AMPERA

Daggerfall had been a cultural monsoon, as free as it was quite frankly promiscuous. Brothels were commonplace; in the daytime, people frequented them how one might a cafe, trading stories at the low tables, both with visiting friends and scantily clad entertainers. When the sun sank below the horizon, the streets came alive with music, laughter and breathy noises from alleys best left uninvestigated.

The shame was the biggest culture shock, and not just because it had gone hand in hand with stepping out of a protected childhood straight into another country’s dark depravity.

Skyrim had shame aplenty, even in the nefarious districts. The streets oozed with it, a thick, cloying miasma of lust drenched weakly in penance, like it’d wash the sins off. The Divines did not care; if they did, it wasn’t enough to rise through the stench of Solitude’s dark, gritty underbelly. Their priests skulked about the brothels with their heads down, cheeks flushed with booze and bought pleasure.

It was, Sable thought, a bad world. The world beneath the regular world, where dock laborers and Jarls alike walked across the veneer with their noses to the sky, until they, too, followed the sun down into the Red District. And it was, with some effort, home.

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Falk Firebeard did not often spend time away from the Palace district.

When he did, he rented the entire upper floor of the Crimson Corner from sundown to sunrise, and called upon Sable via letters that always came signed with the initials F.F. It wasn’t discreet, but in the Red District, all things could go unnoticed when enough money pouches traded the appropriate hands.

His love affair with Thane Bryling was an unspoken thing among the city’s underbelly- Sable was the one he came to when Bryling brushed him off long enough to make him frustrated. Falk insisted on a veil every time: a thin silk the color of spilled wine, pinned around her head by gold pins. He traced his fingers across the outline of her face beneath it, only visible in candlelight, and he’d murmur lovesick nothings to her, how dangerous it was for them to meet- he whispered Bryling’s name, when he’d ingested enough spiced wine to start believing the fantasy.

The talking was part of that, for him, as it was with many others. He had a ritual- warnings muttered between slaps of sweaty skin. “Shouldn’t- Shouldn’t spill in you,” he’d groan, hips trembling, betraying him by snapping forward. The lies were sweet, fragrant with wine against Sable’s face.

The risk was the thrill, for it meant he could pretend he was seeding the woman he only loved almost enough to give up his comforts for.

He always climaxed grunting. He also always left before daylight, meaning Sable could rise to wash his seed from her cunt, then wash the exhaustion down with potion. Crushed nightshade and deathbell were lethal at the wrong amounts; very good at hindering pregnancy at the precise.

Sable’s most stable clientele was the soldiery. They were men with demanding jobs, in different ways: the self-proclaimed lucky ones got sent to the battlefield to die in a week, and the unlucky ones walked into the Crimson Bordello, pent-up and angry from patrolling the proper streets. No fighting, unless the drunks going for a piss outside the Winking Skeever got too unruly. Not enough glory to attract the noble ladies the way their superiors did.

Sable met many youths, still green and wet-behind-the-ears their helmets had been clunked onto. Most spilled their seed in her hands, stuttering and begging another chance to please her before their allotted time ran out. The seasoned ones, ones with cold eyes and badly healed injuries, rutted into her until they were spent. Silent, straight-backed like good soldiers, even in bought ecstasy.

Paying for time, in a country as unforgiving as Skyrim, was as expensive as it was dangerous. Especially for those recruited to die for a civil war that refused to end.

Madame, when Sable ended up in her corner of the District, had nursed her back from the brink of death. Then, when she’d started working, she’d taught her all she knew.

All she knew turned out to be near everything. How to keep the notes was first: when the rutting, angry bodies started blurring into one, whores needed to keep track of who meant what. Who was nervous but paid well.

Who was dangerous, and paid best.

“Remember this, Sable. A good whore hears everything, sees everything, yet if asked, knows nothing. That is your weapon. You must learn which men will slit you sternum to hips for blackmailing them, and which will, when pushed, do the slitting for you.”

Sable was good at it. All that survived their first year were, and she had become near best. The crown was still held by Madames, though- the women clever enough to get out of the whoring entirely. Why sell one cunt, when you could sell two dozen, and the money went into your own pocket?

