Chapter Text
The Vilemyr Inn was mostly empty on the late Sundas night. There were no travelers passing through; no pilgrims on their way up the 7,000 Steps. Klimmek sat alone at a far off table, drowning his lovesickness in a brackish mug bottom of Black-Briar Mead. The inn's keepers, Wilhelm and Lynly, reviewed the latest stock brought in from Riften and Sarethi Farm. A faint, yet persistent banging noise came in rhythmic bursts from one of the occupied rooms. Everyone outside of it played at deafness.
The innkeep squinted over the new labels from the Black-Briar shipment, and grunted at how much style a single letter could and should possess. He debated asking Lynly for a second opinion over whether a 'B' was indeed a 'B', but a shout from the not-too-quiet room could no longer be ignored.
“By the Nine! Tongue, you milk-drinker. Use your tongue—oh!”
Klimmek's forehead slammed against the tabletop. Meanwhile, Wilhelm sighed and left Lynly to ponder the calligraphy on her own. Making his way to the door of the room, he tried his best to keep his otherwise inactive imagination, well, inactive.
“Keep it down in there!” He warned, a fist rapping hard against the wood. “Or use a pillow or something!” He heard the movement and grunting inside come to an abrupt halt, then continue, albeit slower, more muted, a moment or so later. Only somewhat satisfied and mostly chagrined, Wilhelm returned to Lynly, who still struggled with the label.
Inside of the room, Temba Wide-Arm ground her arse against the nose and mouth of her apprentice, who lay on his back upon the fur covers of the bed. His mistress's eyes were closed, her hands gripping at the ends of her skirts, which she kept hiked up as she crouched over the Bosmer's head. Back and forth, her hips, more robust than a cluster of Dwarven pistons, subjected poor Gwilin to their nightly ritual of face-riding.
Temba's breathing had grown shallow, her brow long-lined with beads of sweat; the warmth and ardor always turned her senseless, a beast in heat. When she came at last, she did so without care for the soul beneath her, and plopped down hard upon a pointy nose and chin. Swearing, she rolled off and punched fury into Gwilin’s shoulder.
“M-mind yourself,” the moans had left her throat raw, and she swallowed before aiming another hammer blow for the elf’s chest. “You should have pushed me off.”
Gwilin winced as he sat up, brow creasing through a film of sweat. “I'm sorry, Miss Temba. But I did last time, and you boxed my ears for it, remember?”
Temba cracked her knuckles, balling her hands together so she’d resist the urge to box those very ears again. Why couldn't he ever fight back? Grow a spine for once. There was always something to apologize for, an excuse for her abuse. It roiled her insides more than a wheel of century old Eidar cheese and served to aggravate the hot geyser of what had become her personality.
She flared her nostrils, threw him a towel, and looked away. “Clean your face. You’re a mess.”
“Yes, Miss Temba.”
The silence afterwards was more of a ceasefire than a true peace; their heavy breaths thickened the room's hot air with more humidity. Hearthfire couldn’t come soon enough for Temba. She hated the heat that these wretched middle months brought to Ivarstead. And no, Gwilin, it wasn't just because of her Nord blood. She would have resented summer even were she the tallest, fairest, pompous-arsed High Elf in all of Tamriel.
“Would you like something to drink, Miss Temba? Mead, perhaps? Wilhelm said earlier that he—”
Gwilin didn't get the chance to finish as her hand wrapped around his throat. She was a whole head taller than him, and the years of hard labor had given her the strength to match. She needed no elaboration.
Surely he must have understood. It was something she had taught, and by now thought, him to accept; she relieved herself with pleasure, he received satisfaction from whatever lustful obsession he had with licking her arse. She hoped, at least, that lust was the only reasoning. The idea that he was doing it for some sort of devoted love froze her veins, and she immediately let him go.
Gwilin fell and grasped at his collar. Their eyes met for an instant. Then he stood, cleared his throat: “Good night, Miss Temba.”
He turned to leave, but her whistle drew him back around. His look of confusion melted once she tapped her right cheek. He wiped furiously at a wet streak he had missed before departing.
Alone in the room, her knees buckled, her head an iron weight. Thoughts fought for shapes in a fog of blissful fatigue. This post-release haze frustrated to no end, its origins confounding her since she shared her bedroll with a girl named Laila, now Jarl Law-Giver of Riften, twenty-five years ago. She chalked the minute delirium up to the gods cursing her. That was always a comforting excuse.
She sat down on the bed, blowing an auburn lock of hair from her eyes. Perhaps she just needed a good fuck, though she had precious little experience in that arena, and her apprentice certainly wasn't going to provide it. For a moment, she theorized ways to crush Gwilin’s pelvis beneath hers. After a few moments, she decided that it was pointless to even imagine.
Slowly then she stretched those long and powerful arms that had earned her the name she was loath to hear, depending on who deigned to use it.
Wide-Arm.
A moniker coined back when she wore the purple cloak of the Rift; assigned to Ivarstead as a loan for a few rotations when the young Narfi fell upon her, a bear hot on his heels. She hadn't time to draw her axe, and wrestled with the beast until help arrived, arms and the strength of Kyne keeping claws longer than daggers from rending her to pieces.
She hailed from Shor's Stone, but Ivarstead's gratitude—along with Wilhelm's endless mead—kept her around after the violent introduction. Very few could claim to have beaten a bear in hand-to-hand; by gods, she could have been a hero, that fearsome beast the prelude of her glorious and fabled tale. Temba the Terrifying.
Alas, a sawmill built with her saved wages and a room at the inn was all that fate had wrought her.
And then there it was, the wetness of self-pity burning her eyes. She cursed it, cursed herself; ran fingers through her hair and shut her lips tight so that her scream was strangled down to a pitiful peep. No need for Wilhelm to think she hadn’t heard his first warning.
Swallowing tears, Temba dried her face and dug teeth into her cheek. The tang of blood leaked onto her tongue, so she bit down a tad softer. Do something tomorrow. Leave this place. Give the sawmill to Gwilin. Do what she ought to have done decades ago. Her eyes found the rusty iron axe she kept beneath the bed. Its hilt, wrapped in leather, peeked out from the shadows. She picked it up, gave it a swing or two. Muscle memory snapped back to limbs that had grown accustomed to lifting logs and chopping wood.
She would leave, this time for real. Her eyelids crashed shut; darkness took her.
“Another batch of logs completely ruined. I swear, these bears have it out for me.”
“I hardly think the bears are clever enough to hold a grudge against you, Miss Temba.”
“When I want your opinion, Gwilin, I’ll ask for it. Otherwise, shut your mouth.”
Temba planted her fists on her hips as she looked over the ravaged pile of logs hauled in by the cart. The dray driver shrugged.
“These were the best we could find, miss. Send us any farther north and we’ll have to request permission from Windhelm. Eastmarch has need of lumber too.”
“The Rift is sworn to the true Sons of Skyrim,” Temba snapped, bark louder than her spirit. “Shields and bows are needed here just as much as up north.”
“That being said, we can’t just waltz into the Palace of Kings and ask Ulfric to put the war on hold for the business of firewood, can we?”
Temba glared at the dray driver, then turned away, leaving Gwilin to settle the fee. The yard baked. Work wouldn’t wait just because her limbs ached for a stool. She headed up to the mill. One log sat in the bay. She hefted it into the cradle with ease.
As she watched the saw bite through the wood, she folded her arms and fell into familiar resentments; the bear problem and the subsequent culling she would commit, were she able to leave Gwilin alone with the mill for a single day. Then came thoughts of the proper dressing down she would give Jarl Laila Law-Giver.
"Sloth-Giver," Temba snorted.
She nursed the bitterness like a bruise. Countless letters to the jarl requesting more guards and hunters to counter the bear threat. Countless years waiting for an old friend to show she still remembered. None answered.
“If I could do it all again…” she muttered out loud, surprising herself enough to shake from the reverie. Her eyes blinked, and her lips stayed parted.
‘If I could do it all again…’
“Are you all right, Miss Temba?”
Her focus snapped to Gwilin, who had finished with the cart driver and made his way up the ramp. She stared down at him like he was a cave bear; he stared back like a rabbit.
Gwilin shrank back from the shift in her eyes, voice thin and reedy as he repeated: “M-miss Temba?”
Without a word she advanced. As prey does, he fled. A logging hook flew past his head, thudding into a post at the entryway of Kilmmek’s house, where Gwilin ducked in and slammed the door behind him.
Temba stormed into the Vilemyr and went straight for her room. She tore off her apron, hoisted her skirt up and folded it into her belt. After slipping into a pair of hose, she began looking for her axe, which she retrieved from beneath the bed and tucked into her belt. Time to find her bow and quiver. It had been a year since she last hunted, but she hadn’t meant to neglect her archery for as long as she did. Sloth and routine had bigger walls than any stronghold.
She pulled the ashen-wood bow out from behind the wardrobe and plucked at the rawhide string. It was frayed, and would need to be replaced. She would do it later. The quiver came next, with a score of iron arrows still in good enough condition to be used. She slung the bow over her shoulder and tied the quiver down with a leather strap looped around her thigh.
When it seemed at last she was ready, she took a deep breath and gave the room she had called home for the past twenty years a final look. She would never come back; she swore to herself then and there.
Temba left the room and closed the door, where she met Wilhelm, who blanched when he saw the state of her gear and dress.
“Hold there, Temba. Where are you going girl?”
“Away. Tell Gwilin that the mill is his. I have nothing left to teach him.”
“You’re leaving?”
Wilhelm blinked; Temba could barely believe it herself. But there was no time; her blood was up, breath fast. When was the last time she had felt that?
“I am. It’s time.” Then, without knowing why, she kissed the innkeep. She felt nothing for the man, not that way, but she would have kissed a mudcrab; it was just something that she needed to do.
Wilhelm followed her to the door and held it open, stunned and giddy. “Well… good luck, Wide-Arm.”
She gave him a crooked, intense smirk. Smiling had never come easy.
Halfway out on the road from Ivarstead, Temba felt eyes upon her. She scanned the treeline, spotting movements in the foliage; too slow for winds, too large for rabbits. In her younger years, she would have scoffed at herself. Paranoia was for elves and milk-drinkers. But now she was acutely aware of how vulnerable she was; a woman on her own, naught but a rusty war axe and a bow strung with frayed gut to protect her, braving the Rift’s wilderness, where giant spiders and wolves patrolled the roads more than the Jarl’s men.
