Sloan had come prepared to infiltrate the Thalmor embassy. She had spent an entire month putting together just the right disguise and building a credible backstory and reason for showing up. She was especially proud of the clever ploy she had devised to gain access to the inner rooms where non-elves normally wouldn’t be allowed. So it was with much disappointment when she arrived at the massive mansion that sat on a cliff overlooking the frosty Sea of Ghosts only to discover it had been abandoned.

 

She stepped past the solid unlocked gate and minced her way through the snow, cursing herself for not doing more research. Had she known the place was this way (and that calf-high snow would be covering the walkways since there was no one there to keep them clear), she would have chosen a different outfit than the nobleborn dress and heels. The double front doors were likewise open and a familiar figure waited in the foyer.

 

“Mallin. You said my mother was here but it appears no one is.”

 

“I said I had found information that led me to believe she had been here, not that she was here now.” The dark elf scanned the room, still opulent and grand despite its disuse. “I wonder what happened here.”

 

“Stormcloaks?”

 

“No, the war stalled over a year ago. The Stormcloaks aren’t anywhere near here. Dragons?”

 

“There have been more of them lately but l don’t see a bunch of burned bodies everywhere. Maybe they went home?”

 

Mallin snorted. “It’ll be a peaceful day in Coldharbour before the elves leave Skyrim willingly. Shall we look around? Maybe we’ll find a clue to what happened.”

 

“They probably took anything of value or interest with them but can’t hurt to check! You want upstairs or downstairs?”

 

It was eerie, the silence. Twice before, Sloan had been in this place, both on assignments, though the first one had been during her previous job at the Vixen.  She had known nothing of the Thalmor before that and knew little else after she left - only that the elves were as beautiful as everyone said, and that they were perfunctory at best in bed.

 

The second time, though…that time she had had a much more clear understanding of…well, everything, and had done her research. She knew the layouts of the buildings, the hallways and rooms, the probable secret entra…

 

Her musings were brought up short when she heard a sound and froze in her tracks. The silence she had not expected when she got there was now broken by a soft murmuring. She eased her way down the hallway, following the voice as it became louder and more distinct until she was confident it was coming from the kitchen.

 

The voice stopped a few seconds before Sloan reached the open doorway, so she set her back to the wall next it then pulled out a dagger and held it out and at an angle, using its burnished blade as an impromptu mirror.

 

The only person she could see was a woman puttering around the large stone bench that dominated the center of the room, but there had definitely been the sound of at least one voice, so there had to be…

 

The voice picked up again and this time it was clearly a song. A poorly tuned song that eschewed lyrics for a sort of tone-deaf murmuring of pseudo-words, but a song nonetheless.

 

She was not an elf, that much was apparent. Shorter, dumpier, older looking than any elf Sloan had ever seen (although, she supposed, there had to be older elves and not all of them could be stunningly beautiful. Could they?) Still, better to be safe. Sloan reversed the dagger, placing the blade against her forearm, hidden from casual view but ready to be thrown at a moment’s notice, then stepped into the kitchen.

 

It took four steps for the woman to notice; when she did, Sloan received the short scream she expected, as happens to almost anyone who is startled, but the next response was something she never could have anticipated.

 

“Jo! What in the name of the Divines are you doing here?!” The woman’s face had lit into a great smile but, before Sloan could respond, the smile faltered and the woman frowned. “No, wait. You can’t be Jo. She was older than you even when she worked here; she would be older still now. My, but you are the striking image of her, aren’t you.? Your mother, I assume? How is she?”

 

Sloan shook her head as confusion gave way to cautious optimism and the beginning heartbeats of nascent excitement. “I don’t know how she is. I actually came here hoping to find out what happened to her.”

 

“Oh!” The woman nodded with a knowing wink. “I have often wondered to whence she wandered as well.” She shook her head as lips lifted into a wry smile. “Ever the mysterious one, was our Jo.”

