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Free from the Honorhall Orphanage after a childhood filled with abuse and neglect, Sloan must now find her own way in the world.

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Sloan's story

Sloan's story part 59 - Beitild

When Sloan was finally called back to Kira’s office, the Matron was seated and appeared composed, but the composition felt assembled rather than natural -- each piece felt deliberately set into place. It was, by far, the most unsettled Sloan had ever seen her, including even their last meeting before the end of the previous world. A parchment lay before her, held flat beneath two fingers.   “Beitild." Kira said the name with clear loathing. “Foreman of the iron mine in Dawnstar. The Bl
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Sloan's story part 58 - Whispers

Despite Sloan’s misgivings, things did actually return to something akin to normal – the “something akin” part being the constant muttering of a certain jester standing next to a certain box, of course – over the course of the next week. Life in the Brotherhood settled around the crate and its caretaker like water around a stone. The only real difference was the whispers.   They began three days after the Night Mother's arrival. They were quiet, at first, and Sloan thought them just a
Sloan's story

Sloan's story chapter 57 - The Night Mother

The sanctuary had a way of changing without moving. It was the same stone, the same low ceilings that held the smoke close, the same dark corners that ate sound; yet, as Sloan drove the cart through the larger of the entrance passages with Cicero’s bells chiming like a warning no one had asked for, the air felt altered, somehow. It was like a room after someone says a name that shouldn’t be spoken out loud.   Cicero bounced at her shoulder, hands fluttering, muttering affectionate nons
Sloan's story

Sloan's Story part 56 - The Broken Wheel

The farm sat just off the road, squat and stubborn against the cold. A fence leaned inward like it had long since given up. On the road before it stood a cart angled sharply to one side, one wheel shattered outright, its spokes split and scattered. And standing beside it…   Sloan stopped in place.   The figure was dressed in motley -- actual motley, red and white and stitched in patterns that had no business existing outside a jester’s fever dream. Bells dangled from the edge
Sloan's story

Sloan's Story part 55 - A Search Begins

By the third week, the sanctuary had learned how to breathe around Sloan.   Not with her -- never that --but around her, the way a body adjusts to a foreign object lodged beneath the skin. The tension no longer spiked when she entered a room. Conversations didn’t halt outright, only softened, reshaped. People stopped watching her hands quite so openly.   Her early assignments had been small and deliberately unglamorous -- deliveries that weren’t meant to arrive late; a drunk
Sloan's story

Sloan's Story part 54 - Lifting the Darkness

The door closed behind Sloan without ceremony.   There was no echo -- just the sound of stone settling into stone, as if the passage itself had decided she could not go back. The air inside the sanctuary was cooler than the forest above, thick with the smell of oil, iron, and old smoke. It wasn’t damp, exactly, but it felt used. Worn smooth by years of bodies passing through, breathing the same air, bleeding onto the same stones. She didn’t move, at first. She stood just inside th
Sloan's story

Sloan's Story part 53 - Lost and Found

Sloan reached Melissa’s old cabin at dusk, when the last of the light bled out of the trees and turned the world into a wash of gray. It wasn’t the smart time to travel -- too late for safety, too early for true darkness -- but she hadn’t come for comfort. She hadn’t even come for answers. Not tonight.   She came for the armor.   The black-and-red thing that wasn’t really a thing -- more like a second skin that decided to pretend it was cloth. It had saved her once already. W
Sloan's story

Sloan's Story part 52 - The Matron's Invitation

The sun had dipped behind the Blue Palace and was nestling into its cloudy pillows across the bounds of the ocean by the time Sloan made her way to the docks. The city’s noise faded, replaced by the distant cry of gulls and the slap of water against the piers.   The warehouse was easy to find—a hulking shape of weathered wood and iron, its windows boarded over. Sloan studied it for a solid hour but saw no movement, so sign it had been used in years. She did not, of course, believe what
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Sloan's Story part 51 - Here, Kitty Kitty Kitty

