Xeno-Vhia

‘Can’t really have you on the main deck. There’s always people running back and forth, don’t want them tripping over you. You’d get soaked, anyway.’

Although Xeno would be hard to miss, even on the night watches. Vilayn watched her efforts with a frown, but in the end he shrugged the problem away, made a mental note to ensure someone he disliked slept near her, and started inching back towards the ladder.

‘She’s a sturdy vessel, she’ll hold you. Stow your things. Lots of work to do.’

Was not this a deck too, she thought to herself with a small, confused shake of her head. Perhaps it didn’t matter. Maybe the hammock would hold her weight and everything would be fine. If that proved to not be the case, at least she knew who she would bother about a solution. Instead of pressing the subject, Xeno moved to follow the first mate back towards the ladder. 

Now that they were forced back on a level again by the deckhead, and since he managed to be a few inches straighter than Xeno, Vilayn felt more sure of himself. If anything, he seemed amused by Xeno’s first struggles, and slowed down to allow to catch up, but any nascent friendliness was hidden by the time he spoke to her again.

‘What were you expecting, a four-poster with goose down pillows? Yes, we sleep in hammocks.’ He spread an arm around the cramped, dingy space. ‘Pick a space, sling your pack there, and if anybody tries to take it off you later, fight them for it. Gently.’

“I wasn’t expecting anything,” she replied with a pointed look. “I only asked because I might not fit in one of them, or I might be too heavy, and I was going to ask for permission to sleep directly on the deck if that was the case,” she added while she dropped her pack near one of the lower hanging hammocks. Just in case she knotwork or fabric didn’t hold her, she would rather not squish someone in the process.

Azareth was waiting on the deck to oversee the boat’s return. He saluted to Vilayn from under the brim of his hat and gave Xeno only the most cursory of glances before he started to scribble down the contents of the boat. While he did so, Vilayn organised the sailors around the crates they had brought with them and began to give instructions, finishing by beckoning to Xeno.

‘You, come with me. I’ll show you the crew’s sleeping quarters, then we’ll help them finish unloading.’

Without waiting for acknowledgement this time, he strode onto the main deck and then lifted up a hatch between the two masts, revealing a wooden ladder which dropped into the dark innards of the brig. He scrambled down this and disappeared into the shadows.

Xeno hoisted her pack further onto her shoulder before she obediently followed Vilayn towards the hatch. For a split second she doubted it would be big enough for her to slip through, but the thought was gone almost before it had manifested itself in her mind. 

She crawled into the hole after him with far less grace and ease than he had displayed, eventually opting for the far easier approach of simply letting go of the ladder. Once her feet made contact with the deck below she tried to straighten up only to knock the back of her head on the overhead deck and she bit back a hiss. The Argonian lowered herself onto all fours as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she allowed herself a peek around while still hot on the first mate’s heels. 

The lack of a proper title did not pass without remark. Vilayn followed her towards the boat, having to increase the pace of his stride to match hers, and gave her the sternest reprimand he could manage while performing the half-jog.

‘The correct response to an order from an officer is yes sir or aye-aye sir. Not sure. You will remember that.’

Braskan, at the centre of the group pushing the boat, grinned at his fellow sailors and muttered, unheard by Vilayn,

‘Sure, sir.’

Moments later, with the help from Xeno, the hull of the boat was grinding across the sand and then slapping into the waves. Wet to their knees, the sailors jumped in, and Vilayn followed suit from the stern into the position of cox. When Xeno reached for the oars – which cued the other sailors to lean back and look disinterested, hoping not to be chosen – he nodded.

‘And row. Come up alongside the Scamp.’

“Yes, sir,” came the quick reply, if only to let him know she had heard and understood the message, but there was little enthusiasm behind the words. 

For the briefest of moments, when she saw the crew sat in the boat with her lean back, Xeno was tempted to rock the boat just to see how many of them would wind up in the ocean. Thanks to Vilayn’s presence, and how quick he had been to point out her earlier slip-up, she thought better of it. 

Since Vilayn’s usual introduction to official crew was to look severely down his nose at them, he had to rethink his strategy somewhat, and ended up puffing out his chest to compensate for the lack of height beside Xeno. This threw him out of kilter before he had even started, and it took spotting Luca trying to ride Sock around their beach encampment to get him back into his stride.

‘I– Luca!’

‘Brass tole–’

‘Get back to the captain!’

‘Yes, sir.’

As she slouched off, Vilayn turned back to Xeno, prepared this time, and began again with more certainty.