The rush was bound to die, she knew, reluctance slowing her steps. Soon it was just her, the road, and the second-guessing. She kept a hand close to her hip, fingers drumming against the axe hilt.
Was it a fool’s mistake, brought on by rash judgment, or lack thereof? Leaving the safety and comfort of a settlement—why? She hadn’t the faintest idea what she would do, where she would go. She was walking to Riften, but only because that was the only place she could think of. Divines knew she couldn’t go back to Shor’s Stone, if she could even recognize it after so many years.
The light bled out of the sky, turning it purple as night rose. Temba’s suspicion of being watched became a certainty. She unslung her bow and nocked an arrow.
“Is someone there?”
There was a rustling from a nearby shrubbery, and Temba let her arrow loose. A sharp cry sounded as a slight figure emerged from the bushes and hopped around before falling flat on his face.
Temba rushed forward, another arrow already nocked and aimed, and turned him over with her boot.
“Gwilin?”
“Hi, Miss Temba. Still have the eye of an eagle—to pin a Wood Elf hiding in greenery! It’s… it’s…” the bravado cracked quickly, his eyes shutting tight from the pain.
Temba, far from feeling merciful, leveled the arrow against his forehead.
“Why were you following me? The mill is yours now—didn’t Wilhelm tell you?”
“I… couldn’t… let you go… alone, Miss Temba…” Gwilin seethed, hands clutching at his left thigh where the arrow lay embedded. “The wilds are dangerous… Bandits. Soldiers. Necromancers…”
“And bears and trolls and frostbite spiders that can wrap me up like a rabbit and suck my bones dry, yes. So what makes you think you’d be of any use to me, little elf?” She pressed the arrowhead into his chest, just enough to pierce flesh. “Go home, and don’t come looking for me, or next time I won’t aim so low.”
She reached for the arrow in his leg and snapped the shaft below the fletching. Wood splintered; the iron head ground deeper into flesh.
“Shit.”
Temba searched her belt for a healing draught; an old one, brewed five years prior by a novice alchemist who had come through Ivarstead with Gwilin and cursed her with the burden of a new apprentice. Her belt was empty. Had she left the potion back at the Vilmeyr? She must have! That along with her pack; had she really sprinted out without her pack?
Her gut clenched as the mistakes stacked, each stupidly obvious in hindsight but too late now to fix. Why hadn’t she waited before firing her arrow? Why hadn’t she prepared better for the journey? Why hadn’t she a better plan?
And why couldn’t she just leave this fool of an elf to bleed out on the cobbles of the old road—he was never of any great use to her.
Gwilin’s groans snapped her back. Time to work. She bound the wound with a strip of linen that she tore from her skirt; how her hands stayed steady, she didn't know, but she was grateful.
When she tied the last knot her arms dripped red. Gwilin lay silent, unmoving. Heart frozen, Temba feared the worst until she saw the faint rise and fall of his chest.
She raked bloody fingers through sweat-plastered hair. Blood was the least of her worries.
“Just had to follow me, didn't you? You’ll die of infection with those iron shards in you, and I’m of half a mind to let it happen.” She jabbed his good leg with her boot and spat into the dust. “Kyne spare me from burdensome elves, just this once.”
She hooked both arms under his and hauled him off the road, boots plowing twin furrows. The night was pitch and they had been exposed for long enough. No cave, no windbreak. She chose a patch of earth under a knot of low shrubs. Meager cover, but better than the open road.
She set Gwilin down, checked his leg’s binding, and kept a sullen watch.
Temba awoke to the smell of cooking meat and, still halfway in dream, wondered why her bedroom door was open.
“That hare, Wilhelm? Set it down on the table…”
“It is hare, Miss Temba! You’ve a sharp nose, do you know that?”
Her eyes blinked open. Aspen branches swayed overhead, bleeding sunlight onto her face. A sharp jolt of pain arced through her back as she sat up too quickly. Hissing, she peered about and tried to get her bearings.
Gwilin was crouched near a roaring fire, chewing on a haunch while he turned a hare on a spit. He had also laid out two sleeping rolls, but she’d clearly tossed out of hers—she’d woken on the dirt. She saw two packs neatly set out nearby. One was her own.
Temba licked dry lips and started to rise, but soreness gave her pause. Gwilin noticed and rushed to attend to her.
“Oh—please don’t move, Miss Temba! You don’t want to upset your back.” He set a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off.
“Don’t touch me,” she snarled. How had she allowed herself to be so vulnerable, with only the elf as guard? “You’re walking. How?”
Gwilin laughed, honest, pure. Infuriating. “Why, magic of course! When I came to, I cast a simple healing spell to the wound, and…” he pulled up a legging, exposing a scrawny thigh with just a small mark hinting at any previous injury. “See? Good as new!”
Magic. Of course. She held the same opinion on the art as most of her kinsmen, and distrusted anything arcane. Still, she couldn’t help feel a twinge of regret at having not learned a basic Restoration incantation when she had been younger; as her old captain used to say, Skyrim could always use more healers.
She got to her feet with a grunt, careful not to aggravate her back, and searched around for her weapons. Panic flared.
“Over there,” Gwilin was one step ahead. He pointed out the bow and axe nearby the fire. “I took them off of you since you were sleeping oddly on the bow. I didn’t want you to crack it.”
Temba grew more resentful of the Bosmer’s resourcefulness; thanking him would brand her useless, and she'd be damned if that was a truth to acknowledge.
“You touched me while I slept? Left me exposed while you set up this piss poor camp?” Her foot kicked the spit, sending the hare falling into the flames below. “Fool of an elf. I should shear your ears and feed them to the wolves.”
To his credit, Gwilin only retreated a step as she stormed him. He earned a black eye for his bravery. He reeled, then steadied, gasping:
“Please, Miss Temba! I only wanted to make sure you were all right. I meant and mean no disrespect, but…”
“But what?”
“Well, you’ve been out of practice for a while,” the elf’s eyes shifted, his throat bobbed. “And it would be irresponsible of me, as your apprentice—”
“You’re not my apprentice anymore.”
“Yes, but still, Miss Temba…” his shoulders lifted meekly. “I know you need help. You left all of your things back in your room, even your pack. You only took weapons, see?” He met her gaze. “I wanted to catch up with you to give you some food and supplies, but then I had to draw away a highwayman who had been stalking you. It’s dangerous for someone who travels alone, especially if she doesn’t know how to live in the woods. Not like I do.” he let loose a shaky breath. “I am going with you, whether you like it or not. So kill me if you have to, because only death will send me back.”
And Temba almost did. The sheer gall of the elf had made her eye twitch, and for a moment a haze overcame her vision. Had she her axe in hand, she probably would have buried it in his skull just out of impulse. Perhaps that’s why he had taken it off. She grabbed his arm and lifted him like a limp fish.
“I’m going to count to three. If you aren’t scrambling down that road back to Ivarstead by the time I say ‘one’, I’m making my own Green Pact and roasting you alive.”
His voice wavered. “No, Miss Temba. I won’t and you won’t.”
Her hand squeezed his arm, then let go. He fell to the ground in a heap, clutched his bicep, then scurried over to the fire where the hare had charred to an unrecognizable black clump.
Picking it up, he cracked off a piece. He popped it into his mouth and grimaced before forcing an enthusiastic: “Still tastes great!”
Temba stared; had he just defied her? And had she let him? Slowly, she walked over to where her bow lay. Gwilin watched as she examined the new bowstring he had fashioned for her.
“Your old one was frayed,” he said. "It felt right to replace it.”
“It felt right to replace it, huh?”
“Yes, Miss Temba.”
She slung the bow over her shoulder and looked down at the hare.
“It’s no use. Start packing up; we’ll find something else on the way.”
His eyes lit up as she pointed to her axe. Smiling, he picked it up and handed it to her—then immediately rolled out of the way as she swung to take his head off.
He remained crouched, she standing, both frozen in stance as they waited for the other to react. Then, with an easy indifference, Temba put the axe in her belt and turned to get her pack.
Gwilin’s breath was heavy. She would have killed him. Now she acted like it was a normal morning.
He had never held ill will toward his mistress. Not through years of barked orders and bloody bruises. But every soul has its brink, and he felt himself drawing close to his.
Meanwhile Temba waited at the side of the road, a hand on her hip as she looked for any sign of life coming up or down the path. It was past daybreak and she wanted to move quickly. Getting to Riften was imperative; maybe there she could rid herself of her unwanted companion.
She had lived in the city before, a few years as a youth when she was training for the guard. Back then Laila Law-Giver was just Laila; aloof and absent-minded, thrusted into power after her father’s death. They had been friends, or at least left off as such. Laila had been fond enough to promise that much.
Not fond enough to write back though, Temba noted with a bitter kick of a stone. She watched it skip off the road and into a bush. Behind her, Gwilin joined with both packs strapped to his back. He didn’t even look tired. She’d love to leave him behind. But the elf had a point—she was green out here. And if nothing else, bait was useful.
She started to move, but realized after a minute that she was alone. She turned about and stalked back. “What’s the matter? Having second thoughts?”
Gwilin hesitated, then asked: “Miss Temba… were you going to kill me?”
Temba narrowed her eyes, huffed. “Yes. I was. But you moved out of the way and now it’s over with. Can we get a move on?”
He was silent for a long time, then said quietly: “Please don’t do that again.”
“Fine,” she crossed her arms and furrowed her brow. “Now shut up and walk.”
Notes:
Comments and kudos are appreciated! I plan on posting a chapter a day! I would love thoughts and ideas on how y'all think the story is going so far!!!
Chapter 2: Welcome Home
Chapter Text
“Have to pay the toll to enter Riften, Miss. Sorry to say.”
“Toll? What toll? Let me through, damn you. What in Oblivion do you think you’re trying to pull?”
While Temba and the senior gate guard went back-and-forth, Gwilin turned to the second guard, his usual cheer doing what it did best. Distracting. Deflecting. Disarming.
“Please, ma’am, Miss Temba and I have traveled a long way,” he stretched his arms out to opposite ends, emphasizing the length of the journey. “And we’re tired, cold, and in dreadful need of a place to stay. Now, I know you must get this everyday. Folks who want to skip out on paying the toll…”
Meanwhile, Temba had her finger inches from the first guard’s face. "The Purple Cloaks employ thieves and scoundrels now? Oh, how far you've fallen. I’m not some poor fool that you can just rob and swindle. I watched these same gates when you were still a droplet in your pa’s—”
Temba broke off as she felt Gwilin’s hand on her shoulder.