Madame Elena was not polite, but she was merciful. Under her wing, with nowhere else to go, there lay the closest thing to freedom in this wretched place.

Sable thought she understood her place in the world. That was before Windhelm.

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The passageway was dark, untraveled for many, many years. She’d considered it for a few, long moments, during which her vision swam and flickered.

Then she’d fumbled for the single lit torch in her cell and, upon one last glance to check for guards, she’d found none.

The chest was halfway filled. Inside were clothes. Weapons. A leather satchel that drew her attention enough that it probably belonged to her. Maybe.

On a scale of crimes, breaking out of prison was higher up than petty theft. Ana slung the satchel over her shoulder, adjusting the tunic she’d changed into until the harsh neckline stopped cutting into her skin.

Whoever had gone to the pain of creating an escape route had not left a map. With no light to mark the way, the torches long since unlit and damp on the waterlogged walls, Ana picked the biggest tunnel and made her ginger way forward. Her torch went out just before she found the stairs, leaving her to pick her way through in complete darkness.

She got as far as the water systems, where some light came through. Then she stopped, listening to the disgusting water pour and trickle onward, into grates and deeper, clearly leading somewhere.

Her head pounded. Her mouth was dry. Her eyes, crusted from lack of sleep, still went back the way she’d came.

Her legs ached more from the stairs when going back up.

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The prison did not have good security. Small as it were, it was definitely lacking adequate guards. Or maybe, fitting into the bleary picture Ana had constructed of Riften, they just didn’t care.

She creaked open the gate with a wince, stumbled through and clicked it shut.

The Khajiit’s head lifted from where it had rested on his knee. His eyes caught the light and shone brilliant amber. Not only was he awake, he’d clearly been waiting for her.

Something about him captivated her up close. She’d expected something, but whatever it was-

”Come to kill me at last, have you?” he rasped.

..That wasn’t it.

Ana stared at him, frozen with shock.

”..What?” she whispered.

There was no time for- this. Was he insane? Was she, for that matter, sneaking into an unknown man’s cell to bust him out along with her?

”We don’t have time for this,” she said urgently, and had to brace her good arm against the table in his cell. It was still dark in the prison, but she had a feeling that would change soon. ”I don’t want to kill you. I’m breaking you out-”

He looked at her with an expression she’d almost call beseeching. Her head was swimming, and she felt as confused as he looked.

”I’m not leaving,” he said, ears pricking to attention. He had several gold piercings lining the sides of them, and they jingled. The noise triggered a sense of deja vu. ”You are. After you kill me.”

Her stomach dropped.

”What,” she said again.

”I am in no mood for jokes!” The Khajiit shifted on his chair as if meaning to stand. Ana stumbled back, and the Khajiit froze. His ears flattened to his head, and he curled into himself further. Trying to make himself smaller.

”..You must strike me down,” he said, softer. ”Take your revenge.”

Ana glanced toward the door, but- she looked back to the Khajiit, who had stopped bristling when he noticed her flinch.

”I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she admitted helplessly. ”I.. don’t know you. Who are you?”

His expression when he looked at her was cracked open. Hurt, and something rawer still beneath.

”You don’t remember?” His voice was unsure. ”Um. That is my fault also.”

His ears were drooping.

”I am your so-called-friend,” he went on, looking like a kicked dog- cat? ”Inigo-”

A sound above them cut him off. Metal jingled against more metal. Keys.

Ana didn’t think. She just moved.

Grabbing him by the wrist was too much movement for her sore head, but he steadied her in turn. She held onto him, holding his gaze, certain she looked as mad as she felt.

There was something about him that was so achingly familiar. He really did know her.

”You’re going to have to wait a little longer for your death, Inigo,” she whispered. ”You’re coming with me. Right now. Neither of us are dying here.”

She was not leaving him.

For a breathless moment, he just stared at her. At her hand wrapped around his furred wrist, at his claws on her pale, shaking one.

Then, he tightened his grip to match hers.