‘Welcome to the crew. I see you’ve got your pack.’ He nodded towards the boat. It was almost fully loaded now, and the first pack of sailors going on board were heaving it towards the shoreline. A pair of lines in the sand marked where they had pushed it from. ‘Give us a hand getting that in the water and we’ll take your things aboard. I’ll show you where to stow them when we get there.’

Xeno stood patiently and waited for the first mate to address her, watching him puff out his chest in an attempt to.. no, she wasn’t actually sure what he was aiming for. Whether it was an air of superiority or to look big and tough she certainly wasn’t convinced.

The order that followed, however, was something she could be convinced by, and she nodded her head in response. “Sure,” she replied, obviously unaccustomed to the whole sir-yes-sir rule. She walked over to the rear end of the boat and grabbed a hold of the topmost board. With her putting her weight and strength behind every push and the crew heaving in the same direction, they made short work of the remaining distance to the water. Once the boat had reached its end station, Xeno lowered her pack to the bottom before she followed suit.

R’khan’s expression didn’t change. It remained calm and unreadable, his eyes watching Xeno with official detachment.

‘It’s always been there, from the start. I ain’t havin’ anyone on board whose priorities ain’t the safety of the brig and her crew, simple as that. That’ll be the last question you ask of me, too. I’m your captain, not your bloody priest. Now go see Mister Vilayn for your instructions.’

Once the ink had dried on the parchment, Tosti folded it up and slipped it, the quill, and the inkwell pack into whichever pocket they had emerged from. As he did so he smiled at Xeno and murmured,

‘Welcome aboard, my friend.’

Hm, touchy, she thought to herself, but since she didn’t want to make an enemy of the captain she kept her mouth shut. She had promised to play nice, after all. When Tosti opened his mouth, Xeno merely snorted.

“Pleasure’s all mine, I’m sure,” she replied, balancing delicately between sarcastic and humored. She readjusted the pack sling over her shoulder, which judging by the noise it made consisted mostly of weapons in various shapes and sizes, and made her way further down the beach. Locating Vilayn didn’t prove to be a particularly difficult task when she could just follow the shouts.

There was something different about the crew today, too, and it wasn’t just the fact that everybody had taken the time to sleep off the booze. A silence descended as soon as Xeno was sighted at the top of the beach. Nobody turned to look at her, though, not blatantly, and after a second Vilayn’s orders cut across the sound of the surf.

‘What’s keeping you? Get on with it, you useless s’wits!’

Activity resumed. The crew scurrying back and forth across the beach, loading the boat, untangling rope, stacking up supplies, were overseen by R’khan from a rock. He had thrown his coat across it to stop the frost reaching him, and he was engaged in a low conversation with Tosti, who was wrapped in several furry layers against the cold. They finished talking in their own time, waiting until Xeno was right beside them before R’khan concluded whatever he was saying and nodded at the new arrival.

‘You turned up. Very punctual. We had our vote this morning, and you’ll be pleased to hear they voted mostly in favour. Mister Tosti here has the ship’s Articles. If you’re sailing with me, you sign ‘em.’

On cue, Tosti withdrew a roll of parchment from a woollen pocket somewhere, closely followed by a quill and an inkwell, both of which he offered towards Xeno.

Whether the crew was looking at her or not didn’t seem to bother her. She was looking right back anyway, letting her gaze drift across the bustling sailors to identify any familiar faces.

Her attention turned towards Tosti when he began digging into his pockets. Xeno tool the offered quill and parchment from the Redguard, but let him hold onto the inkwell as she dipped the quill into the ink. She quickly skimmed through the articles, stopping briefly at a few points of interest - namely the article about romantic relationships - before she signed with her name. Surely nobody would expect an argonian with two inch long talons to have a flowing handwriting, but what she jotted onto the paper looked more like chicken scratches than actual letters.

The Dunmer shrank back slightly when faced with Xeno’s stare, but most of them seemed unconcerned by the silent threat. Whether because they considered themselves innocent and were confident of Xisthia’s answer, or whether it was for other reasons, remained to be seen. The question seemed to take a while to process. Xisthia tightened her claws around her tail and twisted the kink, and for a moment it looked like she had forgotten the question entirely, before her eyes snapped back to Xeno’s.

‘They killed the sails-with-eggs. They let this one swim. They give this one the shiny and a box and a hanging soft place to sleep. The scruffyskin even gives this one feathers for the fiery water. The work is hard but the marsh is harder.’ She dropped her tail. ‘They are good-bad smoothskins. This one likes them.’

‘Aw, I’s touched, Xisth. Didn’ know ya cared.’

Xeno seemed happy with Xisthia’s answer, maybe even a little surprised but only pleasantly so. When she thought about it, maybe it wasn’t so odd after all. Not any odder than Caskan taking her in an treating her like family despite her scales and size, anyway. 

