and then at her friends. And then her eyes locked on Daria.

"You! This is your doing, isn't it!"

Daria blinked, too confused to react.

"Come, Lady Morgendorffer," said one of the Dunmer girls. "We can get you cleaned up inside—"

"No! I can't be seen like this! I have to go! You can blame my... my cousin over there!"

Quinn stormed off with her face buried in her hands, her wailing audible at some distance, until the silt strider repeated its lonely call. The Dunmer girls who'd been walking with her simply shrugged and walked away.

"What the hell was that?" Daria uttered, still trying to parse what had happened. She hurried toward the river market. Her supposed friend was still there, tightly gripping the fabric of her thin red coat.

"What was that all about?" Daria demanded. "Normally, I'm thrilled when someone takes Quinn down a peg, but what did she do to you?"

Jane exhaled. "Nothing. I was doing that for her, not to her."

Daria hesitated. She sensed this was serious. "Okay, I'm listening. But I don't know if I can forgive you for temporarily rousing my long-dormant big sister instinct."

"Your sister was about to step into the Council Club. That's not a place for outlanders."

"So what? It's too special for some dirty Imperial to visit?" Maybe Jane wasn't as open-minded as she'd seemed.

"No, you aren't listening! That's where the Cammona Tong meet. They. Do. Not. Like. Outlanders. People disappear there, Daria. And whoever those friends of Quinn's were? They knew that. You need to tell her not to spend time with them."

Daria shivered in spite of her thick robe. Only now did she realize how far from Cyrodiil she really was.

"Thank you. Is Quinn in danger?"

"Maybe. Now that I think about it, the Cammona Tong would've probably just thrown her out. Even they wouldn't be crazy enough to kill some Imperial teenager who wandered in. But you do not want to cross the people in the Council Club. Being an Imperial—or acting like one—won't always be enough to save your hide out here."

Jane had been smart about it, Daria realized. Quinn would have never listened to a warning from a total stranger, not when she was trying to impress her friends. Thus, best to make it look like an accident or a prank.

"I'd better get home and talk to her. Will I see you at school tomorrow?" Daria asked.

"That's the plan. Take care."

Daria hurried up the street, wondering how she was going to fix the damage.

*********

Daria returned home to find her mother, Helen, seated at the office, still poring over a stack of documents. Mom had spared no effort in ensuring that her base of operations befitted a legal advocate trained in the time-honored Imperial ways. Tomes and scrolls filled the polished rosewood bookshelves, and not so much as a speck of dust dared touch the flagstone floor. Candles burned in the small marble shrine to Julianos embedded onto the far wall, the god's symbol of a triangle over an open scroll recreated in a mosaic above a basin filled with scented water.

Mom did not look up from her work. Her scribe, a young Breton woman named Marianne, smiled and nodded at Daria's entry.

"I need to talk to my mother," Daria said quietly.

"How important is this, Daria?" Mom replied, still not looking up. "I'm up to my ears in cases from the local merchants! Honestly, I don't know why they think Imperial law will protect them from bad local investments!"

"Potentially very important."

That time, Mom paid attention. She knew the tone of voice.

"Marianne, you can head home for the day. It's almost night, anyway," Mom said.

Once Marianne left, Daria explained the situation. Her mother's face turned white as soon as she mentioned the Cammona Tong.

"Quinn!" Mom shouted. "Get down here this instant!"

Even Quinn's footsteps sounded sulky as she descended the staircase. "What's wrong?"

"Were you at the Council Club today?" Mom demanded.

Quinn's expression changed to one of calculating innocence. "Of course not, mother! I was studying—"

"I'm serious!"

She pouted. "Okay, fine! I was! But I made a really nice friend named Synda, and she wanted to show me around!"

"I don't want you spending time with this Synda!"

"Why not?"

"Listen to me, Quinn. There are some very bad people in Balmora, and they run the Council Club. It's a dangerous place for people like us."

"What? The only danger I was in was from that weird girl who was with Daria! She completely ruined my dress!"

"Jane did you a favor," Daria said.

Mom reached out and grasped Quinn's shoulders. "I need you to understand something: we are very, very far away from the emperor's light right now. Balmora is mostly a safe place, but there are dangers for people like us. I forbid you from going to strange cornerclubs."