“It’s fine, Miss Temba. See? She’s opening it now.” Sure enough, the second guard was in the process of unlocking the gates. The elf had his charms.
The first guard crossed his arms with a grunt while they passed. Temba feigned a lunge, making him flinch.
“Milk-drinker,” she sneered before shouldering through the gate.
Their destination was Plankside, a business district thrown together over the canals, balanced on half-rotten docks. A board-walk mirage over black water, it was host to taverns, stalls, and the city’s grand market. Ten years gone and nothing had changed. This was good for Temba. Memory had fewer hooks that way.
A sheet of clouds made the midday overcast. A fetid fog clung to everything. It blanketed beggars on the bridges, obscured bribes exchanged in shadowed alleys, and dulled the shimmer of fish beneath the water.
Temba’s nose twitched as she caught a whiff of the stench of the water below, and looked down over the edge of a wooden railing. A skeever’s floating corpse bobbed beneath. She curled her lip and spat.
“Now I remember why I left this shithole,” she muttered to herself.
Gwilin took it as an invitation to conversation. “Oh, it isn’t that bad, Miss Temba. There’s a certain roguish charm about the place, don’t you think?”
She ignored him until they reached the warped silhouette of the Bee and Barb. The tavern was two stories of crooked timber and old planks barely holding together. The upper floor bulged over the street, drunk on its own weight and a battered sign creaked above the entrance.
“We’ll need rooms,” Temba said, not looking at him. “Rent us two nights. And don’t come looking for me. I’ll find you.”
She left Gwilin outside the tavern doors and marched on. Navigating the afternoon crowds proved little trouble for her: almost High Elf tall but with Nord bulk, she parted flocks of hawkers and passersby, leaving the cluttered streets of Plankside behind and pushing into Dryside, Riften’s more residential quarter, settled well away from Lake Honrich’s stink.
She walked past gated manses, tidy gardens, and the Temple of Mara without pause. Her focus was fixed on the looming and austere structure of Mistveil Keep, seat of the Jarl’s power. Her boots thudded along the cobbles. The steps came on their own. She didn’t realize where she was until she collided with a guard at the keep doors. Blinking, Temba looked down at the guard.
"You blind, lass? What’s your business here?”
Her eyes narrowed as she tried to discern the guard’s features beneath his purple hood. All she could see was a shock of red hair. He was maybe ten years her junior, too young to have been someone she had served with. The two gate guards had been green as well. No point in pulling rank with the new bloods. They wouldn’t know her name.
“I come from Ivarstead. I’m—I was the miller there. Temba,” she sucked in a breath, suppressing a wince and muttering: “Wide-Arm.”
Suddenly, heat rushed to her ears and her face hardened into a scowl. Acting the flustered girl in front of some whelp who had probably never left the city’s walls? She closed in, forcing him a step backwards, and glowered:
“Listen here, you little halfwit. I’ve known Jarl Laila Law-Giver since we were just girls sparring in the training yard. I served three years on the outlier patrols, and one inside this keep as a personal guard to Jarl Halfdan himself. So unless you want to spend the rest of your shift picking grit out of your teeth, you won’t call me ‘lass’ again, and you certainly won’t keep me from walking through those doors. Understood?”
The guard paled and moved aside without a word. Temba noticed he followed her into the keep; she could appreciate the detail. Standard protocol. Perhaps ‘halfwit’ had been a tad excessive.
The warmth of Mistveil Keep was almost stifling as she stepped into the large hall. Servants hurried to and fro and courtiers lounged around, laughing, drinking, and sucking on pheasant bones.
For a moment she considered turning and walking out. She had stepped through the doors. That was good enough.
Then her eyes found the Jarl, sitting high at the hall’s far end. The Jarl’s eyes were already on her, watching. Indeed, the hall itself was witness to her; eyes on her clothes, her hair, her weariness. She knew the weight of being seen and not liked for it.
She felt her knees twitching towards the doorway, but the guard at her side nudged her and walked forwards. She followed a heartbeat later.
Flanking the throne were two figures; a statuesque Bosmer woman on the right and a burly Nord in elven armor on the left. Jarl Laila Law-Giver’s posture was relaxed as she gazed down upon the newcomer. Her lips drew tight in a distracted frown. Slow then, recognition dawned. Temba stared at her feet, hands plucking at her dress fabric as she faced Laila’s awakened scrutiny. The guard bowed and announced:
“This woman requested an audience with you, my Jarl, if you would have her.”
Long ago, she would have known proper decorum and procedure when in the presence of her jarl, but the pressure had turned her dumb. She had to say something. That much, at least, hadn’t changed. It wouldn’t be right of her station to make the jarl address her first.
She dipped into a curtsy, holding the sides of her skirt and bowing her head. “My Jarl. I am your humble servant, Temba Wide-Arm. I have traveled from Ivarstead to—”
Laila raised a hand.
Temba stopped mid-sentence, staring as the Jarl stood and descended the steps. Her breath caught. Why was she so nervous? Why did she feel so small, when she stood half a head taller than most Nord men?
At that moment she missed the village. The Vilemyr. The mill. Even Gwilin.
She didn’t know what she expected when Laila reached her, but it certainly wasn’t the snuggest—and only—hug she had received since she was a young girl.
"Temba,” Laila murmured into her shoulder. “It's been… too long.”
The court rustled with whispers. Temba stood frozen in it, old breath catching in new silence.
“What brings you home, old friend?”
Her voice was welcoming, affectionate. It was sweet enough to stun. But Temba was a grown woman, going into her fourth decade on Nirn. They weren’t spring chicks anymore, and Laila would have to answer some questions.
“Did you receive the letters, my Jarl? I’m sure a few dozen of them had to have made it to the walls. Or do messengers have to pay the visitor’s toll too?”
Joy flickered, then Laila’s mouth worked, empty of words. Temba bit her lip hard enough to cut. She had come out too hot, and the spite clung to the air around her. She returned her gaze to the floor, awaiting rough hands on her shoulders to seize and drag her off to the dungeons.
They never came.
“Oh, Temba. I’m so sorry. I had meant to get to those—”
Temba’s hands were shaking so badly she hid them behind her skirts; easy access for the guards behind her to restrain if need be.
“For nearly twenty years, you couldn’t ‘get to ’ a single one of my letters? All the requests for more patrols along the roads, more hunting licenses, regular culls and cave excavation—none of them?”
Laila stammered for a response, momentarily shaken. Her brow creased, her tone defensive. “I—Temba, surely you understand that maintaining the prosperity and security of the Rift is…” she looked back to her throne, where the Bosmer bureaucrat was staring daggers down at Ivarstead’s miller. “A demanding task. Bandits on the roads, Khajiit caravans dodging inspections, poor harvests year after year. And that was before the war…”
Temba snorted, drawing appalled gasps from the hall’s housecarls and thanes. She cleared her throat to save face for both her and Laila, and internally reminded herself that she was pushing her luck,
“Ivarstead has given more than its fair share to the war, especially lumber, my Jarl. There’ll be a shortage for a while, as I’ve had to range out farther and farther for undamaged trees. Such effort costs labor, and labor costs septims.”
A hollow, shrill laugh rang out behind her. The court murmured. Laila’s gaze shifted past Temba, and she turned to follow it.
The noise had come from the hall’s great table, where two black-haired nobles sat; an older, imperious woman and her younger mirror, no doubt her daughter. It only took a few seconds for recognition to hit, and Temba bit back the urge to spit.
Maven Black-Briar’s lips were pressed into a knife-thin smile, provoking a flinch from all in the court. Temba remembered the Maven from her youth—pompous and cruel. Woe to any unfortunate old sap who fell in love with the young heiress, for his demise would surely soon follow, and his fortunes then secured by the Black-Briar estate.
The matriarch had pulled her family’s name out of ruin after her father’s failed ventures, building her empire one scheme at a time. When the first ever cartload of Black-Briar mead pulled into Ivarstead ten years ago, Temba lamented that the brew didn’t taste of poison as befitted its name.
Whatever bitter respect she might have held was bleeding out fast as Maven’s eyes met hers. The two women stared across the court. Neither blinking, neither smiling. Breath left the hall.
At last Maven cleared her throat and looked to the Jarl; they exchanged imperceptible nods before Laila addressed Temba again:
“You tell me what Ivarstead needs, and I shall grant it, old friend.”
Next morning she hit the smithies. Laila’s line of credit opened every door. Temba stayed with what she knew: a trimmed Stormcloak cuirass, hood of leather under steel scales, hide breeches, matching jerkin. A new war-axe, a Colovian recurve bow.
She still couldn’t shake Gwilin, so she loaded him like a pack-mule. He was the market’s comic spectacle, hauling a sack of equipment as big as he was while Temba skipped from stall to stall.
When dusk settled and her outfitting was done, the Bee and the Barb awaited. They claimed the table nearest the back door; laughter reached them only as muffled bursts. There was a lively crowd already gathered for Harvest’s End. Temba wished she could enjoy herself alone, but the elf had insisted on staying with her, and murder in a tavern was something only a Black-Briar could get away with.
They sat in silence, him hopeful, her sullen, watching as the crowds sang and danced. Gwilin’s foot kept time under the table, heel jittering for release. She’d be damned if he tried to drag her along. After an hour, a portly. balding man, sloshing ale on his fine clothes, stumbled over to them.
“Hey! Why aren’t you two joining the fun? There’s free mead, food, and board for afterwards, if you catch my meaning. Big old sabrecat like you needs a tumble.” The man grabbed for her chest. Temba repaid him with a kick to the groin.
As the man crawled away, Gwilin saw his chance, emboldened by their visitor.
“How about it, Miss Temba? Just a jig or two won’t hurt, right?”
She shot him a glare that said everything and nothing—but then relented a small nod.
“You go. I’m tired.” She sensed a protest, and repeated herself. “I am tired.”
Gwilin hesitated, then stood and disappeared into the crowd.
Not long after, a shadow settled beside her, claiming the space she meant to keep empty. Red hair and a purple cloak edged her periphery. She kept her eyes on the heart of the tavern, flaring her nostrils. Her new company, however, had other ideas.