“Good t hear,” she said eventually with a small nod, opting to ignore Braskan altogether. Whether he felt touched or not - which, if she was being entirely honest, she didn’t fully believe - was really of no concern to her. She remained with the crew for a while longer, chatting idly whenever someone opened their mouth to talk to her, before she exused herself and retired to her rented room for the night. 

-

The next morning Xeno had made her way towards the beach where she was supposed to meet with R’khan and the Scamps. She had followed the path as described the night before; she had turned off the path before she got to the docks, then gone past a large icy boulder and a ‘fluffy’ tree, and lastly she had followed the path right and between two smaller boulders. True to their words, Xeno spotted the ship easily from the elavated position and made her way down towards the crew on the beach. 

Seeing her slouched or seated the night before hadn’t even been close to doing her height justice, and now out in the open she was easily towering at least a solid foot above everyone else - even the first mate. 

Xeno was right. Xisthia curled inwards on herself at the question and drew her tail up onto the chair, tugging at the kink towards the tip.

‘Hajxaj-Wasseekei.’ The tribe name caused more than one of the Dunmer to grin and mutter bless you, but they were taken care of by a kick under the table from Braskan. Xisthia continued with her eyes on Xeno, unblinking. ‘And then the marsh, and the egg-seller ship, and the Runaway Scamp. Many places, always growing.’

Xeno listened carefully, holding Xisthia’s gaze without problem. The tribe’s name was familiar, in the sense that she had heard about it before but never visited. She slowly turned her head, eyes remaining on Xisthia when she asked,

‘Xeno knows more than Xisthia. Xisthia is not an every other.’

To the Dunmer around them, Xisthia’s Jel was as incomprehensible as Xeno’s, simply with a lot less chirping and clicking. To a speaker of the language, it was equivalent to her Tamrielic: broken and confused, difficult to follow. Her lack of spines or other distinguishing Argonian features limited the nuance she could give words and the social cues she could give, and her frequent hissing was rather like listening to somebody with a lisp. Her own claws, short and stunted in comparison to Xeno’s, curled around the back of the chair she was perched on.

‘The Xeno licks the Hist sap?’ she asked, slipping into the common tongue again. ‘Or is too young when the sail-with-eggs come, yes no?’

Xeno tilted her head and looked at Xisthia, more thoroughly than before. Her gaze remained on Xisthia when she resumed talking in the common tongue, and she nodded her head in response to the question. “I have, yes. Still do, whenever I return to Black Marsh,” she replied. 

‘Lucky he found ya. Righ’ lucky, ya was.’

Braskan’s voice was never quiet, but on this occasion it was unusually subdued, and not followed up by any more relentlessly personal questions. That task fell to Xisthia. She had taken R’khan’s chair after he left, slightly further out from the main circle of Dunmer, and had been content to watch from the shadows until she asked, in the pause,

‘The Xeno knows not much about Argonians?’

“I reckon I know enough,” she replied while peering into the bottle she held in her grasp. “Caskan took me to Lilmoth when I was still young, just old enough to start going to school. He made sure I was taught Saxhleel customs, societal rules and Jel, just like every other Argonian child.”

‘Ha!’

Vilayn seized the bottle triumphantly, and dealt with the grumbles this caused by spitting the cork at the dissenters. Braskan, for once in his life, was not among that group, still more interested in what Xeno had to say.

‘How old was ya, when this Hlaalu found ya?’ he asked. ‘Had ya bin alone long?’

It was an odd sensation Xeno was left with after Braskan had asked his questions. Based purely on looks and the way he carried himself, he would have been the last person around this table she had expected to give a damn, but  what she had learned about him during her time with them made him difficult to place. 

The lack of outrageous answers seemed to disappoint the Scamps, who sank back over their drinks and listened without much excitement to her story, only perking up for the gorier details. The exceptions were Braskan, who watched her with unusually soft eyes, and Vilayn, who had asked the final question.

‘Sounds like a good man,’ said Vilayn, when her tale was finished. Braskan snorted, but quietly.

‘A good Hlaalu? Makes two of ‘em.’

‘Is he still around? And more importantly…’ Vilayn’s hand crept forwards, moment of sincerity gone. ‘…do I get the bottle?’

“He is a good mer. A terrible Hlaalu, but a good mer,” she agreed with a subtle nod of her head. “Taught me most of what I know. Took care of me and raised me, and yes, he’s still alive. We keep in touch when we can and usually get together for holidays,” she replied with the same fondness in her voice. 

‘How’d you get so strong?’