"But mom! This is all some prank that Daria—"

"Daria, that goes for you as well."

Daria blinked. "What did I do?"

"Nothing, but restricting you both is impartial, and it's common sense. Girls your age have no business being in sketchy taverns. Maybe when you're married and established professionals, but not now!"

Quinn drew back, eyes already filling with her on-call tears. "I hope you know you've ruined my social life!"

She spun around on her heels and stormed up the stairs. Mom leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples.

"Where's Dad?" Daria asked. "He should know about this too."

"Late night for him; they're having a networking session in High Town." She sighed. "I did not think living here would be so difficult."

"Wait, hold on. Why can't I go to cornerclubs?" Daria asked. "It's not like Jane's going to lure me into some seedy den and rob me. Well, she won't rob me at any rate."

"Like I said, it's not a good look. And as foreigners, we are under scrutiny. I don't want the Dunmer to think Imperial girls are a bunch of cavorting hedonists. If you absolutely must go somewhere, I'll allow you and Quinn to visit Eight Plates, so long as you have an adult chaperone."

Daria crossed her arms. "I see. And I suppose you'd be giving me the same talk if I were your son?"

"I don't make the rules, Daria. I just try and live by them."

"Yes, because following rules is the best way to get them changed."

"I'm not in the mood right now. What's important is that you keep an eye on your sister."

Sighing, Daria nodded. "I will."

Musical Closer - Everlong, by Foo Fighters



This post has been edited by WellTemperedClavier: Nov 27 2024, 01:45 AM

[WellTemperedClavier]

Chapter 3

Daria spent the last night before the trip with Jane and Trent in their apartment. Bellies warm with drinks from the South Wall Cornerclub, they gathered on the balcony while Red Mountain puffed smoke into the hot night air. Leaning against the balcony wall, Daria felt the world, with all its possibilities, open around her.

The three of them awoke early and stood at Balmora's gate as dawn's light fumed in the east. The ground shook as a silt strider disembarked, its towering and segmented legs slow but sure as they walked along the Odai's banks.

"Last chance to make sure we got everything we need," Trent said, his eyes on the horizon. "Food and water?"

"Check," Jane said. She crouched on the ground, packs open around her.

"Cash?"

"Not as much as I'd like, but check."

"Potions?"

"We've got three healing, three stamina, and a couple curative."

Trent scratched his head. "Sounds good to me. Let's go."

"Wait! We also have bedrolls, toiletries, walking sticks—"

"Whatever, Jane. I've got a good feeling about this trip. I trust my gut."

"Your gut might end up outside your body if we don't prepare well." Jane sighed and continued checking.

Daria smiled at Trent's feigned indifference. A guy like him had to know everything there was about excursions, but he didn't let it worry him. Jane didn't travel much, so she was probably almost as nervous as Daria.

"Okay, looks like we Llayns have everything we need. Daria?" Jane asked.

Daria had already tallied up her personal supplies. The sword rested in a scabbard attached to her belt. She'd spent plenty of time practicing under Dad's tutelage. Also in her pack was a pouch of spices and wood shavings from the Gold Coast, destined to be burned on Pelagiad's altar. A pilgrimage within a pilgrimage.

"I'm ready," she said, leaning on the rugged walking stick she'd brought.

They made good time through the rocky highlands around Balmora. By noon, they passed the squat keep of Moonmoth Legion Fort, the structure looking like a stone monster vainly trying to hide in the foothills. Jokes and comments kept them entertained, Daria and Jane doing the heavy lifting while Trent occasionally chimed in, a relaxed smile on his handsome face.

Maybe, Daria thought, this was the life meant for her. Something free from the vagaries of guild or company, where she followed her own beliefs with those she trusted most. As her skinny legs struggled up the hillsides, all the Empire felt within her grasp.

They passed through a gap in the jagged ridge east of Balmora and reached the desolation of the Foyada Mamea. Daria knew it by reputation as one of the enormous lava-forged gullies, called foyadas, stretching forth like stony arteries from Red Mountain's heart. She gaped at the sheer bleakness, the route black and desolate for miles in both directions. Petrified trees clung to the foyada's sides, their stiff and scraggly limbs like the fingers of burned corpses. The ground possessed a smooth and glassy quality. Molten rock had melted away the hard edges.

