“Here you are, dear. It looks like it will be about your size. And it has only had two previous owners!”

 

“Thank you, ma’am.” Sloan took the bundle of clothes with faux shaking hands and nervous smile. The woman’s price for a set of battered hand-me-downs had been beyond ludicrous, but “real” Sloan wouldn’t know that, of course. It didn’t matter – getting more money was easy enough. “What about that dagger?”

 

The shopkeeper’s eyes raised in surprise. “What things could a girl like you need a dagger for?”

 

“Um…protection?” Sloan made her voice squeak.

 

“Nonsense. There are guards everywhere. You will be perfectly safe.”
 

Dammit. “Yes’m. But I need a knife for eating.”

 

“You don’t need a knife that big to eat, child. You would cut your mouth open! But fret not – I have just the thing over here.” She moved to the end of the counter and pulled out a battered wooden box. Inside sat an array of worn and dented utensils.

 

“It is good to see children who know how to eat properly. You were in the orphanage, right? Grelod is doing a fine job teaching you all to be well-mannered. Because of your manners, I’ll give you a special price – pick out a spoon, fork, and knife, and I’ll sell you all three for only six Septims.”

 

Only Sloan’s training kept her from reacting to the outrageous price. The entire box was worth maybe three coppers all together!

 

Still and again, “real” Sloan wouldn’t know that. She beamed as if she was being given the best gift of her life and made a show of picking through the implements. They were, of course, of terrible quality, but they all had pointy bits, which was all she needed at that point. She chose the three that looked least likely to snap in two, paid the woman for the clothes and the utensils, and left.

 

Once outside, Sloan stepped into the alley beside the building – the same one that led to the back section of the town where Gilna had demonstrated what her real job was, coincidentally – and, after making sure no one was watching, slipped out of the orphanage gown and into the clothes. They were ill-fitting – the pants were too small and rode up her crotch while the shirt was two sizes too large. The latter was to her benefit, though – she palmed the small knife in one hand and the fork in the other, letting the sleeves of the shirt dangle past her hands to cover them.

 

Good enough for now. Street urchins were seldom noticed, so even had she more money, it would have been a good disguise to use. Next stop: the Vixen.

 

As she made her way down the steps to the lower canal, she considered (for probably the hundredth time that day) whether going to the Vixen was a good idea. She had talked herself out of the idea several times already, but she needed information and contacts.

 

The downside was that Kira would no doubt recognize Sloan again and her game would start anew. But Sloan was forewarned about it this time. Kira had said she had hoped to mold “Melissa’s daughter” herself. While it had been nice to know she had a mother somewhere, the idea of her was still abstract. Kira, on the other hand, had been more of a mother to her than anyone. Maybe she could talk to the Matron, let her know she knew, at least a little bit, and that she was not there at Melissa’s behest. Maybe she could make Kira’s dream come true.

 

As long as it didn’t interfere with her plans to find the Dragonborn. Either way, if things went sour again, it wouldn’t happen for years. Enough time to find the Dragonborn and deal with the dragons.

 

Even as she finished the thought, Sloan arrived at the door to the Vixen only to find…there was no door to the Vixen.

 

She took a confused step back and surveyed the wall. There was a doorway farther along, but it was weathered and broken; in no universe would Kira allow the door to the world’s foremost brothel to look like that.

 

Still, better make sure. She stepped toward the door and, as she passed a narrow alley between buildings, arms reached out, grabbed her, and pulled her into the dark.

 

Sloan learned some important lessons in the alley.

 

First, and most surprising, was that she found she could see with perfect clarity. The alley was between two buildings and another had been built on top, so the only light came from the gloomy entrance from which she had been grabbed.

 

That didn’t matter. She and the four men in the alley may as well have been standing in the middle of a field on a sunny day, for all the darkness mattered.

 

The second lesson was, itself, two-fold: 1) small metal forks work remarkably well for stabbing people in the eye and 2) small dinnerware knives do not.

 

By the time Sloan exited the alley, she had three-hundred-twenty-six more septims, a better-fitting shabby-but-not-homeless outfit, a few pieces of jewelry, and four daggers, three of them carefully hidden under the clothes. The Riften canal had four more anonymous corpses.

 

An hour later, a frustrated Sloan clambered the steps back into the city proper pondering her new options. Whatever this Riften was, it was decidedly not the one from which she had been swept. And not just because this one had not been dragon-razed.

 

The Vixen was no more.

 

No, that was not correct – The Vixen, by all appearances, had never existed in the first place in this version of Skyrim. So where were the people who had worked there? It was hard to imagine a version of the world where Kira did not hold a position of authority somewhere.

 

She supposed it didn’t matter, really. She had debated whether to go there in the first place. With that question answered for her, it was time to make other arrangements. She needed a plan but had no contacts, no solid information, and a shaken understanding of this new version of the world. She would have to do a bit of scouting, relying on good old-fashioned eavesdropping and drink-buying.

 

She patted the purse with her new-gotten money and made her way toward The Shattered Weasel, the inn closest to the gates, and therefore the one with the most travelers.

 

It was time to get to work.

 

 

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