Solitude’s ancient stones held the day’s warmth, but as the sun dipped behind the Blue Palace, the city’s shadows grew long and cold. As if in purposeful contrast to the growing dark, the streets glowed under golden lanterns with the warm bustle of life: merchants hawking wares, guards in blue and silver patrolling with practiced indifference, and the distant clang of a blacksmith’s hammer echoing off metal and stone. Sloan moved through it all with the ease of someone who had learned to blend i
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Sloan's Story Part 50 - Hunches and Insinuations

“The Thalmor don’t know anything about the dragons? That can’t be right.” Delphine rubbed her eyes. “The pieces fit together so well!”    Sloan shook her head. “That is what the file said. They are starting to build contingency plans for the dragons and even more for the war, since they are afraid the two sides will come together to fight a common opponent.”   “I suppose that makes sense. Still, it puts us back at the beginning.”   “Pretty much. Also, there were som
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Sloan's Story part 49 - A Cat's Sage Advice

Sloan sighed as the gates of Whiterun faded into the distance. “I am glad that’s over. Being a member of high society is exhausting.” She gave her companion a smile. “You did well – I might have believed you a noble, albeit perhaps one from the edges of society.”   Merks shrugged. “It’s tiring but not too hard. I just imagined I had a poker crammed in my ass to remember to stand straight and tried to say as little as possible.”   “Saying as little as possible is the biggest k
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Sloan's Story part 48 - The Sting of the Whip

“I told you no one was to enter during my sessions.” Rulindil didn’t yell – he never yelled – and he kept his back to the door, his attention focused entirely on the naked bleeding human man splayed out on the wall before him, yet his voice carried through the room.   Sloan smiled and moved to a table with a variety of interesting tools. “Oh, Runny, you’re so funny, thinking you can tell me what to do.”   She picked up a needle-sharp dagger and pretended to study the blade as
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Sloan's Story part 47 - Return to the Embassy

Sloan sighed as the carriage climbed the hills out of Solitude toward the Thalmor Embassy, then glanced at her traveling companion on the padded bench across from her and laughed. “I’m getting spoiled. It makes me feel slightly queasy, but I miss Aithne’s teleportation. I was beginning to forget just how far away things are from each other.”   Merks shook his head. “She acts like it is a simple spell but the only other one I know who can do that from so far away is Professor Marence, a
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Sloan's Story part 46 - The Daughter of Melissa Shae

“I have some daggers you can use. Don’t worry, you will like them.” Delphine opened a display case and pulled out a pair of ebony daggers. “These things will slice through metal. Although try not to actually slice metal. Also, I got you all licenses for armor and weapons. The local guards have been too afraid to challenge your orc companions so far, but that won’t last. We don’t need any trouble. Did you get the horn?”   Sloan shook her head. “No. Sian got there ahead of us.” She smile
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Sloan's Story part 45 - Ustengrav

A heavy storm rolled up in the early afternoon as they trekked east through the swamp toward Ustengrav and Sloan sighed as she pulled her cloak tighter. She was tired of being damp and chilly and would have loved a real inn with real food and a real bed. But Aithne had refused to enter the inn in Morthal for reasons she seemed loathe to explain and had insisted they stay the night back in Narzulbur instead.   Which was fine on a day when they were traveling across country – it was nice
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Sloan's Story part 44 - Delphine's Dragonborn Dilemma

On the one hand, Sloan’s new travel companions were leagues better than her last - they had been on the road for days and not a one of them had commented on or groped her own boobs!   On the other, they stood out like a sabrecat among barn kittens. The best method for staying out of view was to blend in with those around you. But a group with what seemed like twin women and a pair of orcs, including the largest specimen of the species Sloan had ever seen, could do nothing but stand out
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Sloan's Story part 43 - Enter the Xanthic Paragon Of Shouting In The Ionosphere Of Nirn