“Funny thing about festivals… there’s always one sulk in the corner spoiling the view,” a long pause. “You’re just a sore to look at, is what I’m saying. Everyone’s enjoying themselves, and here you are.”
Temba drew a slow, steady breath. She said nothing.
“You’ve got guts, though. Wish I could kick a Snow-Shod in the unmentionables and get away with it. That’s something you don’t see in the city anymore.”
Temba gritted her teeth. “What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything. Except to give you this,” he flicked a septim onto the table. “Pay that forward, aye lass? Riften tradition.”
Temba bristled at the word ‘lass.’ It was the guard who let her into Mistveil. She whipped around, ready to remind him her cohort had started that tradition when he was still but a sprout, but he had disappeared back into the throng.
The septim remained on the table. She glared at it, then searched around for the red-haired guard. Seeing no sign of him, she snatched the piece in a huff. The coin danced across her knuckles as she weighed its fate.
“Need a drink?”
Temba looked up. A barmaid with a pale throat scar waited, tray balanced on one hip.
“Mhm? Oh…” she hesitated, eyed her two empty mugs. “Ale, thank you.”
The girl turned to leave, but Temba called out at the last moment,
“Here—for your troubles.”
The septim arced and caught the candlelight. The girl snatched it mid-air, then tucked it inside her bodice without missing a stride.
Notes:
Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos always appreciated! Will post chapter 3 tomorrow!
Chapter 3: Valkin
Summary:
Temba's actions have stirred up some dander amongst Riften's elite. The guard she met at Mistveil now has an uncomfortable task to take care of; or he can just pass it off to the next unfortunate sap, and who better than a poor and abused Wood Elf?
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
From the hearth’s shadow, Guard-Corporal Valkin watched the hour pass by. Harvest’s End thundered behind him, a far-off drum. At the distant table sat Temba, already “Laila’s Wide-Arm” in the barracks gossip.
He’d given her the coin as a friendly gesture, for having laid out Vulwulf Snow-Shod with a single kick that likely rearranged his lineage. A good thing his sons were fully grown. Valkin had almost laughed; some people just invited trouble.
A nudge at his elbow. He turned to see Kjar, a junior guard whose lip was busted from an earlier run-in with a lamppost. “Captain wants you. Barracks. Now.”
Valkin nodded, draining the last of his mead. He cast one final glance at Temba. She was staring into her mug, oblivious to the swirling life around her. But there was an awareness, a coil in her shoulders. He’d seen it in the veterans of the Great War, the ones who’d lived long enough to know that peace was just the breath between battles.
The chill night air hit him as he stepped out of the tavern’s warmth. The fog, ever-present, swirled around the flickering streetlamps, muffling the distant sounds of revelry. The city felt different tonight, charged. Or perhaps it was just him. He made his way through the familiar labyrinth of wooden walkways and narrow alleys towards the guard barracks, a squat building tucked into the side against Mistveil Keep’s courtyard.
Inside, the barracks buzzed with a low energy. Off-duty personnel gambled with dice in one corner, their laughter punctuated by curses. Others cleaned their gear. Captain Thoz, a man whose stern expression was fixed like stone, sat at his scarred wooden desk, a ledger open before him. He didn’t look up as Valkin entered.
“Corporal. You took your time.” Thoz’s voice was gravel.
“Festivities, Captain. Hard to navigate.”
Thoz finally raised his eyes, cold and grey. “Festivities that apparently involved one of Jarl Laila’s friends assaulting a Snow-Shod in a public tavern.”
Valkin kept his face neutral. “I heard something to that effect, Captain.”
“You heard.” Thoz leaned back, his chair creaking in protest. “Vulwulf has been at the Keep, breathing fire down the Jarl’s neck for the past hour. Maven’s been right beside him, fanning the flames.”
Valkin understood. Maven’s quiet suggestions often carried more weight than a Jarl’s decree. “What’s the order, Captain?”
“The order,” Thoz said, voice dropping, “is that this Wide-Arm needs to understand Riften’s rules. Even for friends of the Jarl. Especially for friends of the Jarl who make powerful enemies on their first day.” He paused, his gaze unwavering. “Vulwulf wants an apology. A public one. And compensation. He’s not asking for her head, not yet. But he wants her humbled.”
Valkin felt his chest tighten. “And if she refuses?”
“Then the City Guard will be forced to mediate more formally. Arrest for assault. Disturbing the peace. We’ll find something that sticks. Laila can’t protect her from everything, not if Maven decides she’s more trouble than she’s worth.” Thoz pushed a small, sealed scroll across the desk. “You spoke with her; brought her into the Keep. You’ll deliver the message. Tomorrow morning. Be persuasive, Valkin. For everyone’s sake.”
Valkin picked up the scroll. It felt heavier than its size suggested. “Persuasive.”
“Her little elf friend, the one she’s dragging around. He seems more amenable. Perhaps a word with him first might smooth the path. The Jarl doesn’t want this to escalate. Neither do I. But the Snow-Shods have deep roots in this city, and deeper pockets. And Maven…” Thoz let the name hang in the air. “Just get it done.”
Valkin nodded, tucking the scroll into his belt. “Understood, Captain.”
The music of the Bee and Barb spilled out across Plankside, a wave of boisterous lute strings, stomping feet, and slurred, joyful singing that fought against Riften’s late-night gloom. Gwilin, however, was a small, bright spark within it. Temba’s dismissal had been emancipation in disguise, and he wasn’t going to pass it by.
For a glorious hour, he was himself, a lightness in his step and a surprising nimbleness when it came to the swirling, chaotic dances of the holiday. He’d even managed a few shy exchanges with a smiling Breton lass whose hair smelled of lavender, sharing a cup of watered-down Honningbrew mead that tasted like nectar after days of road dust and fear. Nothing serious, of course. No one compared to his mistress.
He tapped his foot to a particularly jaunty tune, a grin splitting his face as he watched a burly Nord attempting a jig that involved more flailing than any sort of finesse. The air was thick with the smell of roasted meat, woodsmoke, and the slightly cloying sweetness of cheap wine. He even dared to hum along, his voice thin but enthusiastic.
This is what life could be, he thought in a brief, shining moment of uncomplicated joy. He almost forgot the weight of Temba’s moods, the constant threat of her temper. Almost.
A shadow fell over him, longer and denser than those cast by the flickering torches. The music seemed to dim, the laughter around him suddenly distant. Gwilin looked up. His smile faltered.
It was a guard, clad in a scaled vest and bronze chainmail. He held a tankard of ale in one hand, but his eyes weren’t festive.
“Master Elf,” the guard’s voice was a low rumble, cutting through the din as he introduced himself. “Valkin, of the City Guard. A word, please.” It wasn’t a request.
Gwilin’s newfound cheer evaporated. His stomach did a nervous flip. “Is… is something wrong, sir?” he stammered, instinctively glancing towards the table where Temba had last been sitting. She was no longer there.
Valkin’s gaze followed his, then returned, sharp and assessing. “That depends on your mistress. And on you.” He gestured with his tankard towards a slightly quieter alcove near the tavern’s outer wall, where the shadows clung thicker. “Let’s not spoil the party for everyone else.”
Gwilin’s feet felt like lead, but he followed. The vibrant energy of the festival seemed to recede with every step, replaced by the familiar chill of apprehension. He clutched his own half-empty cup, little use as it was with his throat closed up.
Once in the relative seclusion of the alcove, Valkin leaned against the damp stone wall, the torchlight catching the hard planes of his face. “I've met your mistress before. Led her into Mistveil today to meet the jarl. She has a way of making an impression.”
“Miss Temba… she’s just… she has strong opinions,” Gwilin offered weakly, knowing how inadequate it sounded.
“Strong enough to rearrange Vulwulf Snow-Shod’s future prospects, it seems,” Valkin said, his tone devoid of judgment, yet heavy with implication. “They’re not a family accustomed to public embarrassment. Or physical assault, for that matter.”
Gwilin winced. He’d heard the thud, seen the man curl up. He’d hoped it would just blow over. Foolish, he knew. This was Riften. Nothing ever just blew over. “It was… he was being rude, sir. Very disrespectful.”
“Disrespect often has a price, elf. Sometimes it’s paid in coin, sometimes in blood, sometimes in dignity.” Valkin took a slow sip of his ale. “Vulwulf is demanding the latter. A public apology from your mistress. And compensation for his discomfort.”
Gwilin’s heart sank. Apology? Temba? The two words seemed to belong to different languages. “Miss Temba doesn’t… apologize easily.”
“So I gather.” A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched Valkin’s lips, gone as quickly as it appeared. “Captain Thoz, my superior, is keen to see this matter resolved quietly. Jarl Laila, for all her fondness for your mistress, cannot shield her indefinitely if a family as influential as the Snow-Shods decides to press the issue.”
“What… what will happen if she doesn’t?” Gwilin’s voice barely rose above a whisper.
Valkin pushed himself off the wall, his gaze direct. “Then the City Guard will be forced to take action. Assault, disturbing the peace. It won’t be pleasant. For her. Or for those associated with her.” The unspoken threat hung heavy in the damp air. “I’m to deliver this message in the morning. But Captain Thoz thought perhaps a friend might be able to impress upon her the wisdom of a less confrontational path.”
A friend. Gwilin felt a pang. Was he a friend? Or just a convenient, if frequently battered, fixture in her life? He didn’t know. But he did know Temba.
“She won’t listen. Not to that. She’ll see it as weakness.”
“Perhaps,” Valkin conceded. “But the alternative is a cell in the Riften Jail, or worse. And believe me, elf, those places are considerably less accommodating than the Bee and Barb.” He paused, his eyes searching Gwilin’s. “You seem a resourceful fellow. You got her this far. Even managed to carry all that new gear for her. Maybe you can find the words. For her sake. There are people more powerful than Snow-Shod involved here.”
The guard placed his tankard on a nearby ledge. “Think on it. I’ll seek her out after sunrise. It would be better for everyone if she’s already seen reason by then.” He gave a curt nod, then turned and melted back into the fringes of the festival crowd.
Gwilin was left alone, the tinny, dying echoes of the celebration his only company.
Notes:
Any feedback, I'd be grateful for! This was a shorter chapter, and a bit more polished because I'm taking more time with the story's pacing. lmk if it works!
Chapter 4: Ripples
Summary:
Temba has to face the music.
