indefinite hiatus

“Little miss,” a stranger says, approaching the little girl reaching for a glass of fine, rich hot chocolate, kept warm by a colorful flame under it. She raises her brows and looks at him from the corner of her eyes. “That mark on your arm—that is a scar, is it not?”

She raises her chin and takes a sip of her drink before choosing to answer him. She doesn’t have to, but this is the first time anyone’s mentioned the scar on her arm without a pitying or horrified look—this man’s gaze is all curiosity and puzzlement, and she can’t help but feel delighted at that. Still, he doesn’t recognize her, and she doesn’t recognize him. That means he didn’t show up to the party in time for the introductions, and he’s definitely never been here before, or much of any other noble courts before.

“It is,” she replies primly. “Who are you?” “Reistr Bound-Eye, Miss,” he replies. “A scholar from Skyrim.”

“And?” She’s certainly never heard of him.

Reistr Bound-Eye blinks at her in what’s clearly bafflement. Then, he seems to regain his senses, and says, slowly, “The mark on your arm, Miss. If it’s a scar, how did you come upon it?”

“I was born with it,” she replies, and she would have crossed her arms if not for the drink in her hand. She can’t set it down—Father would scold her until dawn for being careless and forgetting one of the simplest rules any young lady should know. She takes another sip from the glass, then hands it to a passing servant. They know to dispose of it properly, and she can simply get another mug of the drink. “Why?”

“Born with it?” Reistr asks in a boggled gasp.

“Yes, born with it? Tell me what’s so important, spit it out,” she complains huffily, almost tapping her foot impatiently. She would, if it were not such bad manners.

“But that’s—then it must be a coincidence,” he says, and inches back. “I’m sorry, I’m mistaken.”

“What? No, wait, tell me.”

Reistr looks doubtful, and then he sighs and holds out his hand. 

She offers her arm without a moment’s hesitation, sharp blue eyes watching him keenly. It feels surreal, knowing that she’s going to be told something she’s certain she’s never heard before, and yet—fear wells up in her. What if it’s something she’ll wish she never heard in the first place? No matter—it’s too late for that.

“It’s in the language of the dragons,” Reistr tells her. “In Skyrim, there are tablets and walls with words like these carved in it...”

“Can you read it?” she demands. 

“No,” Reistr says. “The Greybeards, scholars of the Voice, would not teach me that.”

She grits her teeth, unsatisfied with what she’s been told—it’s only opened up more questions than answers, and she doesn’t know how to get it if Reistr, a scholar, can’t. She could ask her mother, of course, but she won’t be back yet and she doesn’t know if—

“Hesperia!”

The girl turns around, suddenly standing ramrod straight at the shock of being called for so loudly. “Father,” she gasps. “I’m sorry, I was just—”

Her father raises a brow at her, blue eyes narrowed. “I was looking for you for the last five minutes, and a servant had to point me here. Who is this man?”

“Your Serene Grace!” Reistr says, eyes wide with a sudden fear as he drops down on one knee, bowing deeply. “I didn’t know—”

“You should have,” Father responds coolly. “And you should have known who my daughter is. Or, she ought to have introduced herself.” He gives Hesperia a pointed look.

Hesperia does a little tip of the head she offers to those of lower standing than her, and says, “Duchess Hesperia Eliane Ismene Beausoleil Velianel. But you can address me as Lady Hesperia.”

“And what was it you were speaking to my daughter about...?”

“Reistr Bound-Eye, your Grace. A scholar from Skyrim. Lady Hesperia—the scar on her arm—well, you see—” He seems to be losing his composure, so thoroughly panicked that it shows.

“Calm yourself, man,” Father says with a sharp, sudden but jovial laugh. He claps Reistr on the shoulder. It’s strange—Hesperia has only seen this once or twice and she’s glad he’s not terrifying Reistr as he does to the other guests, but—

Oh. She doesn’t say it aloud, she doesn’t want to embarrass him, but she can see how he’s drained his glass of wine, and even as careful and graceful as he can be, she can just make out the slightest wine stain on the cuff of his dark sleeves. He’s drunk.

“Y—Certainly, Your Grace,” Reistr says with a nervous sigh, but he relaxes.

Hesperia takes this as the opportunity to tell her father herself, instead of waiting for him to mess up. “Well, you see, Father, Reistr was telling me about my scar. He says it’s the dragons’ language, from Skyrim. Isn’t that fascinating, Father?”

“Fascinating, indeed,” he responds. “But that’s not possible.”