Ana forgot most details of their escape in the mayhem. Inigo had stopped to go rifle through a chest in his cell- something that didn’t strike her as odd until later- and then she was leading him on unsteady legs toward the evidence room.

Inigo was very nimble. And strong, she found out when she couldn’t quite manage to hoist herself through the sewer grate- then there were hands on her waist, bodily lifting her down to join him in the darkness. He was silent like a mouse, keeping pace with her with a grace that suggested he was well-used to running through danger.

Ana felt like a bumbling mess beside him.

The water was an icy cage when she dove into it. The current had her disoriented, and the water stank- mildew and stagnated algae- bad enough to make her gag. The stone was slick under her as she dragged herself up, and over, and-

Out.

Inigo surfaced a second after her, heaving himself over the same ledge she’d found. The smell of forest and salt water filled her nose, as did the bustle of activity above. Docks. They were under docks.

Somebody shouted above them.

”Hey- you two! What’re you doing?”

They didn’t stay to chat. Their boots- and bare feet, respectively- slapped against the stone walkway they’d ended up on, then earth and rocks and leaves. Inigo was fast- he darted between the trees without pausing, ears flicked back as if to track her behind him.

Ana ran on sore, shaking legs. Aspen branches whipped at her face, roots tried to trip her. She kept running like she’d die if she stopped.

They didn’t stop until her legs was trembling violently and her vision had begun to gray at the edges. It hurt to draw breath. They collapsed against a tree each, and now even Inigo was winded.

Ana bent forward to rest her head in her hands. Inigo was standing again- how he had energy left, she had no clue- and she spared a glance up to see him glancing between the trees the way they’d come, nostrils flaring.

He went still. Swallowed against his probably-dry throat. Ana looked at him properly, then. His fur truly was blue, a deep, rich indigo even when wet with sewer and salty water, and the color tugged painfully at her brain. Another memory?

Regardless, she looked at him in the moonlight, standing barefoot- clawed?- on the leafy forest floor like he belonged there, and Ana decided whatever happened next- she’d made a good choice.

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He was silent.

Ana watched Inigo’s tail lash, his ears go from drooping to pinpricks, then back down again as he breathed the small fire to life between them. The satchel Ana had taken had carried the bare necessities, they’d found- Inigo, quietly, had offered to take the flint when her hands shook.

Ana had sat back with her useless arm- she could not fetch firewood either.

He wanted to say something. She wanted to, as well, but before she could muster the courage, he leaned forward to adjust a log in the flames, and her gaze snagged on his arm.

There was a deep cut along his forearm, the fur parted and stained dark red along the edges of the wound.

She didn’t think. One moment she was staring in shock, the next she’d moved across the fire, holding his wrist. Her other hand was on his arm, having moved without her conscious thought- the glow started in her knuckles and moved, through her palm and fingers and into Inigo’s arm.

The wound began to knit itself together right before her eyes.

Then pain detonated behind them.

It was blinding, a violent stab that tore up the back of her neck, up through her skull, and sent her reeling. Ana let Inigo’s arm go and stumbled back, trying so, so hard to avoid losing what little food she still had in her stomach.

”What,” she began. Her mouth was dry and felt like cotton. ”What just happened?”

Her fingers were still tingling with that warmth that’d seeped from them. Restoration magic. As far as she knew- or remembered- she knew no magic at all. Then again, she remembered nothing.

She had no idea who she was.

”You truly do not remember,” Inigo said quietly, breaking her from her thoughts.

She did not.

Ana shook her head, and instantly regretted it when her vision shorted out and the pain flared up anew. She gave up on trying to stand and sat back down, across the fire from Inigo like before.

Inigo had fished a piece of bread from her pack and swallowed it by the time her arm stopped prickling with pins and needles. Then, he pulled his legs to his torso and spoke.

”We met on a job,” Inigo said.

Ana stopped chewing her own bread piece. The bread was stale, but she was so starved that it tasted like salvation. Hard-chewed, wheaty salvation.

In a nearby tree, a bird cooed out a careful song midst the rustling branches.

