Sloan slumped in her chair with her head in her hands and closed her eyes.

 

It had seemed so easy, so hopeful! Ten names had matched the files from Falkreath and the records from the orphanage. Ten names to investigate, ten chances to find her rumored family. But not a single one had borne fruit.

 

She had learned a lot about other people’s families. Hours of sitting in people’s houses listening to stories from their pasts, of people whose names meant nothing to Sloan but still filled the storytellers’ eyes with passion. Tragic stories of lost love ones, because Dephine had been right – a lot of people had disappeared in this region. Some had been arrested, never to be seen again, while others had just vanished.

 

Still, while Sloan felt bad for the families, the news kept just a glimmer of hope running…

 

“Mel?”

 

…through her that maybe she could still find…

 

“Melissa?”

 

A hand touched Sloan’s shoulder and her body reacted before her brain registered what was going on – she flicked her dagger into her palm as she turned, raising it to point at the chest of…

 

…a man. Sixty-ish, somewhere between Redguard and Cyrillion, with the darker complexion of the former but the squared head shape of the latter. The hand left her shoulder and was raised to match his other as he stood in a pose of surrender.

 

“Whoa, wait! Sorry! I should have known you…” The man stopped, squinted. “Wait, you can’t be Melissa. She would be much older now. It’s just…you look a lot like her.”

 

Sloan frowned. “That the second time in a matter of months I have been told I look like someone else. Are my features so common?” They shouldn’t be – she didn’t look like a Nord, the dominate ethnicity of Skyrim. Her Redguard exoticness had been what had made her the most money in her short time at the Vixen. Well, short time selling her body at the Vixen, at any rate.

 

The man appeared to agree with her mental assessment – he shook his head and his hands in denial. “Decidedly not.” His puzzled expression changed to a look of what Sloan could only describe as wary amusement. “May I sit?” The man gestured toward her table.

 

Sloan considered, but the man did not seem hostile. She shrugged and motioned toward the chair across from her but didn’t put the knife back in the wrist sheathe until he had circled around and sat.

 

After an uncomfortable moment of silence, the man cleared his throat. “So. How is your mother?”

 

Of all the questions he could have asked, that was the last she could have anticipated. She stared at him as her mind went numb, all her own questions burned away in a moment. She could not have answered even had she known the answer. Which was fine, because he continued talking.

 

“I wondered where she had gone off to. There had been rumors, of course, but I was never able to substantiate any of them. I was beginning to wonder whether she was still alive!” He gestured at Sloan.  “I shouldn’t have doubted, of course.”

 

Sloan’s brain was still digging out and could only formulate one thing to say. It blurted out of her mouth: “You knew my mother?”

 

“Of course! We served in the war together. Both of them, actually. She saved my life many times. So where has she been, all this time? Did she go home? She talked about teaching…”

 

“I’ve never met my mother.”

 

“…at Shûyaa Shi…what?”

 

“I grew up in the Honorhall orphanage. In Riften. I didn’t know I had any family.”

 

This time it was the man who seemed stunned into silence. Although not for long. “I…had no idea. That doesn’t make any sense.” He frowned, shook his head. “I suppose…well, it has been a long time. I suppose she could have…” Another shake, but then he appeared to rally. “Well. Your mother was a remarkable woman. Her name was Melissa Shae, and she was the best swordsman…swords-person I’ve ever known. One of those Redguard Swordsingers, and let me tell you, she lived up to their legend.” Another shake of his head. “You do look just like her. Except her eyes were blue, not yellow.”

 

From nothing to all this information. Sloan’s brain tried to process it all but her mind just went in dizzying unhelpful circles. The grasped at a tendril of a thought and formed it into another question. “What…what about my father?”

 

The man shook his head. “Hard to say, I’m afraid. Melissa had no suiters that I knew of, so I don’t know who your father might have been.” A pause. “I’m Mallin, by the way. Mallin Nakhtu.”

 

“I’m…Sloan.” Probably she should have used a pseudonym, she realized too late. She gave her head a small shake – somewhere along the way, she had dropped her defenses. She needed to snap out of this haze.

 

“Pleased to meet you, Sloan Shae.”

 

The use of the surname jolted her again. She had never had one before. As with all the children in the orphanage, she had spent a lot of time imagining her name with the surnames of other people, trying them on like a pair of hand-me-down trousers. But now, to actually have one of her own…

 

Mallin leaned forward. “You know, your mother lived not far from here. I was going to go pop by while I was in the area. For old times’ sake. Would you like to see it?”

 

Would she like to see the place where the mother she hadn’t realized she had had lived? What a question! Sloan blinked and nodded. An unexpected dampness coalesced in her eyes and a single tear dripped unbidden down her cheeks as she replied, “Yes. I would like that very much.”

 

***                      

 

“As I told you, there isn’t much left. I come here every time I’m in the area just to reminisce. It gets shabbier looking each time.” Mallin rested a hand against the drooping lintel and gave it a wistful smile as if all his memories lay in it.

 

Sloan didn’t pay him much mind – her mind was awhirl with wild thoughts.

 

This was where her parents had lived. Her family. She had had family.

 

Well, obviously, she had had parents. She wouldn’t exist if she didn’t. She understood that on an intellectual level. But that had always been just a thought, not even real enough that she had bothered to follow up on the few clues she had had years ago.

 

Now she wished she had.

 

It hasn’t been a big house. A small bedroom and a larger main room that had served for cooking, dining, and…well, just living. Sloan laid a hand on the dusty remains a stone fireplace and tried to picture it lit, the flames reflecting off a woman in a rocking chair, maybe with needle in hand repairing a pair of pants while a man smoked a pipe while whetting a knife blade. Or, if Mallin was right about her mother, perhaps it was the other way around.

 

And between them, sitting on a fur blanket, a little girl played with…she couldn’t picture what. She knew with oblique certainty that most little girls had toys. Something little girls would play with. Then the mother looked at the girl and said something and the girl looked up and they both smiled…

 

It felt so real, Sloan took a half step forward…then stopped, as her eye caught something etched into one of the worn floorboards. Something familiar and altogether unexpected.

 

“…and he fell so fast, you would think he’d been hit by a war hammer!”

 

Mallin’s voice floated from the direction of the bedroom , but Sloan was no longer interested in stories from the past. Or, rather, she was far more interested, but in a different way. She knelt and slid her hand along the floor, tracing out the etching with a finger.

 

It was beautifully designed. To most eyes, it looked like part of the floor, just a scratch in the wood like many others, created, perhaps, by someone shifting a heavy piece of furniture. But to eyes that were trained to recognize it, it was something much more.

 

Sloan ran her fingers along the floor around from the point of the etching. It did not take long to find what she was feeling for. With a wry smile, she pushed in on the hidden latch. A soft click rewarded her efforts and she lifted the hidden trap door and stared at the stone staircase that seemed to invite her downward. She looked back over her shoulder.

 

 “Mallin?”

 

His muffled voice sounded from the other side of the wall. “…he tried to lift up the corner and there was a loud…”

 

“Mallin!”

 

His voice paused and, a moment later, his head poked from around the corner. “Hm?”

 

Sloan motioned at the open floor. “Did you know this was here?” She was certain he had not and his expression confirmed it. “Good to know. Shall we?” She didn’t wait for his response - she was already halfway down the stairs before he even moved.