Chapter 27

Chapter 27

     The name didn’t sound like one Mirjoln would have picked, but then, I hadn’t seen her in a very long time.  When we were kids we used to lay back on the bank of the river and talk about the future, and she had always dreamed of starting a family and enjoyed telling me what names she wanted her children to have.  I couldn’t really remember any of them anymore, but I knew Babette was not one of them.

     Oh well.  Most likely her tastes had just changed, or her husband had had some say in the matter.

     “Babette, if I can ask…” I started cautiously, not wanting to upset her.  “What happened to your mother?”

     Her face grew mournful, but she showed no signs of bursting into tears.  “She and daddy went out on a hunting trip together.  She said she’d be right back….”  Her voice shook.  “She didn’t come back.”

     I barely heard a single word.  Mirjoln would never have gone on a hunting trip.  She loved animals and could barely stand to eat meat even as a child, instead spending hours with the horses and goats on the farm. 

     I kept my stride steady and carefully assumed a sympathetic look, but inside my mind was reeling.  There were two possibilities here.  One, perhaps the person who had told Babette what had happened had bent the truth in order to soften the blow of an uglier truth, or else-

     -or else this girl was not Mirjoln’s daughter and never had been.

     If that was the case, who by the Nine was she?

     Plan.  I needed a plan.  I didn’t know what could drive a little girl to impersonate another little girl, but surely such a reason couldn’t be a good one.  And she had lived in the orphanage under Grelod the Kind’s influence for gods only knew how long, all for this.  What did she want?

     Maybe the first possibility I had thought of was the truth, but I had to prepare for the worst.  The best course of action would probably be to lead her closer to Odahviing before confronting her.  I couldn’t do much else besides confront her, because I certainly wasn’t just going to attack a little girl even if I didn’t know who she was or what she wanted.

     A frostbite spider chose that moment to attack, its poisonous web narrowly missing my right shoulder as it struck a tree with a wet plop sound.  Babette shrieked and ducked behind a tree.  “Just what I needed,” I muttered in annoyance.  Unwilling to let it get close enough to me to use my swords but also not particularly wanting to start a forest fire, I waited until it moved into a clearing where I had a clean shot.  Letting loose two firebolts, I watched as it flailed in agony, rising up on its four back legs and pawing at the sky with the other four only to crash down on its back.

     Suddenly I felt a sudden stinging pain on my right arm and looked down to see small cut in the fabric just below where the leather armor reached.  Had the spider nicked me?  I hadn’t felt it at the time, but then, it was a clean cut and the adrenaline could have easily drowned out the pain. 

     Clean?  It’s too clean, I realized suddenly.  Then the true nature of the situation hit me with horrifying suddenness. 

     I spun around to face Babette and locked eyes with a completely different person.  This girl no longer had the face of an innocent, young girl.  A cruel smirk replaced the delight-filled smile, her eyes narrowed slightly to make the golden light around her pupils even more eerily pronounced, and she twirled a small dagger in her slender hands.

     I tried to grip my sword hilt, but my fingers refused to close around the weapon.  A stab of fear struck me as I suddenly recognized the feeling as the paralysis caused by a certain rare poison that had been used on me once before, unbeknownst to me at first, to save my life. 

     This time I doubted it was meant toward any such purpose.

     I let out an oomph as my legs gave out, causing me to land flat on my back.  No matter how hard I tried to move, it was like my limbs just didn’t have the strength to react. 

     Babette gave a delighted little giggle, and I resolved to chop her head off if I managed to get out of this, little girl or not. 

     As I had discovered before, the poison did leave me with the ability to speak, so I decided to use that as much as possible.  Forcing my voice to stay calm, I looked up at her and asked, “So, who are you really?”

     “I did tell the truth, you know.  My name is Babette.”  She grinned widely for the first time, lips parting to bare short fangs. 

     “You’re a vampire,” I stated, a cold sweat breaking out on my forehead.

     “No, I’m a werebear,” she said sarcastically.  “Of course I’m a vampire, you fool.  My eyes should have tipped you off, but apparently you were too bent on saving your dearly departed friend’s daughter.  What did tip you off, by the way?”  She laughed at my expression.  “You didn’t honestly think that I wouldn’t notice the way you suddenly went all tense and stopped talking, did you?”

     In my mind I conceded the point that she was a much better actor than I was and as such, resolved to be more careful.  “Mirjoln loved animals.  Really, a hunting trip?  Next time you impersonate someone, you might want to look into their past a bit more.”  I figured that little snippet of information made no difference and my only real plan was to stall Babette until the paralysis wore off.  From experience I knew that could take hours, but what else was I supposed to do?

