jfraser

It would surely lead to outright war between the Dark Brotherhood and the Jatbûfî Tong if Melissa was targeting either of those! Also, if they were her target, she went right by them. Perhaps she is just on a well-earned vacation. Touring the most northern province. In the dead of winter.

I am not sure how Sloan got brought into this but you are surely correct. Having assassin Melissa as your teacher is probably the only thing more frightening than having swordswoman Melissa.

The fire cracked. Someone laughed. Ma’iq’s ears twitched at some comment Marcus did not hear. The world kept moving; he was the only thing in it that had stopped. He forced himself forward. Melissa Shae sat with the fire to her shoulder, one hand wrapped around a bowl of stew. Her face was turned toward the conversation but her eyes roved. The Khajiit was mid-anecdote about a carriage, a goat, and a very unfortunate misunderstanding involving a Jarl's daughter. His ears swiveled toward Marcus and his eyes followed a moment later -- amber, animated, tracking the figure approaching the firelight. He said nothing –just a glance, then his gaze slid away, unhurried, as if he had noted a piece of furniture and found it unremarkable. "Marcus!" Bent waved him over, voice warm with the easy hospitality of a man who had already decided these were friends. "Come meet everyone. They've got news from the south." He turned to the group and thumped a hand on Marcus’ shoulder. Marcus managed to avoid jumping. "This is Marcus, commander of Fort Amol. Marcus, this is Ma'iq -- he's the one with the stories…” a gesture toward the Khajiit, who inclined his head, "…that's Onmund, he’s going to be a great mage some day…" a dusty-haired Nord laughed and waved, eyes shining with the excitement of youth, “…and this is Melissa.” Melissa's head came up at Bent's voice and Marcus, nodding at each person as they were introduced, steeled himself, trying to avoid the inevitable collision of emotions that would surely fight to leap to the forefront the moment he met those familiar blue eyes. All the world seemed to hold its breath. And then… Her gaze flicked over him once -- assessment, the habit of a woman who had survived too long to be careless – and she gave him the barest of nods as a greeting. Then her eyes flicked away, returning to roving as if the interruption had been nothing. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He cleared his throat and forced his voice to speak though his throat felt packed with wool – he was filled with a fear that when he spoke, his voice would come out wrong, would carry an accent, a pitch, a cadence that was not Marcus. That his mother's ears, trained by years of hearing Trendil, would catch the thread and pull. "Welcome," he managed. The word came out low, flat, serviceable. A commander's voice. Not his own. Melissa looked up again. This time her gaze lingered a half-second longer. A crease appeared between her brows; the ghost of something – curiosity? recognition? -- flickered and died. She gave another small nod and went back to looking at everything. Ma'iq stretched, his tail curling behind him. "Your fort is small. Ma'iq approves. Small forts have fewer places for things to go wrong." Bent laughed. “This one is so small because everything already has gone wrong.” "Mm." Ma'iq's ears twitched. "Well, if everything has already gone wrong, it must now be completely safe." Marcus smiled along with the banter but stopped paying attention because something was….off. He studied his mother without staring – she was someone who would know if she was being stared at-- and tried to read her posture. The way she sat -- spine straight, weight balanced -- was familiar. It had been drilled into Trendil before she was tall enough to hold a blade properly. But there was something else beneath it. A tension in her shoulders that did not match the stillness of her hands. A readiness that seemed aimed inward as much as outward. Ma'iq said something about a caravan in Elinhir and a camel that had more personality than its owner, and a few of the men chuckled; Melissa didn’t even crack a smile. This was unlike her –Melissa loved to laugh, to engage in stories, to add her own wry insights. Well, with everyone but her daughter. It had been a source of constant frustration with the young Trendil, who never had any of that laughter or lightness directed her way, other than an occasional smile when she actually did something right. This Melissa only seemed to be going through the motions of enjoying the conversation. Marcus watched her track a soldier who walked past her at the edge of the firelight. This was not unusual – Trendil had been trained to keep an active battle map in her head, to know where everyone in the vicinity was at all times, so it would be expected for Melissa to watch where people went. But something in the tracking was off. The Melissa he remembered assessed threats the way a sword assessed the space in front of it -- forward, direct, measuring the distance to engagement, turning her head to gain all possible angles. This Melissa assessed threats the way a shadow assessed the light – secretive, from the corners of her eyes without turning her head. Instead of marking pieces on a mental map, it felt as if she was looking for angles of approach, for blind spots and vulnerabilities. She carried no visible weapons, but that was right -- she had never carried steel. The Shehai lived in the will, not the sheath. He had seen her manifest it once, years ago, in the yard behind their house -- a blade of silver light that hummed with a sound he had never heard anywhere else. But the hands themselves, when she set down her bowl and Marcus got a glance at her palms...they were wrong. The calluses were not in the right places. A sword-grip left its marks on the base of the fingers, along the ridge of the palm. What he saw in the firelight was different -- higher, closer to the fingertips. The marks of a blade held differently. Or a blade of a different shape entirely. By the time the fire burned low and the travelers began to rise, stretching and gathering their packs, Marcus’ thoughts had formed into something like a question, sharp-edged and insistent. But it was a question he could not ask; only test. He watched them, one by one or in groups, move toward the door of the fort. When