Chapter Text
Jarl Laila Law-Giver sat in a worn, high-backed chair by the hearth in her private solar. The fire had dwindled to glowing embers. Outside fog pressed against the leaded glass, a grey shroud that mirrored the city’s soul and, too often, her own.
She swirled the dregs of her mead. Temba. Her Temba, back in Riften. For a fleeting moment, she had felt like the young girl she once was, sparring with her friend in the training yard, dreaming of uncomplicated heroics.
Then came the reports. First from Thoz, then Vulwulf and Maven. All had stressed the precedent she was obligated to preserve.
Laila’s grip whitened around the stem of her goblet. Precedent. Maven was always an expert on precedent, especially when it served to reinforce her own tendrils of influence. The irony that she was sipping on Black-Briar mead was not lost on her.
She had approved every plea from Ivarstead; timber rights, bear bounties, extra patrols, even a line of credit. A quiet act of defiance against Maven, a nod to an old friend.
Now Temba had strode into Riften and, within hours, kicked the hornets’ nest.
Laila rose from the chair and walked to the window, peering out at the murky glow below. The city was a web of loyalties, debts, and resentments. To preside over it required a constant, delicate dance. One misstep, and she could be ensnared.
Temba did not dance. She charged.
Could she protect an old friend from this? In theory, the Jarl’s word was Law, superseding the protests of a blustering merchant family. But the specter of the Black-Briars had deeper roots, deeper pockets, and a reach that extended far beyond the Rift. Openly defying the Snow-Shods and, by extension Maven, was a battle she certainly couldn't win without bleeding more of her already precarious authority.
A faint, bitter smile touched the jarl’s lips. Perhaps that was what Riften needed; someone to shake its foundations, to roar in the face of its corruption. But she was not that someone.
Laila wished, with a sudden pang of loneliness, that her old friend had sought her out for more than just official petitions.
She couldn’t directly intervene. Thoz’s course of action, however unpleasant, was the politically expedient one. All actions had consequences, even if those consequences were so often bent by the powerful.
Laila turned from the window and studied her circlet at her desk, reforged from her father’s coronet. She sometimes wished she’d shown the old goat more sympathy; beloved or hated, a crown weighed the same.
She drained the last of her mead. It offered no comfort.
Gwilin’s mouth watered as a deluge of nausea overcame him. Sweat glossed his brow, his muscles twitching. Valkin was long gone, but the anxious aftermath of their conversation lingered for hours.
Temba had gone up to sleep. The Bee and the Barb was thinning out; only the dead-drunk remained, slumped in or around their commandeered quarters of seats and tables. Gwilin stepped over dozens of unconscious bodies as he paced the common floor.
The Argonian keepers mopped spills where they could between the sleeping masses, but eventually left the custodial duties to their patrons’ clothing.
Gwilin approached the female Argonian, mumbling a request for the key to his room. Temba had insisted on separate, albeit adjacent, rooms. They hadn't partaken in their nightly ritual since leaving Ivarstead.
The plan was improvised; scurry up the creaking wooden stairs, avoiding his own room. Instead, go to the rough-hewn door of his mistress. He pressed his ear against the wood. Silence. Gwilin sank to the floor, back against the wall opposite her door, drawing his knees to chest. The corridor was dimly lit by a single sputtering torch near the stairwell.
What could he possibly say? “Miss Temba, I know you despise weakness, and apologies are the very definition of it, but perhaps you could consider groveling before a man you kicked in the groin because he’s rich to avoid us both ending up in chains?” He could almost hear her derisive snort, feel the phantom sting of a slap.
He remembered her face earlier, when that Snow-Shod oaf had accosted her. There was no calculation in it, just a raw and swift reaction. Temba didn’t do strategic retreats. She met force with greater force. That was her way. It had kept her alive.
A wave of despair washed over him. He was a fool. A simple elf caught between a raging bear and a nest of vipers.
He could run.
Just slip out of the city, disappear back into the forests he knew, back to Ivarstead. Temba wasn't his mistress anymore. He owed her nothing. She’d made that abundantly clear. She had even tried to kill him. The memory sent a shiver down his spine.
Yet he hadn’t run then. And she hadn’t actually killed him. He was still here. And she had, in her own brusque way, accepted his company and help. There was something there between them, even if she was loath to admit it.
Another hour crawled by. The candlelight waned, and the grey, unpromising light of dawn began to seep through the grimy window at the end of the hall. His muscles ached from his vigil on the hard floor.
His mind, sharpened by fear and exhaustion, latched onto something. He thought of the tales he was raised on. Fables of wily Bosmer tricksters, outsmarting larger, more powerful foes with cunning. He was no great trickster…
But damn if he couldn't try.
Gwilin pushed himself to his feet, joints protesting, straightened his tunic, and smoothed down his hair. He walked to Temba’s door. His hand, when he raised it to knock, was surprisingly steady.
Knock. Knock.
A pause, then a muffled, irritated grunt from within. "What is it? Gods, can't a woman get any sleep?"
He swallowed. "Miss Temba? It's me. There's something we need to discuss. Urgently."
Another grunt, louder this time, followed by the thud of bare feet on wooden planks. The latch scraped, and the door creaked open a hand’s breadth. One of Temba’s eyes, bloodshot and fierce, peered out. She was still in a rough-spun shift she’d slept in, her auburn hair a tangled storm cloud around her face.
“Urgently?” she growled. “What could possibly be so urgent at this hour that it can’t wait until I’ve at least had a chance to piss in peace and find something resembling breakfast?”
“It’s about last night, Miss Temba. The disagreement with the gentleman.”
Temba’s eye narrowed. “Disagreement? I kicked a mewling milk-drinker in his tender bits because he had a loose tongue and wandering hands. That’s called pest control, elf.” She made to shut the door.
“Wait!” Gwilin’s hand shot out, palm flat against the wood, a move of surprising boldness that startled even him. He felt the pressure of her trying to close it. “Please, Temba. This is serious. It involves the Jarl.”
The pressure on the door eased. After a moment it opened wider, Temba’s expression unreadable. She gestured curtly with her head. “Get in. And this had better be good.”
Gwilin slipped into the small, musty room. It was sparsely furnished: a bed, a rickety table, a single stool. Her new armor and weapons lay in a heap near the bed. She closed the door behind him, the latch clicking shut. Her powerful arms folded across her chest while the early morning light illuminated dust motes dancing in the air around her.
“Alright, elf,” her voice was dangerously quiet. “Spit it out. What trouble have you dragged to my doorstep now?”
Gwilin took a shaky breath. “It’s not trouble I’ve dragged, Miss Temba. It’s trouble you, well—trouble that found you. Last night, after you retired, I was approached by one of the guards. Valkin. The one you said let you into Mistveil Keep.”
She snorted. “That one. He want his septim back? He’ll have to ask the serving girl I gave it to, skeever-faced—”
“No, Miss Temba.” He fidgeted with the hem of his tunic. “He came with a message. It seems Vulwulf Snow-Shod, the man you kicked… is demanding satisfaction.”
“Satisfaction?” A humorless smirk twisted Temba’s lips. “Did I not provide that rather effectively? He seemed satisfied he wouldn’t be siring any bastards for a while.”
“He wants a public apology, Miss Temba. And compensation.” Gwilin winced. “He wants you humbled.”
The explosion he expected didn't quite come. Instead, a dangerous stillness settled over Temba. The air in the room grew thick, charged. He could almost feel the fury radiating from her, a palpable heat.
“Humbled?” she finally said, each syllable dropping like a stone. “Snow-Shod wants me humbled. For defending myself against his wandering hands?” She took a step forwards, and Gwilin instinctively took one back, bumping into the wall. “And what if I refuse this generous offer?”
“Then the authorities will be forced to act. Arrest for assault. Disturbing the peace. Valkin said Jarl Laila can’t protect you from it.” He rushed the words out, the fear making his voice weak. “He said powerful people are involved. Listening to Snow-Shod.”
She was silent for a long moment, her gaze fixed on something beyond the grimy window. Gwilin could see the cords in her neck tighten. He imagined her thoughts. He knew that look. It usually preceded something heavy flying in his direction.
“Maven,” Temba said, a bitter edge to her voice. “Pulling the strings.” She turned her gaze back to him. “And what do you suggest, little elf? I tuck my tail between my legs and beg forgiveness?”
He swallowed hard. This was his chance. His only chance. He had to frame it right. “No, Miss Temba,” he said, trying to infuse his voice with a confidence he didn’t feel. “But you left Ivarstead to forge a new path. Is rotting in a dungeon, or being hounded out of the city by Black-Briar cronies, part of that path?”
She stared at him.
He pressed on. “Think of it not as an apology, Miss Temba. You outsmart them. You give them what they think they want, a show, and then you move on, stronger, wiser, and free to pursue your true goals. Snow-Shod, Black-Briar—they are obstacles. Sometimes, the most direct path through an obstacle isn’t to smash it, but to… flow around it, until you’re strong enough to smash it later, if you still choose.” He was getting used to talking with a purpose more than he ever had to her. He liked it.
“Flow around it?” Temba scoffed with a weary disdain. “I’m not a damned Khajit. I’m a Nord. A fighter.”
“A smart Nord fighter, Miss Temba,” Gwilin insisted, hoping he was right. “One who knows when to conserve her strength for the real battles. This is beneath you. A squabble. Is it worth jeopardizing everything you came here for, everything you left Ivarstead to achieve, just for the satisfaction of spitting in Snow-Shod’s eye?”
He held his breath. Temba turned away from him and paced the small room, her bare feet making soft thuds on the floorboards. Two steps to the window, two steps back. The silence stretched, taut and fragile. He didn’t dare speak.
Finally, she stopped, her back to him, staring out at the vista of rooftops. “Guard Valkin,” she said, her voice flat. “When is he expecting an answer?”
Gwilin’s heart leaped. “He said he would seek you out after sunrise.”
Temba was silent for another long moment. Then, she slowly turned. Her face was a mask, her eyes hard. “Get out."
His fragile hope plummeted. “Miss Temba, I just—”
“Get. Out.” The words were soft. “I need my axe.”
He fumbled with the door latch and practically fell out into the corridor, heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He had no idea if he’d made things better or infinitely worse. He looked back at the closed door, helplessness washing over him. Sunrise. Valkin would arrive soon.
Stepping out into the barracks yard, Valkin felt the damp chill of the morning bite through his leather. A few other guards were stirring, their movements sluggish, faces glum. No one paid him much mind. Another day, another task.