 

“That was not her name.” Even as she spoke the words, Sloan wondered why. It didn’t really matter, at this point. Still, some small part of her felt it was important to add, “It was Melissa.”

 

The woman laughed. “I never suspected it was her true name but in this day and age, and even more in that day and age, come to think of it, asking too many personal questions is not a good idea. She said her name was Jo, that was good enough.”

 

“What…” Sloan paused as an unexpected lump crab its way into her throat. She swallowed and tried again. “What do you know about her?”

 

“Oh, that would be telling you, that it would. I’ll tell you what.” The woman gestured to a stack of crates placed on the floor in front of the massive ovens. “I’m packing my things, as you can see. I’ll tell you all I remember if help me get these to my cart. I was forced to leave a lot of good stuff behind when we left, including my knives. I might not be as good with them as your mother was, but a chef is nothing without her knives.

 

“Thank you dear, my cart is this way. Now where were we? Oh yes. Well, it all started when my no account former boss Bertrand – he owned the Dog and Dryad in Solitude, you wouldn’t know it, it has been long closed and the building has been turned into something else. I think there is an apothecary there now? Regardless, we used to be quite famous, back in the day. My dumplings and pies were the talk of the town and people came from miles around to try them. Of course, Bertie didn’t see our success that way – he thought it was all because of him. You see…mind your feet on these steps, dear, they’re quite slippery…we had a customer who brought a slave and slipped Bertie a spot of coin to let his slave offer herself to the patrons of the inn. At the time – this was thirty years ago, mind you, times have changed and I’m aware this has become common practice, the world is much less civilized nowadays – at the time, I swear, I’d never heard tell of such a thing. Ol’ Bertie, though, he didn’t…here’s the cart, set that near the front, if you don’t mind, dear, that’s right. A little…perfect, here set this one next to it, thank you. Those aren’t the best shoes for this, are they? I never found much use for the fashion of the young people, I’m not afraid to say. Give me a good pair of clompers over these silly heels and I’m a happy woman. Not that I mean to disparage your choices, of course! I’ll tell you, it was the same in my day – when I was young, we girls were all wearing doxxies, do you know what those are? They’re called stockings these days, went over the legs, made them look smooth. We loved them even though they were itchy and tended to slide down after not too long, but our parents thought they were the stupidest things in the world. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. Well, ol’ Bertie started to cater to a different crowd after that incident and I don’t mind telling you it was a turn for the worse. Mind your step. I should have swept the walkway, I suppose, but I was in a hurry to get in and out. A dragon might pop up at any moment and…oh, yes, there are dragons. A whole flock of them…would it be a flock of dragons? A herd? I’m not sure. No one remembers what they were called, it had been so long since any had been seen and then boom! Suddenly they’re everywhere. Wonder where they went off to all that time. Anyway, a great many of them have taken to nesting on the cliffs right behind here. I don’t think anything else could have uprooted the Thalmor. You don’t just leave prime real estate on a whim! Where was I? Yes, these boxes next, thank you dear. I wasn’t a fan of the changes. The customers were very different than before and my baking was soon forgotten since decent folk wouldn’t step foot in the place anymore. But then I met Aduke and everything changed. Mind your steps, dear. The servants’ entrance doesn’t have the nice wide walks as they have in the front, it’s easy to take a bad step, especially with the snow. Aduke was one of the Thalmor but he was different than most. He had a keen interest in humans and was often to be found wandering around Solitude. We hit it off after he tried a piece of my Snowberry Pie. First he fell in love with my pies, then he fell in love with my thighs! Hahaha! You wouldn’t know it know but I was quite the looker back then! He convinced me to take the job as head of baking here at the embassy. I would have been hesitant to do so at one point – I have no love of the Thalmor as a whole, I don’t mind telling you, and this was soon after the war – but the pay was much better and it got me away from the Dog, which was becoming more sleazy with each passing month. It used to be a clean and proper establishment but it had become little better than a brothel, and I don’t mean one of the fancy brothels, I mean one of those places where you go in whole and come out needing to visit the temple to heal all the diseases you picked up. When I got here, things were a bit of a mess. The previous baker had got it into his head that all recipes for a place such as this needed to be the fanciest foods. The entire list was made up of things that take at least ten hours to make. Ten hours, can you imagine? Even the breakfast foods took that long. I don’t know when the previous staff ever slept. It was ridiculous. I pared that list down…last two boxes, thank you dear…to just the basics. Fanciness is just in how things look, not how they taste. A common sweetroll doesn’t taste better for having gone through some extravagant process – it becomes hino ghije because of the way it is rolled and the slight orange tinge. You don’t need to add all the nonsense some people insist on when you can just add a touch of opi root and use puff pastry which, granted, takes a little longer but not ten hours! Mind your step, dear, this is the icy patch. I really should have swept the walkway, I am sorry. So I had been working here for about two years when your mother showed up on the back stoop asking for work. I have no idea how she managed to get to the door past the wall and all the guards, but I took one look at the poor shivering thing – she was not dressed for the northern weather, that’s for sure! – and let her in. She was a whiz at…well, not baking. After some time she was able to do a passable job of cooking for the staff but I would never have fed any of it to the elves, not to mention their visitors. But I have never seen anyone able to debone a chicken or chop veg or handle herself around kitchen tools in general better than she. Give her the ingredients, she would have them ready for cooking in whatever style of slice you might need in what seemed like seconds. Ask her to cook beyond that, well…ah, that’s the last of it, just hand me the rope and…yes, tie it to the rung, if you don’t mind, dear. There we go, snug as a clam in a pram. Then, after about six months, she just announced it was time to go home and just…left. I never saw her again.”