Melissa stood and followed Ma’iq, Marcus watched her walk, and even that felt wrong. Both Melissas moved like predators, but where his mother’s gait resembled a hunter, this Melissa’s felt more like a prowler. She was the last through the door and paused at the threshold, her eyes sweeping the yard once before she stepped inside. Her gaze passed over him without stopping but Marcus had no doubt she had seen him -- no matter the world or the timeline, one thing would always stay consistent: Melissa Shae saw everything. The door closed and Marcus stood alone in the dark yard for a long moment, staring at the place where she had disappeared. He did not sleep. The question circled him like a wolf, never quite within reach but never leaving him alone. If she was the Melissa he remembered -- his mother, the youngest Ansei in history, the woman who had drilled every form he knew into his bones -- she would recognize the stances. They were hers. She had shaped them into Trendil’s body from the age of six, and no amount of time or distance or gender potions could erase that language. She would see the shapes of the movements and she would know, and knowing, she would react. A correction. A criticism. A blade to his throat. There would be something. If she did not recognize them... He pushed the thought aside, but it kept returning, circling back, wearing a path in his mind. He made his decision in the hour before dawn, when the fort was still dark and the only sounds were the wind and the distant shift of the watch changing. He rose, strapped on his swords. Paused at the door. If the answer was yes -- if she was the Melissa he remembered -- his day was either going to be very long or very very short. But he had to know. Besides, he could not go a day without training -- his mother would kill him. --- The bailey was empty when he stepped into it. Grey light, cold air, the ground packed hard by weeks of boots. He chose the center of the yard, drew his swords, and began. Form one. Variation one. The opening arc -- vod enmê, swift power. The blade sweeping out in the curve that began everything. Form one, variation two. The cross-step, the pivot, the blade cutting upward at the angle that opened a throat from the collarbone to the ear. Form two, variation one. Keep ke us -- flow like water. The transition from offense to defense, the blade becoming a current rather than a strike. He moved through them as the fort woke around him. Form three, variation five -- the watch changed. Form four, variation eight -- the first of the soldiers yawned their way out of the longhouse and stopped, seeing him in the open, and stayed to watch. By the sixth form, he had drawn a crowd -- curious, murmuring, gathered at the edges of the yard. Usually he did his exercises in the wee hours, away from prying eyes. Now they watched him like he was something to see. He was on form twelve, variation two when she appeared. He caught her in his peripheral vision -- a figure stepping out of the longhouse into the grey morning, stopping at the edge of the crowd, folding her arms. Watching. He almost -- almost – faltered but recovered in time. He finished the variation and reset himself into form twelve, variation three. He felt the same temptation he had had as a child – to peek at Melissa out of the corners of his eyes, to look for signs of approval. It was a habit that had been stricken from young Trendil early on and he resisted it now, though it became more difficult with each passing moment -- the silence from her was deafening. He caught glimpses as the stances turned him -- her face in profile, her arms still folded, her eyes following him with that same indifferent intensity she had worn all night. They offered no catharsis – she remained unreadable. She watched him the way she watched everything: from a distance she did not allow anyone to cross. He started introducing mistakes. Small ones. Subtle ones. A wrist angle a degree too shallow; a weight shift that came a breath too late; a line of the blade that drifted instead of cut. Nothing that anyone outside the school would notice -- the soldiers watching would see only the same fluid forms they had been watching for the past hour. But to someone trained in the Shûyaa Shî Yee Y̌êz, to someone who had drilled these stances until they lived in the bones, the mistakes would sing out like a wrong note in a familiar song. He made them deliberately, one after another, each one a question. She remained silent. He finished form thirteen, variation six and stopped, breath ragged, covered in sweat. The bailey was quiet for a moment -- then the men erupted. Clapping, hooting, someone letting out a low whistle of appreciation. Marcus waved them away with a laughing grunt, a dismissive gesture, and walked. Straight toward her. The men broke away to belatedly begin their day, their murmurs falling away like the last gasp of a summer breeze. He closed the distance one step at a time, giving her every opportunity to say something -- anything -- and found himself caught in the strange double-awareness of hoping she would and hoping she would not, both at once, each wish canceling the other into a kind of numb dread. She watched him approach with that same dispassionate expression. Unchanged. Unreadable. He stopped in front of her, still breathing hard, and paused until his lungs had caught up. Then he said, simply, "Well?" She tilted her head. The movement was achingly familiar -- the angle, the pause, the way her eyes traveled over him like she was reading a text she did not quite recognize. "An interesting style," she said. "I have never seen its like. Where did you learn it?" The world fell away; it felt as if the ground dropped out from under him and left him floating in empty air. For a long moment he could not speak, could not breathe, could not do anything but stand there with her words ringing in his skull like bells. It took all his will, all the discipline trained into him by this very woman, except not this woman, to keep from breaking down on the spot. He forced himself to breathe, to return to the moment. To answer with a truth that was simple on the surface but that carried an impossible complexity he knew he would never be able to fully untangle: "I learned it from my mother." Next chapter Previous chapter Start from the beginning Join the Shae's Discord!