His path took him through the awakening city. Shutters clattered open. The aroma of baking bread mingled with the lingering stench of refuse from the canals. Merchants were setting up their stalls in the marketplace, their voices still hoarse from the festive night. The very stones held secrets and judged every passerby. He’d seen a thousand mornings like this.
He reached the Bee and Barb. A scrawny dog rooted through a pile of spilled stew near the door. The sign creaked mournfully in the slight breeze.
Inside Keerava was wiping down tables with a cloth that looked as tired as she did. She gave him a slow blink of her reptilian eyes.
“Wide-Arm,” Valkin stated, his voice flat. No need for pleasantries.
The Argonian jerked her chin towards the stairs. “Upstairs. Second door on the left, I think. Her elf friend looks like he hasn’t slept a wink. Been haunting the hallway like a lost puppy.”
Valkin grunted his thanks and headed for the stairs, his boots thudding heavily on the worn wood. He saw the Bosmer, pale faced, lurking near one of the doors. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to think better of it, merely wringing his hands.
Valkin gave him a curt nod, a silent “stay out of it,” and walked to Temba’s door.
He raised his hand and knocked, two sharp raps that echoed in the quiet corridor. “Temba Wide-Arm?” His voice was calm, devoid of inflection. “This is Corporal Valkin of the Riften City Guard. We need to talk.”
The door swung open slowly. She wore sturdy hide breeches and jerkin, though not her full cuirass. Her newly acquired steel axe, however, leaned conspicuously against the wall just inside the room, its polished edge catching a faint gleam from the hallway’s light. Her auburn hair was tied back, and her eyes, though perhaps still shadowed with lack of sleep, were clear, hard, and fixed on Valkin.
“Guardsman.”
Valkin met her gaze squarely. “I was sent by my captain, Thoz. Concerning the events of last night, involving yourself and Vulwulf Snow-Shod.”
“I recall the events,” Temba stated. “The old goat made a nuisance of himself. I corrected the situation.”
“Vulwulf perceives the correction differently,” Valkin reached into a pouch at his belt and produced a small, sealed scroll. “He has lodged a formal complaint with the Jarl and demands recompense.” He held out the scroll. “This outlines the terms. Captain Thoz trusts you will see the wisdom in complying.”
Temba’s gaze remained locked on Valkin, not moving to take the scroll. “You’re leaving me in suspense, Guardsman.”
“The Jarl desires to maintain order in her city,” Valkin replied, a diplomatic sidestep. “The terms are a public apology to Master Snow-Shod. And a sum for damages, for his discomfort and public embarrassment.”
A small, almost imperceptible muscle twitched in Temba’s jaw. He saw her eyes flick towards the axe, then back to him. Then she uncrossed her arms, took a step forward and, with a sudden, decisive movement, snatched the scroll from his hand. Her knuckles brushed his. She didn’t open it. Instead, she held it between her thumb and forefinger, weighing the parchment.
“A public apology,” she said, flat. “And coin.”
“The simplest way to conclude this matter, without further complications.”
She looked down at the scroll, then up at him again. A very faint smile touched the corner of her lips and made the hairs on the back of Valkin’s neck prickle.
“Very well, Guardsman,” she said, tone suddenly brisk. “Tell your captain and Vulwulf that I understand the value of public presentation.” She tapped the scroll against her chin thoughtfully. “Tell them I will be at the marketplace, by the central well, at midday. And I will make my position clear.”
Valkin waited for more, for the inevitable outburst, the refusal, the conditions. But she just stood there, that unnerving hint of a smile playing on her lips, the unopened scroll still in her hand.
“Midday, at the marketplace,” he confirmed, a sense of unease beginning to creep through his composure. This was too easy.
"That’s what I said," Temba affirmed. Then, she took a step back into her room. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have arrangements to consider.”
And with that, the door closed in his face.
He turned to Gwilin. The elf looked utterly bewildered.
“Well done, Master Elf,” Valkin said. “It seems your mistress has made a decision.”
Gwilin looked up at the guard, his eyes wide and uncertain. Valkin’s face was a mask of stoic professionalism, but the flicker in his gaze was unmistakable. Doubt.
The guard nodded, then turned and strode down the corridor, his heavy boots thudding a grim rhythm on the wooden planks, leaving Gwilin alone with the echoing silence and his own rampant thoughts.
"Arrangements to consider?" Gwilin muttered to himself, pushing away from the wall. What in Oblivion did that mean? Temba didn't do humiliation gracefully. She didn't do it at all.
His mind raced through possibilities, each one more alarming than the last. A sudden, chilling thought struck him. Her axe. What if her "arrangements" involved that finely honed piece of steel? He imagined Temba, in the crowded marketplace, deciding to clarify matters with Vulwulf in a very direct, very messy way.
He took a deep, fortifying breath, marched back to her door. "Miss Temba? It's me. Can I come in for a moment?"
Silence.
"Miss Temba?" he tried again. "Please. I just… I need to understand."
A muffled sound from within, then: "It's unlocked."
He pushed the door open tentatively. The room was much as the guard had left it, except Temba was now sitting on the edge of her bed, the unopened scroll lying beside her. She was staring intently at her hands, turning them over, examining her callouses as if seeing them for the first time.
"Miss Temba," Gwilin began, hovering near the doorway, "what exactly are your 'arrangements'?"
“They want an apology, do they?" she mused, almost to herself. "Well, an apology they shall have. Of a sort."
Confusion must have been plain on his face. "Of a sort?"
"Gwilin," a new, almost conspiratorial tone saturated her voice. "That pack of yours, from home; what supplies did you bring, exactly? Besides food and bedrolls. Anything else?"
He blinked, taken aback by the sudden shift in topic. "Supplies? Well, there's my spare tunic, some mending things, a whetstone, a bit of dried meat I was saving… oh, and…" He trailed off, a memory surfacing. "And a small pot of bear grease from Wilhelm. You know, for waterproofing boots and such. And… a few of those leftover rags from patching the mill roof."
She flashed her teeth. "Bear grease, you say? And rags? Excellent. Truly excellent. That, I believe, will be the cornerstone of my apology."
Gwilin stared at her, an inkling of her intentions beginning to dawn. He felt a bizarre urge to laugh, quickly suppressed by a wave of pure dread.
Midday. The marketplace. This was going to be a spectacle indeed. He just hoped he wouldn't be caught in the crush.
Chapter 5: The Well
Summary:
Temba makes a statement.
Chapter Text
The hours leading up to midday crept by in a blur of whispered preparations inside Temba’s room.
Her instructions were precise. Gwilin, initially dumbfounded, found himself scrambling to retrieve the requested items: the pot of rancid bear grease, the bundle of coarse mill-roofing rags, and, at her specific, rather unsettling request, his sharpest whittling knife—"not for fighting, elf, for presentation." She also had him fetch her discarded, travel-stained dress from Ivarstead, the one she'd worn for twenty years.
She donned the dress, its rough fabric settling over her powerful frame like a second skin. Then came the "makeup." She proceeded to smear bear-grease across face and arms, working it into her hairline until she looked like a skeever-wrestler on the losing end.
The rags were next. She tore them into strips, some of which she smeared with more grease, others she deliberately dirtied by rubbing them on the grimy floorboards of the inn room. These she began to tuck and tie into her hair, around her wrists, even fashioning a crude, drooping necklace until she looked like a beggar queen.
“The axe, Miss Temba?” Gwilin finally dared to ask, gesturing to the gleaming weapon still propped against the wall. “Will you be needing that for your… apology?”
Her eyes flashed, feral. “No. Today, we fight with different weapons.”
There was a fierce joy in her that was almost infectious. Gwilin found himself, against his better judgment, grinning back.
The final touch was the unopened scroll from Captain Thoz. She took the whittling knife and carved an imperceptible slit along its sealed edge. Then she retrieved a single, perfectly round pebble she’d apparently found somewhere and managed to work it inside the scroll through the tiny incision, leaving the seal ostensibly intact. She handed the knife back, expression unreadable. "Details, elf. Details are important."
Market noise swelled outside, and a tense silence fell in the room. Temba stood, grotesque manifest. “Ready?” she asked in a low purr.
“As I’ll ever be,” he managed, breathless.
Temba nodded, a single, sharp affirmation. “Good. Let's go.”
She picked up the doctored scroll with her grease-smeared fingers, opened the door and strode out into the hallway.
The walk to Riften’s main well felt like theatre inside a nightmare. Temba parted the crowds with regal deliberateness; she emitted an aura of such peculiar revulsion that people instinctively recoiled.
Gwilin trailed a few paces behind. He clutched his small, now nearly empty pack, aware of the eyes following them. Whispers rippled through the throngs of shoppers, merchants, and idlers. He caught snippets: "Look there… by the Nine, what happened to her?" "Is that… Wide-Arm? The one who…" "Smells like a bear’s armpit, that one…"
Temba’s gaze was fixed ahead, her expression unreadable beneath the grease. The scroll was clutched tight in one hand.
The press thickened as they neared the well. Purple-cloaked guards ringed the area, highly visible against the dull browns and greys of the surrounding stalls. Valkin stood amongst them, his arms crossed, face ever stoic. He caught Gwilin’s eye for a fleeting second, mouth tightening by a hair.
And there, standing near the well, his portly figure radiating indignation, was Vulwulf Snow-Shod, flanked by a couple of thuggish-looking retainers. Just a little behind him was the unmistakable, elegantly dressed figure of Maven Black-Briar, dark hair impeccably styled, gown sleek to match. Her lips curved in a faint, knowing smile as she surveyed the scene. At her side stood a large Nord in steel armor; he had the palest eyes that Gwilin had ever seen.
A hush began to fall over the marketplace as the pair came to a halt a few paces from Vulwulf. The merchant prince puffed himself up, his face reddening with affront as he took in Temba’s dilapidated state.
“Well,” Snow-Shod boomed. “The savage from Ivarstead finally crawls outside. Took you long enough. Have you come to beg for forgiveness, woman?”
Temba lifted her head; grease-rimmed eyes drilled into him. Gwilin held his breath.
“Master Vulwulf Snow-Shod,” her voice was clear, though with a raw, almost broken quality that carried surprisingly well in the sudden quiet of the market. “I have come as requested.”
She took a deliberate step forward. Maven’s eyebrows arched, smile widening by a thread.
“I have been reflecting,” continued Temba, “on my actions. On the suffered discomfort...”