“But your Grace—”

“Can you read it, Reistr?” he asks bluntly, tilting his head to the side. 

“No...” the scholar admits, but before he can continue, he’s cut off once more.

“Valerion! Old friend!” another man from across the hall calls out, inebriated and heading towards them, arms thrown out and beckoning him. “And Hesperia, little lady! I haven’t seen you two, in ever so long, hurry and come here, leave the poor fellow be!”

“Then that settles it,” Father says with a cool, close-lipped smile, and claps Reistr on the shoulder once more. “Enjoy the food, the wine, and the men and women. Come, Hesperia, let’s go meet Lord Pavell.” He places a hand on her shoulder and steers her away.

“Sorry,” Hesperia mouths, frowning over her shoulder as she is ushered away from Reistr.

Annoyed, he shakes his head and looks away.

— — —

“I would have never guessed you were a noble,” Lucien says, leaning forward, flickering flames casting dancing shadows on his face, peering at her instead of the carving on her arm. “I don’t know, you don’t... well, I suppose you don’t carry yourself that way.”

Arpina smiles, and lowers her sleeve. “That’s the intention, isn’t it?”

“Well, it is, yeah. You’re really very good at that.”

Arpina often wonders when it will catch up to her. It is inevitable, she knows it, the consequence of saving someone who was going to kill her—and rescuing him instead. There is nothing quite like the fire of desperation to spur on impulsive decision making about things you were initially on the fence about, but she didn’t have the chance to bargain with Mora for Miraak’s life and now she is not entirely sure of what to do knowing that there are two Dragonborn on Nirn now.

It’s not like it was in the prophecy, but what could she have done? Left him to die? No.

(No, because if she was in his place, she would want to be saved in every scenario. She would want to be saved, over and over again, because she cannot imagine never seeing Nirn again before dying.)

It is an inconceivable thought to leave the mirror of her soul to die. To die the most painful, devastating, and lonely death. He didn’t die in battle, but at the hand of a cheater, and she’d have eaten his soul, devouring it the way Alduin would take hers, and then she would be just as much a villain as him. 

Arpina swallows thickly at the sight of Miraak, asleep on her bed and still looking too far close to death, even with all the care she has given him and the healers she had sent for. He is the stronger Dragonborn, she knows that, and maybe he wanted it. He has always seemed to act that way, like he is the Dragonborn and that the world ought to bend at the knee and know it—

She huffs in some sort of bitter amusement, and then turns away.

Nothing she has ever done has come without cost. Everything has a price to it, and no matter how well she plays thief, consequence will always make her pay for it. Even her life comes at a cost, one she is still in debt for. The world, after all, demands change. She always did think that she had already done her part, doing the little things she had wanted, but then the prophecy, this blasted prophecy had changed that.

(Is this it? The chance to run? To take what she has and leave behind this responsibility thrusted onto her?)

When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding—

She never wanted to be the Last Dragonborn. All she wanted was to live, to survive, to exist in this world like any other passing soul, leaving only the trace of a mark behind. Arpina doesn’t want to be remembered, and yet she is the one the world will sing songs to when Alduin falls to the blade of a mortal.

And Miraak, who she knows has always wanted to be remembered, to be the hero of legend and glory, to be the one who has an epic tale to be told from the very dawn of the world to its last moments, to have been here and there and everywhere even only in myth and legend—to think he is the one who has been forgotten, discarded, and kept secret from the world.

It is the irony, Arpina notes, that makes this hurt all the more.

(She cannot help but wonder what it means to be the Last. The Last made? Or is it the Last one standing?)

Arpina is hardly the most divulgatory of people. While she likes to talk, she does not like to talk about things that could make her vulnerable—and there are a lot of damning things in her closet of skeletons. There are even times when she doesn’t want to talk about things that would simply reveal more about her. It doesn’t even have to be bad, but it’ll change how people see her, and try as she might to deny it, that is what she is afraid of.

But it is hardly fair to Brynjolf to keep pretending she doesn’t know who the bloody Dragonborn is, even if she thinks omission isn’t lying. (And people rag on that unnecessarily—it’s not lying, but it could be JUST as bad… it’s in its category.) A dragon had come down on Riften just hours earlier, and she had gone to slay it, sneaking around and ensuring no one would spot her, but Brynjolf had apparently seen the dragon’s soul go somewhere… and so did the rest of the town.

(She was immensely lucky to have managed to squeeze herself in a barrel to hide from everyone, and the soul had gone straight to her, as expected.)