Aan is the woman Marcus saved while she was being raped in the previous chapter. Bent took her home and they bonded on the road.

I mean, I suppose the potion probably did what I did in Race Menu -- took the prefigured female character and just flipped the sex bar. We'll see just how resemble-ish he looks next week, I imagine!

Well, who wouldn't be thrilled for that happy couple?

Note: Delphic means "cuts both ways," the title is not a reference to prophecy

Six days since the dragon flew off. Six day since Marcus had stood on what remained of the western wall (or, rather, what remained of what remained of it), arms crossed, watching the men gape as the corpse -- his corpse, their corpse, the trophy they had killed together -- shuddered, cracked, peeled itself off the shattered wall, and climbed into the sky. The wings had unfurled like sails catching wind, the rotted eye had regrown mid-flight. It had wheeled once, fixed each man in turn with that vertical-pupil gaze, then banked north, away from them, as if Fort Amol was no longer worth its attention. Marcus had not been surprised. He had told them. The men had nodded, agreed, believed him in the abstract. And then it happened, and they stared at the empty sky like children who had been promised a second helping and received a switch instead. He wished it would come back -- he really needed something to hit. Bent had returned from Mixwater with a smile that would not leave his face, and he had not stopped talking about Aan since. Aan, whose name Marcus now knew because Bent said it forty times a day. Aan, who had a laugh like a songbird. Aan, who made the best stew in all of Skyrim. Aan, whose father ran the mill and had thanked Bent a hundred times. Aan, Aan, Aan. Marcus had to listen to it. Worse -- he had to be supportive. "Glad it went well," he had said through a smile that felt like a crack in his face. "She asked about you, you know." "Did she." "Said to thank you again. For the cloak. She's keeping it." "Good. She should keep it." "She's really something, Marcus." "Mm." "She is. I know you haven't met her properly, but…" "I'm sure she's wonderful, Bent." Bent had beamed at him -- this enormous bearded Nord with an equally enormous warhammer on his back beaming like a boy with his first crush -- and Marcus had smiled through his swallowed scream. Then he had nodded, changed the subject to wall repairs, then went to the armory and punched the wall until his knuckles bled. That had been four days ago. Things had not improved. "She asked me about the sea," Bent said over breakfast, voice dropping into that low, wondering register -- the one he used when something genuinely moved him. "What it looks like, smells like, even tastes like!" Marcus remembered that voice. He remembered the first time he had heard it, in a different life -- Bent's rough hand cupping the back of Trendil's neck, his mouth against her hair, murmuring something about the way the stars looked different from the south side of the mountain. A private thing. A thing she had treasured. And now he was using it for her. The realization landed like a knife between Marcus' ribs. That voice -- that specific, unhurried, almost reverent tone -- had been theirs. It was the sound Bent made when he let his guard down completely, when he trusted someone enough to speak without armor. Trendil had earned it. Sweated for it. Bled for it. Let herself be broken and rebuilt inside the crucible of his slow, impossible transformation from rapist to ally to lover. That voice was the prize at the bottom of a very deep, very painful well. It had been sacred. Proof that Koren -- then Bent, then Hammerleaf, then Dragonspite -- had become someone worth loving. Aan had earned it in six days. "…and she has this way of tilting her head when she listens. Like she is not just hearing the words -- she is tasting them. Weighing them. She told me I talk too fast when I am excited. I had never noticed." Marcus gripped his bowl hard enough that he feared it would break. "You do.” He thought he had managed to keep his voice steady, but Bent’s expression changed – he