She lingered on the word as though stroking it.
Vulwulf swelled. “About time you saw sense, woman! Well? Out with it! Let all of Riften hear your contrition!”
Temba’s gaze swept across the assembled crowd, lingering for a moment on Maven, then on Valkin and the guards, before returning to Snow-Shod. The crowd held its breath.
“I understand,” her voice dropped low, “that I owe you compensation.” She lifted the sealed scroll. “The Jarl’s judgment.”
One trembling step closer. Snow-Shod’s smug hand reached for the prize.
And then, Temba’s arm jerked sharply, hand snapping open.
The scroll flew from her grasp, arcing into the open, moss-slicked throat of the well.
Plop.
For a heartbeat Riften froze. Vulwulf gaped at empty air; Maven’s smile twitched to irritation; her pale-eyed bodyguard reached for his hip.
Then Temba roared, louder than any bear Gwilin had ever heard, a primal bellow that seemed to shake the very cobblestones:
“THERE’S YOUR COMPENSATION, SNOW-SHOD! GO FETCH IT FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE RATWAY, YOU OVERGROWN LEECH! AND MAY EVERY SICKLY SKEEVER IN THERE NIBBLE ON YOUR WORTHLESS DECREE!”
The marketplace exploded into chaos. Shouts of disbelief mingled with nervous laughter. Some citizens, those farther from the immediate radius of Snow-Shod’s impending fury, actually cheered. Others, sensing imminent violence, began to back away, creating a frantic, swirling eddy in the crowd.
Gwilin, half a step behind, felt exhilaration curdle to dread.
“You… you HARIDAN!” Vulwulf finally spluttered, his jowls quivering. “You dare? In my city! Before MY EYES! Guards—seize this creature!” His retainers, looking more bewildered than brave, edged forward.
Before they could commit, another voice cut through the din, resonating with an authority that had nothing to do with rank or wealth:
“Hold there!” At the edge of the crowd, near a stall selling mismatched armor pieces. A tall Nord woman, her dirty-blonde hair braided intricately, stepped forward. She was clad in banded, well-maintained iron, though it bore the marks of travel and hard use. At her hip rested a glass sword. Her expression was stern, eyes blazing with indignation. A slighter, dark-haired Imperial man in fine clothes hovered beside her, hand on her arm.
“I was there last night,” the woman declared, her gaze sweeping from Snow-Shod to the guards, then landing on Temba with a flicker of something that might have been grudging respect, “when she was accosted. She defended herself. Are we now to punish honest self-defense, while lechery and bullying go unchecked simply because of a family name?” Murmurs of assent rippled through the crowd.
Vulwulf rounded on the interloper. “You stay out of this, Lioness! This is official city business! This CREATURE,” he gestured wildly at Temba, “defied a direct order from the Jarl, abetted by the Guard!”
Valkin felt the situation rapidly slithering off script. "Mjoll," he said, weary but firm, "the woman was given terms and chose to… interpret them." He cast a hard look at Temba. “Wide-Arm, you were instructed to offer an apology and compensation. What you just did hardly constitutes either.”
Temba wiped a streak of bear grease from her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving another smear. “The decree stated terms. It did not specify how those terms were to be delivered to Master Snow-Shod. I offered him the Jarl’s judgment. He simply failed to catch it.” She shrugged. “As for an apology…”
Vulwulf turned a truly alarming shade of puce. He opened his mouth, but only incoherent splutters emerged. Maven Black-Briar, however, stepped forward smoothly.
“Guardsman Valkin,” her voice was quiet. “This farce has run long enough. This woman is clearly unhinged and a menace to public order. Arrest her. Immediately.”
Valkin hesitated, but only for a heartbeat:
“Wide-Arm, your position is clear. You are under arrest for disturbing the peace and contempt of city authority.” He gestured to two of his men. “Seize her.”
While the purple cloaks took her arms, Gwilin, thawing from stunned silence, blurted, “Wait! She—she just—” but his protest was lost to the winds as the guards led Temba away.
As the crowds began to disperse, he found himself shuffled along by a flow of bodies. Valkin’s words from the previous night rang in his ears.
It won’t be pleasant. For her. Or for those associated with her.
Gwilin felt tension in his limbs, his heart thudding in his rib cage. He glanced about the market, searching for any city guardsmen headed his way, but they all seemed more focused on moving the procession of people along than securing another arrest.
A sigh of relief escaped him—only for a sharp gasp to follow as a hard hand clamped down on his shoulder, yanking him out from the throng.
He had been taken by a large, pale-eyed Nord. The bodyguard who'd been at Maven’s side. While the Black-Briar matriarch had already made her departure alongside a fuming Snow-Shod, it seemed orders had been relayed with Gwilin in mind. The man’s grip was crushing, face expressionless as he dragged the elf off.
“H-hey!” cried Gwilin as he struggled. “Let me go! I haven’t done anything.”
Several passersby averted their eyes; nearby guards exchanged knowing glances before returning to crowd control.
The market’s hum faded behind them, replaced by rows of Plankside storefronts and shadowed alleys. Veering into one, the bodyguard hauled Gwilin along.
Gwilin grunted as he was pressed up against the alley wall. The Nord loomed over him, impassive, unblinking. Then he reached for the elven dagger at his hip.
“Keep still,” he growled.
Before he could fully draw it, footsteps echoed at the alley’s mouth. Both turned; standing there was the silhouette of an armored woman, a glass sword in hand.
“Stay that blade—or reckon with mine.”
The bodyguard narrowed his eyes. “This doesn’t concern you, Mjoll.”
“I won’t repeat myself, Maul.”
Maul’s grip slackened. Gwilin fell to the ground with a heavy thump.
“Neither of you are worth the trouble.” Maul spat to the side, then slunk deeper into the alley’s shadows, disappearing around one of the corners.
Mjoll kept her sword drawn, beckoning for Gwilin to rise.
“Come with me. The streets aren't safe.”
Chapter 6: Prices
Summary:
Laila visits Temba down in the cells.
Chapter Text
The reports had been flooding into Mistveil Keep for the better part of an hour, each more breathless and contradictory than the last. The Jarl of Riften sat in her private solar, the heavy oak table before her littered with hastily scribbled notes from her steward.
“She did what with the decree?” Laila had asked when Anuriel first relayed the core of the marketplace catastrophe.
“Into the central well, my Jarl. After a rather spirited denunciation of Master Snow-Shod.”
The steward had continued, her voice barely above a whisper, detailing the general uproar, and, finally, the arrest ordered by…
“Lady Black-Briar requests an audience, my Jarl,” Anuriel announced, gaze skittering away. “She is waiting.”
A request from Maven was a summons. Laila nodded while she smoothed the creases from her robes. “Show her in.”
Maven entered the solar like its true mistress. Her movements were a languid breeze, her expensive silks whispering across the polished floor. Her dark eyes swept the room before settling on Laila.
Anuriel, after announcing, practically fled the room.
“Laila, dear,” Maven purred. “A rather eventful day in our fair city, wouldn’t you agree?” She settled, uninvited, into one of the room's more comfortable chairs, arranging her skirts casually.
“I’ve received the reports. It seems my old friend has a unique approach to civic decorum.”
Maven’s smile tightened, the amusement fading. “Your ‘old friend’ has made a mockery of your authority. This is not a matter of decorum. Respect for the rule of law, dear Laila. Or at least, the appearance of it, which, as we both know, is often more critical. Assaulting, and then insulting the father of your own personal housecarl…”
Laila felt her chest constrict, and leaned in against her desk. Her housecarl, Unmid Snow-Shod, on watch outside the solar, seemed to be handling the situation with stoic grace.
“Vulwulf was hardly an innocent party.”
“His indiscretions were minor compared to what happened after,” Maven waved a perfectly manicured hand as if she were warding away a fly. “Wide-Arm’s actions took place in the public square, witnessed by half the city. And she had the audacity to throw an official decree— your decree, Laila—into a well. The symbolism is not lost on anyone.” Her gaze was sharp, probing. “Nor, I imagine, is the fact that Mjoll the Lioness felt compelled to champion a disruptor’s cause.”
Laila’s fingers clenched in her lap. “That woman has always been… passionate about her interpretation of justice.”
“Passionate, or meddlesome?” Maven countered. “Her grandstanding does little to maintain the delicate balance we strive for here. But—” she pursed her lips. “Mjoll is a nuisance we can manage. What Wide-Arm did will not be tolerated.”
“She sits in the cells, Maven,” Laila tried to sound firm. “What more can be done?”
“A temporary measure,” Maven cleared her throat. “Vulwulf is demanding considerable recompense for this insult, far beyond the initial terms.” She paused, a wrinkle parsing her forehead. “And frankly, after today’s performance, I am inclined to agree that a memorable lesson is required.”
“She is my friend. I owe her some consideration.”
“It would be to your advantage,” Maven’s eyes were ebony chips, “to end the friendship.”
Silence. Then an exhale from the Jarl.
Maven leaned back in her chair, the bust of satisfaction. “A few days in the cells, certainly. Let her contemplate the consequences of her actions in the dark. Then, a revised public apology. One that is suitably genuine, with less theatrics.” The corner of her lip twitched. "The original fine should be paid. With interest. Vulwulf will accept."
Laila closed her eyes. “Very well.”
Maven rose. “So efficient, when we are in accord.” She glided towards the exit. “I trust that Thoz will receive clear instructions.”
A simple nod was all Laila could muster.
Maven paused at the door. “And dear—remember this: some attachments are more burdensome than they are worth.”
The hush left behind felt heavier than Maven’s silks. Laila remained still, the new terms tolling in her head.
“Anuriel,” she called, her voice still holding a tremor she hoped wouldn’t be noticed.
The steward materialized, as always, with unnerving speed. “My Jarl?”
“Prepare a lantern. And have Unmid fetch Captain Thoz. Inform him I wish to inspect the jail cells personally.”
Anuriel’s face seemed to lose another shade of color. “My Jarl? But Lady Black-Briar just… The cells are not pleasant.”
“I am well aware,” Laila stood from her desk. “Nevertheless, I will inspect them. Now.”
Riften Jail was kept cold on purpose. Only one cell had a bed worth calling that: velvet coverlet, feather mattress, wide enough to stretch out like a prince. The air was thick with the smell of stale straw, despair, and unwashed bodies. Water dripped monotonously from unseen cracks in the stone, each drop a tiny hammer blow against the silence.