”A job,” she repeated, dumbly. ”I.. I don’t-”

”We were hired by a lord, Lord Dupan, to kill his brothers. So.. erm. The killing kind.” Inigo looked sheepish, but mostly still sad.

Ana said the first thing she absorbed of what he’d said.

”I kill people?”

Inigo nodded, emphatically. ”You were- are,” he corrected himself, ears drooping a little, ”very good at it.”

Ana, truthfully, had no clue what to do with that revelation. She was an amnesiac- that, she knew how to handle, more or less. It was all she had to handle.

And once, she’d apparently been a gifted enough murderer to warrant some serious consideration.

”You were hired as a spellcaster.” Inigo’s gaze fell to his arm, now bearing little more than a scratch. It looked, Ana’s mind said, like it’d been healing for a week.

”..Was I any good?”

She wasn’t expecting his laugh. By the look on his face, neither was he- he had a nice laugh, deep and melodic. It sounded like mischief.

”Good? You were incredible!” Inigo was smiling- she’d not seen him so animated before. He leaned forward to gesture wildly at her person, eyes alight. ”I am not sure what Dupan paid, but you were the strongest spellcaster I’d ever seen! You blasted a troll right off a cliff like it was nothing, you healed all manners of wounds. You almost seemed invincib-”

He went morose again. He hung his head and picked at a rock near his hip, ear dropping so far Ana worried they might fall right off his head.

He painted a pitiful picture. He looked like everything wrong with the world was his fault-

She recalled something.

”Back in your cell,” Ana said suddenly, remembering what he’d confessed to while asking her to kill him, ”You said it was your fault that I don’t remember anything.”

Inigo nodded, seeming like he was steeling himself.

”Before we left for the mission, Dupan told me that, should only one of us return alive, that person would get the others’ reward, also.”

Inigo was curled up, similar to how he’d been in the cell on the chair. His knees were to his chest. His eyes wouldn’t meet hers.

”I.. was hooked on Skooma at the time, and I had a bit of a debt problem. So..”

Ana sat back, slowly.

The pain in her skull had faded to a dull throb, and she raised her hand to her head. There was tenderness on the outside to match the inside, she noted, and she followed the path of pain until she reached the divot before her temple.

There. Hidden by her hair was skin raised in a jagged shape. When she pressed down experimentally, pain shot through her skull and down her neck.

She looked at Inigo, who looked like he wanted to sink into the soft earth around them. Trying to make sense of the situation.

”You tried to kill me for my half of the reward?” She said, mouth barely moving around the words.

Inigo nodded. He finally looked up at her, golden eyes swimming with grief. And guilt. It was practically pouring down his fur.

”I tried. That is what matters,” he murmured. ”It was not an easy choice. We had only known each other for a short time, but I had grown to like and respect you. We got on well and fought bravely side by side. I threw all that away for gold and Skooma.”

Bizarrely, Ana had one question burning on her tongue. And a complete lack of anger.

”Did you get the reward?”

Inigo blinked at her. The question really was a weird one, but Ana felt it was important considering the circumstances.

”No,” Inigo shook his head, gold jingling in his ears. ”Dupan was murdered by his sister before I made it back to his keep. Our deal died with him.”

Ana nodded.

She should be angry. It explained everything. It left a world of other questions she didn’t know how to search to the answers to. She wasn’t dying of a mystery illness; she’d been shot in the head, and survived, somehow. And she’d somehow managed to rescue the guy who did it.

She.. didn’t know who she was. She’d been someone, clearly, somebody strong, powerful enough to be hired by a wealthy lord to do his bidding. And to survive an arrow to the noggin’.

But that wasn’t now. If her name then hadn’t been Ana, who had she been? That person was dead, as was her life.

”Are you still hooked on Skooma?” She didn’t think he was- call it a gut feeling- but she needed to know regardless. The future was cementing itself in her mind, and it involved the only available shard of her past along for the ride.

Inigo’s head shake reminded her of a dog shaking off water after a dunk in water. How she knew that was another of many small mysteries to save for a later date.