 

A pause, then Sloan frowned. “Is that it?”

 

 A quiet sad smile. “Alas, it is. As I said, it was not a time we asked questions. She showed up one day and asked for a job, I gave it to her, and then six months later she said it was time to go home and just left.”

 

A pause. “How did she get here? Where did she go? It’s hard to believe she came here after hearing…” Sloan trailed off as the woman shrugged.

 

“I don’t know of her past. I imagine she was not a fan of the elves. Nor am I, truth be told. But their gold is as good as anyone’s and they pay a hell of a lot more than a tavern, I can tell you that for sure. I’m sorry, I don’t know much more than that. She said it was time to head home but she did not say where that is.”

 

“I understand.” Sloan shook her head. So close yet still so far! A realization hit her as snow began to fall around them. “My name is Sloan, by the way. I only recently discovered that Melissa was my mother, so I’m grateful to learn anything about her I can. May I know your name?”

 

The woman’s face cracked into a smile. “How silly of me! My, it was such a shock seeing Jo’s face that I plumb forgot to introduce myself. I am Francine.”

 

“Even though I didn’t know her, I am grateful to you for helping my mother in what I suspect was a time of dire need.” She reached into her pouch and pulled out the large gem that had been integral to her original plans but now served little purpose, took Francine’s hands in hers, and pressed the gem into the woman’s palm as she added, “Please accept this as a token of my gratitude.”

 

Francine’s eyes widened as she turned her hand and saw the stone. “Believe me, the pleasure was all mine,” she said, but she did not refuse the gem, tucking it into a pouch on her belt as she spoke.

 

Sloan nodded and wiped out an unexpected tear then turned back toward the building as Francine stepped into her wagon and picked up the reins.

 

“Next time you’re in Solitude, feel free to look me up, dear. I’ll tell you about the time your mother saved the day after a nest of rats was discovered nesting in the wall. It was a sight to behold!”

 

Sloan glanced back and nodded with a smile. “I look forward to it.” They nodded at each other, then Francine snapped the reins and her wagon began moving and Sloan stepped toward the door just as Mallin came around the corner of the building.

 

“Oh!” He turned and hurried toward her. “Nothing much upstairs. Did you find anything?”

 

“Yes. She was here but she left a long time ago.”