She shivered in spite of the heat. Probably didn't hurt to get another reminder that Vvardenfell was essentially one enormous volcano, quiet but still very much alive. Imperial geologists classified it as being of low risk for eruption.

Low risk didn't mean no risk.

The party stayed silent as it traversed the open-air lava tube. On occasion, they heard the clicking sounds of squat black beetles crawling across the rocky ground. Going downhill should've been easy, but sharp pebbles kept finding their way into Daria's boots. Simply keeping her balance on the tilted ground posed another challenge, and each awkward step sent another rush of tiny stones tumbling down the slopes. Ash entered her lungs and provoked coughing fits. Weariness made the sword on her belt weigh as much as an anvil.

The late afternoon sun's steady heat brutalized them further. Daria felt like her thick hair was cooking her scalp. Sweat poured down her face and plastered the ash and grime against her skin. Worst of all, her glasses threatened to slip down her nose. Losing another pair was not an option, so she held her glasses with one hand and gripped her walking stick with the other. Jane and Trent were already some distance ahead, tiny figures in the foyada's enormity. Jane stopped and looked back, then said something to Trent, who also stopped. Daria gritted her teeth. A hike shouldn't be so overwhelming.

"You doing okay, Daria?" Jane asked as Daria got closer, her query echoing down the igneous gully.

"I'm fine."

"You're looking pretty red. Think you got some sunburn there."

Daria stopped, putting all her weight on the walking stick as sweat dripped down her neck. She let her long hair fall over her face, not wanting Trent to see how much of a mess she looked.

"Lousy half-Nordic heritage," Daria muttered.

Jane chuckled. "Hey, look on the bright side. If we're ever in Skyrim, you'll be prancing through the snow while me and Trent get frostbite."

"Frostbite doesn't sound that bad right now," Daria said.

"Hey, Trent, maybe we should call it a day? It's getting late."

"I'm cool with that," Trent said. "We got plenty of time anyway. You're doing pretty good for an Imperial kid, Daria."

Daria's blush rivaled her sunburn at the comment. Gods, she did look like a little kid stumbling along after her elders. She was half tempted to hike up to Red Mountain and throw herself in the first lava vent.

"Yeah, you're doing fine," Jane said, her tone consoling. "Don't sweat it."

"Too late."

*********

They made camp in a small copse of dead trees, the wood long since turned to stone. Daria still coughed in the dry and dusty air, but the evening was at least cooler. The setting sun crept beneath the ridge, its dying light rendering the world in red and black. She sat a mere foot away from Trent, who played a slow and contemplative tune on his lute, the notes warbling against the glassy ridges.

Firewood had been too heavy to carry, and there was nothing in the foyada to burn, but Daria and Jane had pooled their resources to buy a few cheap tallow candles. The first one burned steady as they dined on cold scrib jerkey and lukewarm water. Daria resisted the urge to dump the waterskin's contents on her filthy face. She'd never wanted a bath so badly.

"When we get back," Daria said, "remind me to tell Quinn there's a big cosmetics fair in Foyada Mamea."

"Ooh, I hear soot is really in this year," Jane said. She yawned a moment later. "I think I'm going to turn in. You guys can stay up for a bit. Get some private time." She winked at Daria, who scowled in return. Jane laughed before getting up and walking over to their packs.

Shadows deepened as sunset gave way to evening. Both moons rose in the sky, the bloated red orb of Masser and the smaller shining sphere of Secunda. Daria squinted for a better look at the moons’ pock-marked surfaces the way she used to as a child, wondering if she’d spot the forts and cities built there by Imperials past and—allegedly—still ruled by the Empire today. Like always, she failed to find any hints of long-lost Tatterdemalion or Gallimaufry.

A sudden gust of wind struck, and she gasped in shock. The temperature had plummeted. Instinctively, she scooted closer to Trent. He played on, his music attended only by Daria and the star-crowned moons far above.

"Uh, you play really well," Daria said, hearing her awkwardness in her echo.

"Thanks."

She hoped he'd put an arm around her. For warmth, if nothing else. Instead, he kept playing.

"Why won't you go to the shrine with Jane?" Daria asked.

"'Cause I'm going to play at the fair."

"Oh, right," Daria said, embarrassed at having forgotten.