     “Well, it’s hard to come up with things spur-of-the-moment,” she pouted, turning her lip down in a twisted version of the cuteness she had exuded earlier.  “

     Even when her mouth was shut I could make out the slight bump of her lips where the fangs were hidden, and in the light her eyes looked distinctly red.  Gods, I was the biggest idiot in all of Tamriel, but there would be time to berate myself later.  Maybe.  “What do you want?” I asked.

     “I want nothing.  The person who hired me, however, wants something very much.”  Babette smiled again.

     “You’re with the Dark Brotherhood.”  I hadn’t actually known that and it was mostly a stab in the dark, but the way the smile dropped slightly told me that I was correct.  “Don’t bother denying it.  Do you even know who I am?”

     “Kisvar, the great Dragonborn and savior of Skyrim and the little-known Guildmaster of the Thieves’ Guild,” she rattled off.  “Ah, and apparently General of the Stormcloak army.”

     What in the names of all the gods was Astrid doing sending assassins after me?  Sure, we weren’t the greatest of friends, but we had a fairly profitable alliance going and she must know that killing me would start a war between our guilds.  “I don’t think I need to tell you what will happen when Brynjolf finds out about this.”

     “But he won’t.”  She smiled at me again, crouching down beside me.  “See, it’s just you and me out here.  I could tear your throat out right now and your precious little Guild would never know.  They might not even find your body.”  She leaned even closer, once more baring her fangs in a smile as she whispered in my ear.  “But luckily for you, we have to wait for someone first.”  To my rather acute relief she drew away and sat back on her heels.

     “Wait for someone?” I asked casually, heart dropping.  Any threats I could concoct about starting guild war would be irrelevant and empty, because every word she had said was true.  There was nothing to implicate the Dark brotherhood in this unless the client who had hired them spoke up, and if someone wanted to kill me, why would they immediately go and tell people who would want revenge on them?

     “The person who hired me, of course.  She couldn’t get close to you herself, so unfortunately that made all this subterfuge and waiting necessary.”  Babette stood up and looked back in the direction of Riften.

     “How was that, by the way?”  I waited for her to turn around and for her face to assume a look of confusion, then went on, “Sucking up to Grelod.  I bet that was loads of fun.  A Dark Brotherhood assassin vampire child, on her knees scrubbing wooden floors like any common street urchin.  How long were you there, anyway?  A week at least, I bet.  I hear Grelod reads passages from her book The Pig Children out loud to the kids-”  I grunted and shut up as Babette kicked me hard in the side.  She may have the body of a child, but it still hurt and would probably bruise.  I didn’t really care though, because she obviously so badly wanted to kill me but had to wait.

     “Grelod’s time will come,” she hissed angrily around her fangs.  “Oh yes, it will.  That’s how I managed to keep up my façade in there, you know?  Imagining both of your deaths.”

     I ignored her and tried once more to move my fingers.  They didn’t budge.  I hadn’t really expected them to, but neither would I just lay here and not try at all.  I didn’t know who she was, but clearly she didn’t like me much.

     “Look, here comes your demise,” Babette said dramatically, pointing toward Riften.  My head was slightly turned in that direction so I could see the figures of two approaching horses.  Briefly I wondered if I could Shout like this, but then I realized that even if I could it would only go straight up into the air.  Except the Death Shout.  It went out to the side, not up, but I couldn’t imagine many things worse than laying here paralyzed and in agony from the horrific headache it would cause.  Well, death was worse.  Maybe if I absolutely had to….

     I didn’t have much more chance to think as the two hooded horsemen brought their animals to a halt.  One rider drew back her hood, and I glanced at her eagerly only to realize that I’d never seen her before in my life.  She moved over the other horse and helped the other rider down, who leaned heavily against her for a moment before pushing her away.  She moved toward me in a strange, limping gait, and I realized that one of her knees was twisted awkwardly inward.

     Stopping just in front of me, she finally pushed her hood back over her shoulders.

     My heart ripped itself in half, tied itself in a few knots, then dove straight out of my body and disappeared into the ground, leaving nothing but shock in the cavity of my chest. 

     Frea stood there, but I had never seen this woman before.  One entire side of her face was savagely scarred with burns that curled that side of her lips upward in a permanently sardonic expression.  Rather than standing tall and strong as she once had, her back stooped so badly that she appeared to be several inches shorter than I remembered.  Under the cloak she wore not armor, but normal, everyday clothes. 

     Her eyes burned feverishly in their sockets, but they also contained a deep sadness that made me want to put a knife through my own eye for what I had done to her.

     I had no idea what to say.  I don’t even think I could remember what words were at that moment.  Luckily, Frea made it unnecessary.  “Kisvar,” she greeted me, almost cordially.  “You’re looking surprisingly well.”  Her voice rasped as though something were wrong with her lungs, making it quiet and hard to understand.