looked at Marcus with the new quietly concerned expression he had developed -- the one that said he was starting to notice things about Marcus that Marcus did not want noticed. Fortune finally came to Marcus’ rescue, alleviating the temptation to say anything that might betray him further, in the form of a voice calling from the wall. “Movement on the road!” The shout cut through the yard; Marcus was on his feet before the echo faded. Relief hit like a blade -- clean, sharp, immediate. Bent’s mouth twisted. “Finally. Thought the world forgot we were here.” Marcus almost said something to that -- something dry, something that might deflect -- but the words died before they formed. He did not trust his voice just now, not after that tone that still echoed somewhere he couldn’t quite silence. “Go meet them,” he said instead. “See what they want.” Bent blinked. “You’re not coming?” “I’ll be there. Just need to make some arrangements first.” Bent studied him for a moment, head tilting slightly, suspicion in his eyes. Too perceptive for his own good, sometimes, was Bent. But finally he responded with only, "Right. All right.” He turned and headed for the gate, already calling for two men to join him. Marcus watched him go for half a breath longer than necessary, then forced himself away. “You,” he snapped, pointing at three nearby soldiers. “With me.” They straightened at once and followed. Marcus led them toward the inner buildings without slowing. He did not think about which room he chose; he only knew it needed to be away from the yard, away from the fire, away from Bent’s voice and the shape it had taken. “That one,” he said, pointing to a half-collapsed room along the northern wall. “We need to clear it.” The door hung crooked on its hinges; inside, the space was cluttered with broken crates, rotted bedding, and the slow creep of damp that never quite left the stone. One of the men wrinkled his nose. “For the guests?” “For anyone who doesn’t want to sleep in the yard,” Marcus snapped. “Move.” They moved, and Marcus stepped in after them. The air inside felt somehow colder than outside, stale and unmoving. He grabbed the nearest crate and dragged it toward the door; the wood scraped harshly against the floor, splintering further as it went. One of the men kicked aside a heap of old straw. Another wrestled with a warped table leg. The third hauled loose boards out in armfuls, dumping them just outside the threshold. They worked in silence beyond the odd grunt; hands on wood, on stone, on anything that needed shifting -- lift, drag, shove, repeat. The rhythm settled quickly, familiar in a way nothing else had been for days. No talking required, no listening required -- just movement. The first crate gave way with a crack as Marcus heaved it aside; he didn’t pause, just bent and grabbed the next. His shoulders burned and his hands went numb where splinters bit through worn leather. It felt great -- he leaned into it, into the weight, into the effort, into the simple honest fact that this needed doing and could be done. No past. No future. Just hard physical work. “Here,” one of the men said, shifting a broken beam. “Take this end.” They maneuvered it through the doorway together, angled it out, dropped it with a dull thud against the growing pile outside, then went back inside, then again. Time blurred. At some point, someone found a broom -- or something close enough -- and started pushing the worst of the debris into a corner. Another gathered what could pass for bedding and shook it out, sending dust into the air in choking clouds. Marcus coughed once, waved it aside, kept moving. The room changed around them. Not fixed, of course, but cleared enough to be used – order out of chaos. One of the men straightened, wiping his hands on his trousers. “That’ll do, I think.” Marcus stepped back, breathing hard, and nodded, then clapped the nearest one on the shoulder. “Good job. You have my thanks.” They nodded and drifted out one by one, drawn back toward the yard and whatever novelty had walked through their gate. Marcus remained where he was for a few breaths. