12th of Heartfire, 4E201
As I write this, I’m sitting in the common room of the inn with a pint and meal in front of me. My feet are up, and my chair is tipped back on two legs. I’ve got a job tonight, working with my best friend. Life is finally looking up.
First, the little thing: I killed my second dragon on the road outside Riften. Admittedly the Riften guards helped, but still, I felt that soul flow into me, potential yet to be realized, giving me the boost I needed after my disappointment in the Ragged Flagon.
Now for the big thing: I’ve found Swims! Thank the Divines, I’ve finally found one of my friends!
I spotted him on my second day in town, and ran after him. “Swims!” I shouted.
He cringed and hissed and ducked into an alleyway. “By the Hist, Luciana Henriette, don’t use that name.”
I threw my arms around him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just I haven’t seen anyone in so long! I’ve been looking for you.”
Awkwardly, he hugged me, then pushed me back to look in my eyes. We held each other’s gaze for a long time. Finally, he said, “Looking for me, have you? I think I would like to hear about your last two months. Come, let’s get a pint and catch up.”
I followed him into the Winking Skeever. He chose a table in a corner, away from other patrons. I asked Lydia to give us some privacy, and we waited until the serving girl had come and gone before we started to talk. Swims regarded me with that impossible-to-read argonian gaze of his.
“So, what name are you using these days?”
“Still Lucy,” I told him with a shrug.
“Ah.” He seemed to consider that without knowing what to make of it. “OK, Lucy. Please tell me of your travels. Start from the beginning. Where did you go the day the rest of us were arrested?”
“I was arrested too. You were there; you saw.”
“I’d been knocked around pretty good. I came to in jail, and you weren’t there.”
“I was in solitary. Weren’t you?”
He snorted. “There aren’t enough cells in all the Reach to have held everyone in solitary. We were crowded in to two cells—twenty-nine of us after Margot the Buffer died. We got a mass trial, which was over before it started, and then we were sent to the gallows three days later. Then there was the riot. I should have run, but I looked for you. Saw your mother, but you weren’t there. I got knocked out and woke up in the Mine.”
“By the Nine, Swims! I am so sorry! I’m sorry for what happened to everyone!”
“Apologies…” he began, but seemed to reconsider. “So where were you all this time, then? How’d you get out of solitary? Where in Oblivion have you been?”
“They held me a long time,” I began. “I never heard what happened to anyone else, except a guard said Durz escaped. Then…”
“Durz was your Imperial friend, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Anyway, they took me to a little village in the Jerall Mountains for execution. I woke up…”
“The Jerall Mountains?” Swims interrupted again. “Why?”
“I’ve asked myself the same question. I think it was after the riot, and that assassin wanted me out of town to make sure I died.”
“You still think he was an assassin?” asked Swims. “He presided at our trial.”
“Mine too,” I said. “But then why has the Dark Brotherhood been after me since I escaped?”
Swims hissed. “And you know they were Brotherhood?”
“They had the contracts on them.”
“Hist!” he swore. “Did it say who’d hired them?”
“No, but who else would it be?” I asked as I showed him the contracts.
He looked them over quickly and pushed them back. “What happened next?”
I wanted to tell him everything. I even told him about activating the amulet. He stopped me again.
“Wait. After all our efforts to get that amulet back so that it wouldn’t be used, you used it yourself? And that’s why the dragons are back?”
In a small voice I said, “I’d never seen a magic amulet before. I didn’t meant to.” Then I added urgently, “And it was written in our language, Swims, the one the Youth Corps used.”
He leaned back in his seat. “You mean your language,” he clarified.
“Yes, how weird is that?”
“Pretty darn,” he agreed. He jumped to another topic. “And where did you pick up that woman? She called you her thane?”
“Yeah, the jarl of Whiterun assigned her to me for helping slay a dragon.”
“Slay a dragon? So is that what you’ve been doing all this time? Slaying the dragons you let loose?”
“A couple, yeah. Mostly, I’ve been looking for you, and for my folks.”
“And in the meantime, building up a quite a comfortable position for yourself in Whiterun, it seems.”
“I suppose,” I said. “It’s a really long story, and I feel like I’m screwing it up. Maybe you could take a turn now. I know Madanach let you out of the Mine and then you came here. How are you doing? What’s happened since then?”
“Madanach didn’t let me go,” he corrected with a growl. “He had his big henchman beat me up, and then locked me into his escape tunnel and told me to finish it if I ever wanted to see daylight again. I did what he said while he gave me just enough water and food to keep me swinging my pick. When I broke through, I ran without bothering to tell him about it. Found myself in the old ruins, fighting frost spiders with a pickaxe. My race is resistant to poisons, but I’d have died if my sister hadn’t found me.”
“She was in town?” I asked.
“Looking for me,” he said. “She came home when she heard rumors.”
“Thank the Nine she found you,” I said, with sincere reverence.
“Yes,” he agreed. “And she found me a place in her outfit.”
I leaned forward excitedly. “Do you think they could make room for me? The Guild in Markarth disappeared, and I can’t find any of our people. I tried to join the Guild in Riften, but I don’t think much of their methods, so I’m sort of looking for a new group to join.”
He pondered for a long time, staring at me with his unblinking eyes. Then his face split apart with a big toothy grin, and he said, “I think we could swing that! You want in on a job we’re putting together for tonight?”
I leaned across the table. My voice eager but low, I asked him, “What do I have to do?”
“First, we’d need you to put out the Solitude Light,” he began.
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