And Brynjolf had asked her where she was, and she lied to him. She didn’t want to lie to any of her friends—she actively does the exact opposite, and Brynjolf is the very last person she wants to lie to. Definitely not him, because she cares about him deeply and it’s not at all fair to hide such a major thing from him. 

Arpina is not sure of how he’ll react. It may go very badly and… gods. She can’t bear the thought of losing Brynjolf, and over something she doesn’t even have that much control over!

She needs to have a little more faith in him, though. 

“Brynjolf?” she asks, the hesitation in her voice apparent. She heads over to the table—and it is supposed to be her table, but she’s more Guild-Master in name because he likes the responsibility without the weight of the title (though she wonders who it would go to if she gave it up; to Brynjolf, or Karliah?)—watching him go through the last of their administrative work.

“Aye, lass?” He doesn’t look up, but he is asking nonetheless, and she’s never been offended by that, unlike a few other people she knows. “What’s on your mind?”

“I need to tell you something.”

“Did you kill someone on the job?”

“No,” she replies defensively. “Well, yes, but the Brotherhood needed the hit too—but that’s not what I was going to tell you. Can we speak in private?”

“One second, I’m nearly done,” he says, glancing up at her, and so she perches herself at the edge of the table, waiting patiently. 

She’s always thought of him as a brother. The joke indeed was that they looked somewhat close enough to be siblings. Or half-siblings, at least. It was the hair, and the very slight point to the tips of his ears and the obvious elven shape of hers—and they always did take it in stride, quite easily. 

But she certainly likes him for more than that, because he’s had faith in her abilities from the moment he recruited her up until Mercer betrayed the Guild (but he was so hurt—he had faith she lived, but it had placed a strain on them, the stress of not being certain) and she’s always valued it. There is nothing as precious in the world as someone’s trust in you, after all, and Arpina knows that she is not someone who can ever be trusted, really, because she is anything but predictable.

And yet. Brynjolf trusts her. 

Maybe he wouldn’t trust her if she told him to eat a bee, but he would trust her with her life. (So she hopes.)

“Done,” he says with earnest relief, startling her from her thoughts. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Let’s talk in private,” she reiterates. She doesn’t want the rest of the Guild to know just yet, and she doesn’t think she has the emotional capacity to handle all their shock and horror. “You need to stretch your legs, you’ve been sitting there all day.”

“Well, what can I do if there’s work to be done all day?” he responds as he rises, stretching, and his shoulder makes a loud pop! 

Arpina gives him a look at that. “Wow.”

“Felt wow. Where to?”

“How about the entrance? Up by the temple?”

He leads the way, climbing up the ladder and through the secret entrance and he and Arpina find themselves in the darkness, illuminated only by the moons, the stars, and the light of the inn and tavern in the distance. 

“What is it, then?”

“Well,” Arpina starts, grimacing. “I’ve been hiding something from you.”

“You’re the guild master of a notorious gang of… rogue mages, maybe?” Brynjolf asks, crossing his arms and peering at her intently. “You know, lass, the whole I’m the Listener of the Brotherhood reveal from last time might take the air out of this one—”

“You’re such a smartass.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“I’m the Dragonborn,” she blurts out. “As in, dovahkiin, Greybeards shouting for me, end of all Skyrim’s foes.”

Brynjolf blinks. “I… wasn’t expecting that.”

“I hid it well,” she says, embarrassed, and doesn’t meet his gaze. “I’m… sorry. Listen, I didn’t mean for it to draw out for so long, but I never felt like I had to tell you until… well. I lied to you. And I don’t like lying to my friends, but you asked me where I was, and how was I supposed to tell you I absorbed the dragon’s soul from a barrel?”

“From a barrel, lass?” Brynjolf asks in incredulous amazement, clearly more focused on that piece of information.

Arpina realizes then that it’s alright. He’s not… mad at her. She wants to sigh in relief. One loud, great sigh, and so she does.

“I thought you were going to be mad.”

“No,” he says. “Why would you think that?”

“Because I kept it from you?”

“Same way I haven’t told you that the one time you found a rock in your mattress, I did that.”

“What?!”

Brynjolf almost looks apologetic. “What? We all keep secrets.”

“Not that kind of secret, you ass!”

“Don’t go shouting at me, now. Wouldn’t look good to have your second-in-command flying over the rooftops,” he says with a smirk. 

“Don’t tempt me,” Arpina says, rolling her eyes and shaking her head in exasperation.

“But seriously, lass, could you Shout me over the rooftops?”