     “Surprisingly?” I managed to echo, too stunned to make up any coherent sentences of my own.

     “Well, when you came back from Apocrypha after Miraak you weren’t looking too great.  At first I hoped maybe you would die in the wilderness, but I suppose that was just too much too hope for.  Now, however, I am glad.”  A bite like the lash of a whip crept its way into Frea’s tone.  “I believe in the All-Maker, Kisvar, and the All-Maker tells us to believe in the sacredness of all life.  But why should I believe the life of someone who holds life in such low regard to be sacred?  I lay trapped underneath the burning building that had fallen on top of me and pondered this question long after the fires had gone out, and I believe that the All-Maker would condone the loss of one life that had caused the destruction of so many others.”

     Two things from Frea’s speech stuck with me.  The first was that I was most likely about to die, and the second was that she had actually seen me when I had come back from Apocrypha.  An image of myself walking away from the village as a weak and trembling hand reached out after me presented itself to my half numb mind.  “Why didn’t you call out?” I asked woodenly.

     She regarded me with scorn in her eyes.  “I wanted to die, Kisvar.  I wanted my soul to be reshaped by the All-Maker and transformed into something else, ready for a new chance at life, but it was not to be.  The warriors from Thirsk Mead Hall rescued me, and I realized that the All-Maker still had purpose for me in this life.”  Frea shrugged her shoulders.  “That purpose is killing you, and I have come to fulfill it before I am reborn.” 

     Behind her, Babette smiled widely and continued to twirl the dagger in her fingers.

     “I am not a vengeful or a spiteful woman, though you may believe otherwise.  If you have any messages or last words you would like me to give friends or family, I will willingly oblige.”

     My mouth opened and then closed again like that of a slaughterfish on dry land.  What am I doing? I thought suddenly, panicking.  I need to say something, convince her-

     Of what?  I hadn’t understood half the stuff she said about the All-Maker, but she was inescapably right about my involvement in her village’s destruction.  I might as well have murdered all of those people, and what was done to murderers?  They were executed, and deserved that fate.

     That thought shocked me to the core.  All at once my heart reformed, crawled out of whatever chasm of self-loathing it had been mindlessly flopping around in, and fixed itself in the correct place in my chest, leaving me terrified.  Never before, not in all my years of adventuring, stealing from people as a thief, and battling both as the Dragonborn and a soldier, had I ever wanted, or more aptly believed, that I deserved death. 

     Frea and my own conscience had come perilously close to making me believe that I should die, that I should let Frea fulfill her purpose or whatever she had called it, and it scared me.  Later, when I looked back to that moment and remembered what I felt it seemed ridiculous even to my own mind, but right then I felt as if I had been falling into a pit of despair, helplessness, and self-hate that held no hope of any escape but death.

     I couldn’t justify my failure even to myself, but that didn’t mean that I should wish to die for it, and if I did I definitely wouldn’t have a chance at redemption.  Death was not the form of redemption it had seemed a moment ago, but a dark, massive abyss and something to be feared and fought against.

     “No last words?” Frea’s voice broke into my flash of insight.  She drew a dagger from a small sheath at her waist, and I attempted to move my fingers with about the same degree of success as last time. 

     Of course, now that I had convinced myself that I didn’t want to die, I was going to die anyway. 

     I locked eyes with Frea.  “I’m sorry.”  The words were pathetically inadequate, but so was anything else, so I went for simplicity.

     “May the All-Maker for-  glug” was Frea’s reply, and I opened the eyes that I had shut to see an arrow sticking out of her chest.  For a second Aetra’s death once more flashed in my mind’s eye, her features projected over Frea’s, then the Skaal woman fell to the ground, her arm thwacking me in the stomach as she landed. 

     I was more concerned with what by the Nine was happening than this little detail when I saw the other woman crash to the ground as well, then an arrow narrowly missed Babette as she ducked quickly and leapt behind a tree opposite where the arrows were coming from.  Her now blood-red, blazing eyes darted to me and she hissed loudly, then dashed off as another arrow clacked off a rock. 

     The archer was firing from my left side, which was the side my head was tilted away from, so I couldn’t make out anything distinguishable except vague movement out of the corner of my eye.  Then a very familiar voice said disbelievingly, “Kisvar?”

     I shut my eyes, this time in relief.  “For the love of Nocturnal, Karliah, stop saving my life or I’m going to owe you for the rest of it.”

See, I didn't leave you guys waiting too long!  I'm not entirely evil (:  And as always, thank you so much for reading!  I couldn't do this without you guys' support.