It wasn’t hard to get out of the city. Sloan loitered near the gate until she saw a nondescript middle-aged man dressed in drab yellow but elaborate robes who appeared to be alone and sidled up to him with her best ‘please help me, mister!’ eyes. He seemed bemused but did not protest when she joined him and they passed through the gates after only the most cursory once-overs from the guards.   Much to Sloan’s surprise, he did not demand payment (via money or sex) once they reached the
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Sloan's Story part 42 - Spreading Rumors

Sloan sat at the vanity that had, presumably, belonged to Aventus' mother and studied her face in the mirror with a frown. Her silver eyes stared back, still disconcerting to see after a lifetime of looking at golden irises. Another small mystery in a sea full of them. Perhaps it had something to do with her new ability to see in the dark?   She shook her head as she tapped the calendar next to the vanity. A rarity, that - few people in a land like Skyrim needed to know the exact date.
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Sloan's Story part 41 - A Reunion of Sorts

An alarm in Sloan’s head went off the moment she entered their room at the inn and she dove to the side, rolled, and came up holding the dagger she had stashed under the bed.   “Impressive instincts.” An amused somehow familiar female voice. Sloan tried to remember where she had heard it as it continued, “I was right about you. So who are you?”   The blonde woman Sloan had rescued sat at the table. Her expression matched her sardonic tone but it was something else that tugged
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Sloan's Story part 40 - Windhelm

Sloan had been to Windhelm any number of times during her assassination assignments but only her first visit stuck with her. She had been so young, so naïve. She had thought she could not be so after four months of working at a brothel, but she had known nothing. The painful lessons of that night servicing the city’s beggars were lodged in her memory as if inscribed by a razorblade.   She had thought about seeking out those men on subsequent trips but unsanctioned murders had generally
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Sloan's Story part 39 - A Brief Layover

“Stop playing with your boobs.”   “I can’t help it! They’re so…jiggly!”   Sloan rubbed her temples. She had assumed Tihwen’s enthusiasm for grabbing his own breasts would wane over time but in the three days they had been traveling, the only moments his hands had been breast-free was when he was eating, pooping, or stroking his own ass. Even when it was his turn to drive the cart, one hand was clutching his chest.   His body had turned out to be shapely enough (alth
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Sloan's Story part 38 - Of Best Friends and Boobs

It was a cabin in the woods. A familiar cabin. Sloan lifted an eyebrow at Tihwen. “Your father is Luthi Black-Briar?”   Tihwen looked startled. “You know him? How did you know this is his cabin?” His eyes widened. “Have…are you one of his women?”   Well, there was a tricky question to answer. She had received one of those coveted (he always paid very well – getting chosen for one of his “dalliances” paid the equivalence of a week’s normal work) invitations twice in her past l
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Sloan's Story part 37 - The Prisoner and the Assassin part 2

Decision time again, but this one was an easy one – Sloan was already out of the bed and through her cell’s door (lesson number 48 from Gilna: when imprisoned by yourself, pick the lock as soon as there are no witnesses and keep your cell door unlocked at all times because you never know when you will need to make a quick egress) before the thought of other ideas even crossed her mind. She discarded them the instant they arrived and focused on her task.   Fortunately, she had the same
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Sloan's Story part 36 - The Prisoner and the Assassin part 1

Sloan tossed and turned in frustration. It was far too bright to sleep. Just as in the alley, the prison, which by all appearances should have been a gloomy place lit only by regular intervals of sputtering torches, may as well have been open to the clear blue sky.   She flipped to her stomach and buried her head in her arms, which helped a bit but made her back feel exposed. She sighed and sat up just as footsteps and jangling keys approached.   “Here it is, just like you le
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Sloan's Story part 35 - A Generous Offer, All Strings Attached

“Hey, girl! Stop!”   Sloan stopped as a burly guard stepped toward her, then put forth her best innocent face.   “Me?” She squeaked her voice on the word.   “Yes, you.” The guard stopped, towering above her. “What are you doing with that dagger?” He cast a dismissive eye over her. “If you have a license, I’m the Jarl of Solitude.”   Sloan didn’t have to feign her surprise or ignorance on this one. “License?”   “Aye. You know women can’t carry wea
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