 

“Whoever is in that cart knew her? Any indication where she went?”

 

Sloan nodded. “Francine. She was the head baker and gave Mel…my mother a job. Apparently after six months, she just said she was going home. I don’t know where that might be.”

 

“It is hard to say. Maybe she meant back to Hammerfell – that’s where she came from, after all. But maybe she meant something else. Or maybe she just decided it was time to move on and said the first thing that came to mind. But it’s the only clue we have, so I’ll travel to the west and see if I can pick up any sign of her trail on the road to Hammerfell.”

 

“Sounds good. Also, the elves left because of dragons. Apparently they’re nesting on the cliffs just behind here. I was going to look. Care to join me?”

 

Mallin raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Lead the way.”

 

They made their way past the smaller outbuilding, moving slower as they progressed. Behind the building, they found that the tall fence that surrounded the courtyard to the compound was gone, smashed to pieces by unknown forces. They exchanged glasses and moved closer to the edge, then dropped to hands and knees and crawled the last ten or so feet through the snow until they were able to peer over the edge.

 

Mallin gasped and drew back immediately but Sloan, started as she was, watched for a few seconds longer.

 

The entire cliff face seemed filled with lizards. Many were perched on giant outcroppings that extended from the cliff while others soared over the waters of the blue sea far below.

 

Even as she watched, one of the flying dragons wheeled and started to lift upward. She drew back and scrambled as quickly as she dared from the edge. She still felt exposed, so she motioned to Mallin and they made their way back over the broken fence and slipped through the door to the outbuilding just as the giant form of a dragon swooped over the edge of the cliff face.

 

They paused in the silent room and Sloan realized after some uncounted time that she was holding her breath. She let it out in a gasp and took a deep breath.

 

“What do you suppose they’re doing there?” Mallin spoke in a whisper, as if the dragons would be able to hear them through the walls of the building and whatever distance they were away. Which, maybe they could – Sloan had very little idea of a dragon’s sensory capabilities.

 

Better to be safe. She responded in kind, “I assume this is just where they live.” It was a logical answer that somehow didn’t seem enough, but she had not enough information to come to any other conclusion.

 

Mallin seemed to agree, from the expression on his face, but apparently could not think of anything more reasonable either. “Well since we’re here, shall we look around and see if the elves left anything of interest?”

 

Sloan nodded as she took her first real glance at the room they had entered. “I was thinking the same thing. It’s unlikely they would have been careless enough but you never know. You want upstairs again?”

 

“Nah, all the fun stuff seems to happen on the first floor. I’ll take that this time.”

 

“All right. Good luck.”

 

Sloan headed for the stairs but her mind wasn’t on the search nor even on her mother, huge though her conversation with Francine had been for her. Instead, dragons filled her vision.

 

There had been dozens – maybe hundreds – of dragons on the cliff. She had never imagined there could be so many, nor had she seen more than a couple in the same area at the same time.

 

Once, in ancient times, dragons had ruled the lands and all of humanity had been enslaved to them. So much, Sloan had learned in what passed for education in the orphanage. After their unexpected re-appearance nearly four years ago, they had become steadily more prevalent in the skies above. They had wreaked localized havoc but she had not heard of any form of organization from them. They had seemed like solitary creatures, like sabrecats or bears, not pack creatures like wolves or skeevers. To have this view so ruthlessly proven wrong was…unsettling, at best.

 

Delphine’s face appeared in Sloan’s mind. She had been looking for someone, a Dragonborn who could kill dragons or something. Right? Sloan shook her head. A conversation about something she hadn’t really understood from a year and a half ago was difficult to remember, even with a mind trained to remember details. She would need to track down Delphine. Of all the people in the world, she seemed the only one who might know what to do with this information.

 

Having a plan, however tentative, helped – Sloan was able to set the dragon dilemma aside and focus on her search. Clues about the elves and her mother now; dragon issue later. Whatever the cliff of dragons meant, it was something to deal with on another day.