#turithys

R’khan gets much stricter and quicker to anger. The only time he has ever hit Luca was after a crew member was killed, in response to an unrelated incident. She didn’t retaliate, surprisingly, but ran away and hid in the hold for a while, where the Argonians kept her company. R’khan didn’t apologise but then again, he also didn’t punish her for shirking her duties.

Speaking of Luca, on the rare occasions when somebody she actually likes dies, she gets stuck in the denial phase of grief. The person in question cannot be dead, and if they are, there must be a way to get them back. That’s what shady deals with the daedra are for.

Vilayn shuts himself away refusing to talk to anyone and drinks heavily; the length of time and amount of booze vary according to how much he liked the recently deceased. He was drunk for three days straight after he found out that his mother had died. Casether is worried about what will happen if (when) Hazil succumbs to his illness.

Tosti becomes cold, almost surgical. He tends to disappear for a length of time as well. If the person who died was someone close to him, and if they died before their time, the people at fault for their death tend to meet an unpleasant fate of their own shortly afterwards.

Azareth takes the news in his usual stoic way. It’s even more difficult than usual to coax conversation out of him afterwards, although he might be found in deep, quiet debate with Ethysil. Eventually he will pour out one for the deceased, smoke one of his fancier pipes in their honour, and move on.

Bereavement might be the only thing which silences Eddis’s laughter. True, he will start sucking and chewing on his teeth instead, but at least it’s a break from his usual giggling. He also becomes more erratic in his behaviour. The last time they lost a crew member and this happened, R’khan, in a moment of genuine concern for his bosun, called Eddis into his quarters for a private talk; Eddis was back to usual when he left.

Drasonval, Braskan, Oran and Sham commiserate with each other. Their omnipresent sense of camaraderie intensifies, and they will gather around, usually with a drink, and if they all knew the deceased they will share stories together until they’re able to laugh again. If only one of them was personally affected, the others will do their best to cheer him or her up or, failing that, just be there.

Bob will take her feelings out on any objects nearby, smashing them until she feels better. Surprisingly, it works. She doesn’t understand why everybody else has to bury their emotions, or sit around doing nothing about them.

Eldnar feels loss keenly, and struggles to hide his sentimentality. It embarrasses him and -- what a shock -- the crew tease him for it, so he tends to disappear in this sort of situation until he’s over the tears.

According to his beliefs, Ethysil is not supposed to consider death an end, merely a return to a greater whole. That’s all very well as an abstract idea. In practice he becomes very sombre, spends a lot more time alone with his thoughts, and either avoids talking to people if he is the only person affected, or listens quietly if other people knew the deceased.

Jo’Raya doesn’t show much in how she deal with other people, but she loses her appetite and spends a lot more time sleeping, or at least curled up in her bunk, than she usually does.

Assuming her surgical efforts did not contribute towards the death in question, Rosie deals with grief reasonably well. Like anyone, she goes through periods of sadness and anger, but they fade in a reasonable amount of time. If her surgical efforts did contribute, once she overcomes the guilt she will be determined to learn from the experience and do better next time, and will throw herself almost frantically into her work and study to ensure this is the case.

Turithys shuts down all personal communication. She will only talk to people to discuss work, and it can take a long time before she is ready to relax and open up again.

Like Jo’Raya, Xisthia’s interactions with others don’t change much, but that’s assuming they can find her. She will spend most of her time swimming and hiding underwater, distracting herself with exploring the seabed and sometimes sitting on rocks down there, watching the ripples overhead.

On the edge of Dawnstar there are several cottages. They aren't what anybody would call desirable properties, when all you can farm is snow and the only view is of a cliff face, but some of them insist on putting fences around their personal patch of ice anyway. Probably they think that will stop any snow bears or frost trolls which come wandering along and let me tell you from my days on Solstheim, it won't. But that's not the point. The point is, Turithys had noticed these fences while she was coming up with her plan, and she made good use of them now. She made the back of the last cottage before the guards and while she was out of sight, she vaulted the fence and crouched down behind it, hidden from view.

Shouts and footsteps thundered past. Turithys didn't move. She held her breath and squatted on the ice, as if it had frozen her to the spot. The only sound, had someone been close enough to hear it, was her counting almost silently. The first two guards passed. Then the guard from outside the White Hall. Then the rest, one after the other, none of them bothering to check around them or notice that the footprints in the snow they were following belonged to their own comrades. Turithys counted each one past and, when she reckoned it was safe, sprinted back down the alleys without looking over her shoulder.

With all the guards off on their wild goose chase outside town, it was the work of a moment to pick the lock on the door, even for someone like Turithys who for all her talents cannot pick a lock to save her life. We heard the scratching and cursing from inside. There were so many of us the guard had been forced to let us take over the entire building and settle for locking the front door behind us, so some of us were napping upstairs while the rest poked through the evidence chests or investigated the tunnel possibilities of the jail proper. I think Mr Azareth was setting up a gambling den in one corner and was almost reluctant to be rescued. Still, one way or another we gathered everyone in the main hall and waited.

The door opened. We looked out at Turithys, the snow melting on her shoulders as it met the warmth of the flaming torches, and she looked in at us, a ragtag bunch of sailors full of relief. After a few seconds she waved us out, but not before she made sure we all heard her say,

The best place to learn the latest gossip – apart from a tavern obviously, and since we'd gone missing Turithys didn't think it wise to go wandering after us – the other best place to learn the latest gossip is a blacksmith's forge, and so that was where Turithys went. The locals like to gather around the fire in a place as cold as Skyrim, and she heard all about our capture while she hunkered down beside the flames and watched the barracks from this safe vantage point. Nobody paid her much attention with her scarf pulled over her face, just another lost soul seeking warmth from the frost, and she had time to consider her plan.

Her reasoning, as she watched the guards patrolling back and forth along Dawnstar's upper road, went like this:

The guards had arrested a crew mostly made up of Dunmer never before seen in Dawnstar.

If they noticed her, another Dunmer never before seen in Dawnstar, skulking around the jail, even Nords might be a bit suspicious.

As a result, they would probably decide to give chase as soon as they caught sight of her.