#ampwrites

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 swimmed; it did that a lot now, 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.

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 slinked its way up her nostrils, burning her eyes from the inside, cooked her brain to a stinging, pulsating slab in her head.

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.

She pushed herself up and promptly stumbled 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 and streaked with pale blue. A Khajiit.

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. A memory surfaced in her syrup-brain, and it startled her so much that her jerk startled her cellmate in turn.

And who on Nirn was Mr. Dragonfly?

┈━ ◇ ━┈

this is part of a biiiiiiig story i got to work on a few months back. can you tell i have a favorite follower mod? this is ana, my confused, amnesiac.. probably-definitely concussed main girl. the khajiit is inigo. somebody should really get him some pants.

thanks again @rikkes for the tag! i have a habit of disappearing into the haze of writing for weeks, only to look at it and say, '...nah', before tucking it safely in the box of perfectionism.

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.

───────────────· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·───────────────

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.

───────────────· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·───────────────

He had waited long enough that the tremor had become second nature, running from arms to fingertips like the flutter of bird wings in the canopy over him. His shot had always struck true regardless.

She came out of the dark. She pushed through the underbrush with effort, careful not to dislodge the careful pile of kindling in her arms. Her face was shadowed by the night, but he saw her head turn around the clearing- pausing, upon finding empty bedrolls and the fire banked, nothing but gleaming embers left.

She searched for him, not knowing she was searching for danger. Danger had already set its sights on her.

The notch of his bow was soundless. In the thicket by the stream, a creature of some sort wandered carefully by. It signaled the inevitable.

She looked up.

He loosed the arrow.

In the same instant, the moon tore through a gap in the dense pines, striking the ground like a sword being unsheathed. Silver light spilled over her, and in it her eyes found him. Wide, concerned.

Relieved.

She was looking at him. She did not see the arrow.

He watched the ebony arrowhead sink into her head, the angle off because she had moved.

She fell like a doll the children in court would play with, the strings snapping under her weight. Firewood clattered around her, on her, and he was stricken with the bizarre urge to go lift the heavy pieces off so she wouldn’t suffocate.

She was silent. As, too, was the forest that caught her. He was alive because he didn’t trust anyone. She was dead because she trusted him.

His vision was blurring. The world had narrowed to a pinprick at the very center, stuck on her motionless form haloed in the clearing he had found for them mere hours prior. He did not remember climbing down the tree, tearing up scores in the trunk. He did not remember how his feet hit the wet earth hard on impact.

He did remember running.

Off, away into the darkness he ran, until his lungs were aching and his legs gave out. He sat where he fell, staring down at his claws, nostrils filling with the overbearing scent of fresh-torn tree bark. His fur grew wet from the moss and the dew-streaked grass.

He sat until the shakes in his chest receded, and the first glimpse of dawn peeked through the trees above the mountains.

He sucked in his first proper lungful of air and it tasted of shame thick enough to choke on.

His head snapped to the treeline, leading back where he had done the unforgivable. One final sin to end all sins.

Sunrise brought with it clarity, as merciful as judgment could be.

This time when he ran, it was to turn himself in. To have somebody else lock him in so he could not escape his blood-soaked hands by holding the key in them.

There was nowhere left to escape. The path ahead lay paved with dishonor.

He sprinted onto it, and into the sunlight toward penance.