”No. I am done with the stuff,” he said, and his mouth was twisted up in a grimace. But his eyes held truth. He was done with the past, same as her, if by vastly different methods. ”I want to die with my senses intact. I am ready.”

It was Ana’s turn to shake her head.

”No,” she said. Inigo’s gaze snapped, from where he’d been poking at a leaf with his foot, to her, wide with shock. ”No. You’re not dying at my hand. Come with me, instead. Fight by my side.”

Inigo looked like he was barely breathing.

”I.. fight with you?” His eyes were almost sparkling. Like stars. ”At your side?”

Ana smiled.

”If you feel you have a debt, then repay it.” She shrugged, wincing when it jostled her probably-broken arm. ”With the blood of my foes, come Oblivion or high- you understand what I mean. I sort of need a hand, literally, until I can use both again.”

”I’ll die defending you!” Inigo grinned in triumph, and she wondered if he’d heard anything beyond the first part. Ana did not want him to die for her in any manner- she was so strongly against it that it shocked her a little- but it was a start. ”Yes. I accept! This makes me feel lighter, my friend. It will be like old times!”

Ana didn’t know who she had been. But whoever she was becoming, she’d just saved the life of a man who’d tried to take hers.

It felt like the start of something different entirely.

The swooping continued not unlike waves lapping at the shore. She’d be concerned, except the bed she was laying on was steady, if reeking of old, unwashed pelts and misery. It was her head that swam; it did that a lot now, backed by a hollow, screeching ache like something trying to claw its way out.

Ana rolled over on her other side with a groan, and the smells got fresher, more pronounced. She squinted against the flickering light.

Bars. Lining the expanse of the ‘room’ from floor to ceiling, with a padlocked door at the center.

Her mind scrambled through the last few days, and what she could remember of them, but the memories came like wet mud- slow and bleeding into each other. Shouting merchants in the market, and some delicious stew hitting her withered taste buds. Her knees giving out, and somebody shouting at her, specifically.

After that, nothing.

Looking at the sway of the torch lights made her head hurt worse, so she looked away as her thoughts scrambled. Trying to stitch the situation together yielded weird folds and weak seams made by a drunkard let loose upon the sewing kit. Arrested.. for what?

She couldn’t remember. She did remember that stew, though. The smell of the broth had crept its way up her nostrils, burning her eyes from the inside, cooked her brain to a stinging, pulsating slab in her head. She had eaten. Somehow, she remembered close to nothing else.

Ready for its cue, her stomach growled miserably, and she concluded that the stew- rich, savory- had been a while ago. She once again cast her muddled vision up to take in her situation.

The cell was bare, but not barren. The bed she was laying on had been furnished with old furs and spare straw. Beyond that, it was just her, the stones, and the wide grate that took up the entire length of one wall.

Beyond it, a walkway stretched into the dim rest of the prison, railing along the side of a drop in the middle.

Ana closed her eyes again, drifting along hazy currents that felt like sludge dripping off her skin, itching the backs of her eyeballs-

And then she heard it.

A voice. Low, fractured. Muttering words that scraped the nerves in her body. She opened her eyes again, squinting in dismay at the world at large.

”-Lady Death, you will see me soon.”

She considered it. The voice- familiar. Painfully so. Something in it dug through her the worst of the haze, until she made the choice.

The second she pushed herself off the bed and to her feet, she went stumbling across the small room. The bars caught her fall; she was too dizzy to pay it mind, peering instead across the walkway.

There.

Another cell, dimly lit. A figure crouched on the ground, tail flicking, fur dark as midnight that flashed blue when he moved. A Khajiit. She knew that much.

The Khajiit’s golden eyes snapped up to hers, and they considered each other. Ana’s vision was swimming, and she had to rest her forehead against the cold edge of her prison. There were no dragonflies down here, were there?

The haze crept back along the edges, and she rubbed her fingers against her temple with feeling.

The Khajiit, still crouched in his cell, was staring at her like he’d never seen a human in his life. That, Ana thought, felt.. like something. Another memory surfaced in her syrup-brain, and it startled her so much that her jerk startled her cellmate in turn. She hadn’t even thought to question it.