Captain Thoz had met them at the jail entrance, his face a mask of disapproval, but he handed over the heavy ring of keys without a word. Laila could feel his silent judgment as she, Unmid, and Anuriel descended the narrow, winding steps.
Most of the cells were empty. The jail was not meant for long-term stays, more a temporary holding pen for drunks and petty thieves. And those who fell afoul of unspoken rules before being fined, flogged, or quietly “disappeared.”
They passed the largest cell, the one with the velvet bed. From inside, a whining voice drifted out. “Oi! Jailer! Is that you? About time! My wine jug is empty.”
Laila paused, peering through the barred door. Inside, a foppish young man with dark, oiled hair and clothes that, despite being rumpled and stained, were clearly expensive, paced back and forth.
Sibbi Black-Briar, Maven’s youngest and troublesome son. His mother usually let him stew a few days before quietly arranging his release. It was tradition by now. His latest offense involved killing the brother of his former betrothed. Tradition, in this instance, would have to wait.
“Sibbi,” Laila said, voice cool.
The young man spun around, his eyes widening in surprise, then narrowing with a flicker of something like cunning hope. “Jarl Laila! Finally! A sensible face. Eight months for self-defense is an outrage. An affront to my family’s name.”
Laila studied him, irritation twisting in her chest. “Your mother is well aware of your predicament, Sibbi. I’m sure she will attend to it in her own time. Enjoy the accommodations.” She turned away, ignoring his protests.
They found Temba in a cell at the far end of a corridor on the lower levels, the dampest, darkest section. She sat on a wooden bench that served as a bed, her back straight, hands resting loosely in her lap. The grease and rags were still in place, but in the dim, flickering light she looked like a captured wolf, watching them silently.
Laila halted and took a quick check of her retainers; Anuriel remained steady, but Unmid’s jaw clenched, his breathing heavy as he glimpsed Temba’s shadowed figure.
“Unmid,” she palmed his gilded forearm gently. “Stay by the stairs. I won't be long.”
“Forgive me, my lady,” the burly Nord murmured, eyes fixed rigidly forward. “Wide-Arm’s actions dishonored my father. It's hard not to confront her. But I serve you first.”
“Still, my loyal friend. Stay.”
She and Anuriel left him behind, approaching the cell.
“Temba,” Laila said softly, her voice echoing.
“Come to gloat?” Temba rasped. “Your masters send you?”
Laila stepped closer to the bars, Anuriel hovering anxiously behind her with the lantern. Words felt heavy in her mouth. “There are terms. A few more days in here. A formal, public apology. The original fine for Snow-Shod.”
Temba’s eyes hardened.
“It was reckless,” murmured Laila. “You could have been seriously hurt. You still might be, if Snow-Shod gets his way fully.”
“Perhaps. But it was my recklessness, Laila. Not yours. Not Maven’s. Mine.” Temba looked around the cramped cell. “This is just stone and iron. I’ve faced worse in a blizzard without a cloak.”
Laila gripped the cold iron bars. “I gave you what you wanted. Why throw it all away on such a blatant provocation?”
Temba was silent for a moment, her gaze dropping to her hands. “For twenty years I swallowed my pride until it choked me. I came to Riften to change that, not to learn new ways to bow my head. Maybe today I was messy. But I made them listen. I made them see.”
Laila felt a pang of envy. “And what did they see, Temba? A madwoman?”
“They saw someone who wouldn’t be silenced by a name or a fat purse. Better they know it can be done than not at all.”
The silence stretched between them again, filled only by the drip-drip-drip of water.
“The fine,” Laila swallowed down her feelings, regaining some composure. “I will see it paid. From my own coffers, if necessary. Discreetly.”
“What would Maven say?”
“Maven doesn’t need to know everything,” Laila rolled her eyes, surprising herself. “Consider it a gesture of grace. For throwing my decree down the well—I mean, seriously Temba, the well?”
From behind, Anuriel watched with knitted brows.
A faint, genuine smile touched Temba’s lips. It was brief, and gone almost as soon as it appeared, but it warmed the chill of the dungeon air, just for a moment.
“Wasn’t really your decree, was it?” she mused. “Made it easier to toss the thing.” Her eyes fixed to Laila then, searching. “So you came for charity.”
Laila was hesitant. “I just needed to see for myself if your fire still burned.”
“Yours burned once,” Temba shifted her weight on the bench. “When we were young. Thought the world was ours for the taking. Remember that old abandoned watchtower north of Shor’s Stone? The one we swore was haunted by draugr poets?”
Laila chuckled, a low, rusty sound she rarely made anymore. “And we armed ourselves with training swords and oversized helms, convinced we could best any undead bard. You were always so certain you could out-shout them.”
“I probably could have,” snorted Temba. “Screaming was always one of my finer skills.” A pause. “You chose a different path. Find what you were looking for?”
Laila’s levity faded.
“Jarlship…” she trailed off bitterly. “It’s heavier than armour. Petitions, threats, constant vigilance. Just to keep the city from tearing itself apart.”
And Maven. Always Maven.
“And family,” Temba prompted gently. “You have sons, I heard? Before I left for Ivarstead, there was talk that you had been bedewed.”
“Two sons, yes. Harrald and Saerlund.”
“And are they strong? Like their mother once was?”
“Harrald is my heir. He does his duty. He mouths the right words, supports the war. He will likely make a serviceable Jarl. If he learns to look beyond his own comfort.” Laila’s tone was flat, devoid of warmth. The political expediency of Harrald’s loyalty did little to endear him to her on a personal level.
“And Saerlund?”
Laila sighed, gaze fixed on a crack in the stone beneath Temba’s bench. “Saerlund is different.” She flexed her grip on the bars, steel biting into her palms. “He doesn’t believe in Ulfric. He speaks his mind, thinks that the resistance is misguided, even dangerous.”
Temba listened intently. Anuriel took a step back, busying herself by examining a particularly uninteresting patch of moss on the far wall of the corridor.
“For that honesty,” Laila continued, her voice dropping to a near whisper, “he is an outcast. He rarely leaves his chambers here in the Keep; I have forbidden his free passage in and out. As a potential Imperial sympathizer it’s safer for him to remain… confined. Until we can find a cure for him. A solution that will help him see the truth. For his own protection. And mine.” The last words were almost inaudible.
Temba took a long moment to absorb this. “So, the great Jarl Law-Giver trades one child’s spirit for her own throne. You’re more like your father than I remember.”
Laila flinched. “It is more complicated than that.”
“Is it?” Temba gestured around the cell. “Or is it just the price for not ending up in a place like this?”
Before Laila could answer, the harsh lines of Temba’s face softened.
“We knew nothing of prices then, did we?” she was barely audible above the dripping water. “Only discovery.” She paused, and Laila felt a prickle of unease, a premonition of where this was heading. “I still think of that night. Up by Treva’s Watch, after that storm. We’d filched a waterskin of your father’s mead—gods, it was vile, but we thought ourselves so daring.”
Laila’s breath caught. All those years ago. A sky washed clean by rain, the air alive with the scent of pine and damp earth. Bedrolls so thin, squeezing two bodies into one warmed more than any fire.
Temba’s eyes weren't quite present, as if she were speaking more to the memory itself. “We were curious. About ourselves. About everything. There was no one else, just us, and the stars.”
Laila felt a flush creep up her neck. She hadn’t thought of that night in years. It was a memory buried deep, a fragile thing from a world that no longer existed.
“I remember,” she croaked.
The lantern light flickered.
Laila pulled back slightly from the bars, clearing her throat. “The terms are unavoidable. Vulwulf must be seen to have his pound of flesh. Appearance matters.”
Temba snorted softly. “Appearance. What a virtue.”
“Perhaps,” Laila wet her lips. “But appearances can also be manipulated. Reframed.” She met her old friend’s eyes. “What if there was another decree? One that satisfies the need for public spectacle, yet offers a different outcome for you?”
Temba’s brow furrowed slightly. “Another decree?”
Laila allowed herself the most threadbare of smiles:
“The apology must happen. And the fine, I told you I would see to it. But what if the nature of your ‘atonement,’ your ‘service’ to the city, was something grander? Something that turns this humiliation on its head?
“You wrote to me for years, Temba. The bear population in the eastern forests is still a menace. Travelers are harassed, lumber supplies are difficult to secure further afield. The Hold needs it addressed.
“I expect you to solve the problem. Vow to cull the beasts that threaten the good people of the Rift. Make your name one they speak with respect, not just infamy.”
“A Jarl-sanctioned bear hunt?” Temba cracked her knuckles. “After a public apology? Hardly a punishment.”
“Precisely,” Laila said. “One that serves your narrative as well as Riften’s need for order. You give Snow-Shod his moment, you express ‘regret’ for the disruption, and then you pledge your strength to protect the Hold. How can anyone argue against a hero actively serving the city’s interests?”
Temba stood from the bench, her tall frame seeming to fill the small cell. She paced the two steps available to her. “And after I silence these bears?”
Laila met her gaze directly, the full weight of her Jarlship behind her next words:
“If you make the eastern forests safer, if you bring peace to those troubled woods—then your debt to the city will be more than repaid.” She took a breath. This was the bigger gamble. “And then, Temba Wide-Arm, for services rendered, I will make you Thane of Riften. A recognized champion of this Hold. Your past transgressions forgotten, or at least, overshadowed by your deeds.”
Anuriel, despite her attempt at distance, let out a tiny, choked gasp from down the corridor.
Temba blinked. “You would do that?”
“Maven values stability. And assets. A popular hero who solves a persistent problem for the Hold can be a very valuable asset indeed. It will be a matter of framing it correctly for her.” Laila’s cheeks flushed. “And yes. For you—I would do anything.”
“By Kyne,” said Temba, almost to herself. Then, louder and with a grin, “Thane Wide-Arm.” A minute frown was quick to follow. “The public apology will still be galling.”
“It will,” Laila agreed. “Freedom’s cost. And knowing you, likely with its own unique flavor. But it will be an apology. It must.”
Temba looked Laila directly in the eye, a silent understanding passing between them. “You have a deal.”
HermitWitch on Chapter 1 Mon 07 Jul 2025 05:25PM UTC
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Elionia on Chapter 1 Mon 07 Jul 2025 09:45PM UTC
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Last Edited Wed 23 Jul 2025 11:01PM UTC
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