‘Have you ever eaten a person?’

‘Is all of your House as big as you are?’

‘Can you lick your own eyeballs?’

‘How did you escape the slavers?’

The questions came thick and fast on all sides as soon as Xeno invited them, but their calibre was somewhere below being worthy of a bottle of flin. Bob, Sham, Drasonval, Oran and Vilayn, respective owners of the loudest questions, waited expectantly for their answers nonetheless, ignoring the huff from Braskan, who had remained uncharacteristically silent when there was free alcohol on offer.

Xeno’s gaze followed the flurry of questions around the table, trying to remember most of them until she was allowed time enough to answer them.

“Argonians don’t have Houses. We have tribes, like ashlanders, and no, not everyone in my tribe was as big as me. Some were, like my parents, but most were more.. average sized,” she replied while looking at the met who had asked the question.

“The reason some lizards lick their eyes is that they don’t have eyelids. Since I do, I don’t need to lick my eyeballs, and even if I wanted to I’m not able to. My tongue isn’t that long,” she replied evenly, and the quickly went on to the next couple of questions, “Like I said before, I’ve been a pit fighter on and off for the past... twelve, thirteen years. You don’t make it in the ring unless you’re either stronger or smarter than the guy you’re fighting. Same goes for a life as a mercenary. And no, I’ve never eaten anyone. Bitten off a few extremities and torn out a few throats, sure, but never swallowed them.”

‘Suit yersel’.’

Unlike his crew, R’khan had been watching the whole exchange from the same casual position, outwardly unconcerned whether it ended in a fight or not. When it became evident that Braskan wasn’t going to be drawn, at least not on this issue, he stretched his legs forward and stood up. The crew fell silent to watch.

‘I think I’m finished for the night,’ he said. ‘ You behave yourself, my lads. I want to see all of you back at the brig by midday tomorrow, ready to start loading the cargo. We’ll sort out our new friend here–’

‘Xeno,’ murmured Vilayn quietly.

‘–Xeno at the same time.’

He paced away towards the inn’s stairs, presumably heading for a rented room. Once he was out of the room and they were left unattended, there was a fresh current of interest in the crew, and they shuffled inwards again, resuming their former huddle around the table. Nobody wanted to be the first to ask Xeno questions, but all of them kept glancing at her, full of curiosity.

Xeno followed R’khan’s movements with a neutral gaze until he was out of sight. Despite it being his parting words for the evening, she had a growing suspicion that his sailors had a very different perspective on what behaving themselves meant. Not her problem, she thought to herself. 

She settled herself against the back of her chair and waved at one of the barmaids to come over, and try as she might she couldn’t help but feel every single pair of eyes on her when they glanced in her direction. She ordered another drink for herself, and a second bottle of flin. When both bottles arrived, she kept one in her hand and set the other in the middle of the table. 

There was a sudden and distinct shuffling as the whole crew, without a break in their own personal chatter, picked up their drinks or moved an inch back while turning their heads to watch. Whatever Xeno had said that prompted the reaction, it couldn’t have offended them, but they seemed to be expecting fireworks from somewhere.

If they expected them from Braskan, they were to be disappointed, at least for now. Other than gripping his drink a bit tighter there wasn’t much of a change in his appearance.

‘Khajiit’ve got an excuse, they uses it fer religion. Ya can get away wi’ a lot when ya does it ‘coz of religion.’ He finished the dregs of his mazte. ‘But I isn’t gonna argue wi’ ya ‘bout Bosmer.’

Having spent well over half of her life perfecting the ability to pick up on human and elven social queues had made Xeno able to detect that something was off about the current situation. Piecing together what information she had gained throughout the evening, she came to the conclusion that talking about Khajiit in general was probably something best done out of Braskan’s earshot. 

‘If yer buyin’ it fer me, I will.’

Although Braskan was leering as per usual, there did seem to be a higher level of respect in his voice than he usually bestowed upon people. It remained as he leaned back, kicking his legs up onto the table, and added,

‘’Fraid ya was gonna say summat weird, like that shite they has in Valenwood. Does the job, all righ’, but it tastes a’… well, tastes like wha’ it is, don’ it? Dead rats an’ swamp ooze.’

Xeno inclined her head this way and that, as if mulling it over for a moment. “Sure. I can buy you all a round once we’re done,” she agreed with a casual nod and a hint of mischief in her eyes, “So long as I get to pick the tavern.”

As Braskan went on, she made a gagging sound, and would have made a face too if she could. “I know I look like an animal, but I do actually have standards. Hard to believe maybe, but no less true,” she said and idly drummed her talons against the empty flin bottle in a rhythm.