"Shrines aren't my thing. Way I see it, the gods will do whatever they want. And I'm okay with that. But I'm not going to thank them for it."

"That sounds sensible."

"Exactly," Trent said.

Daria looked up at the night sky. "Jane's one of the most perceptive people I've ever met. So why can't she see through the Tribunal's lies? Most of the people in the temple think she's as much of a foreigner as I am."

Trent was silent for a bit. "It's from when we were kids. We lost the house pretty soon after Mom and Dad moved back to the Imperial City. They said they'd take care of it, but they never did. I was older, so I tried to make coin any way I could. Only way I could help Jane was making sure she stayed in the Balmora temple. Knew she'd get food and a warm bed there, at least."

Daria nodded, thinking guiltily of her own fortunate upbringing.

"Anyway," Trent continued, "she must've liked some of what the priests said."

"I guess I can see that. It's just hard to believe she'd be so blinkered. Any idiot can see that the so-called Tribunal gods are mortals wearing more cosmetics than even my sister would feel comfortable with."

"Uh, careful where you say that," Trent said, glancing around. "Anyway, Janey's not hurting anyone. If believing in something helps you get through the day, I say go for it."

"What if believing in a certain something involves denying facts and logic? Or propping up a corrupt institution?"

Trent shrugged and tuned his lute. Angular tattoos stretched across the left side of his face, like some kind of ancient script.

"What do those tattoos mean? I know a lot of Dunmer use them to show where they were born, and to whom, but I wouldn't be able to recognize any symbols."

"Heh. I got these a long time ago, back when I was still trying to fit in. I know better now."

"So what do they say?" Daria pressed.

"That I'm a poor outlander who wants to look cool." He laughed for a bit, his attempt ending in a hoarse choking fit. "You can't get any kind of tattoo you want in Morrowind. Not if you're a Dunmer, anyway. When I got inked, the tattooist told me what I could show. He didn't give me many choices."

Trent shook his head. "If I ever leave Morrowind for good, I'm going to get some really crazy tattoos that say exactly what I want them to say."

Daria tried to imagine what that might be. "Uh, yeah. That'd be cool." Inwardly, she winced at the thought. Pain didn't bother him, though. How could it, after what he'd been through? Trent would probably smile through the process, make some joke to the artist, and move on when it was done, always free, always sure. She sighed.

"Is it okay if I listen to you play?" Exhaustion beckoned her to sleep, and the cold air numbed her limbs, but she wanted to stay out a little longer. Get a little closer to Trent—to this man who rose above the absurdities around him.

"Fine by me. Just make sure you get enough sleep. We'll be going over easier ground tomorrow, but there's still a lot of walking to do."

"I'll be okay," Daria said. She inched closer so that only a hair's breadth separated them. She wanted to grab him so badly but held herself back. It wouldn't be appropriate. Would seem weird. She was a pale reflection of her sister at the best of times, and was bedraggled and filthy to boot. But she'd stay so that if Trent changed his mind, he could hold her close.

And even if he didn't, she could at least hear his music.

In the silence of Red Mountain's shadow, Trent played on.

*********

Exhausted in her bedroll, Jane had been about to drift off to sleep when she heard Daria and Trent starting to talk. She smiled. It was so fun to put Daria on the spot. She liked seeing the change that came over her friend whenever Trent came by. That maybe, for all her smarts and otherworldly confidence, Daria was still a mortal girl with a crush.

"Jane's one of the most perceptive people I've ever met," Daria said, her monotone voice amplified by the foyada.

That was nice to hear.

"So why can't she see through the Tribunal's lies? Most of the people in the temple think she's as much of a foreigner as I am."

The words hit straight to the core. And the longer Jane listened, the more it hurt. The Tribunal gods were the gods of her people. Her gods. Maybe they hadn't given her much, but they'd never run away. When she was alone in her apartment, hungry and tired, she'd say the same prayers her ancestors uttered and feel their warmth for a fleeting moment. Why couldn't Daria understand that?

Blinking back tears, Jane tried to sleep.

Musical Closer - Can't Take My Eyes Off of You, cover by Lauryn Hill, original by Frankie Valli

This post has been edited by WellTemperedClavier: Jan 25 2025, 07:34 AM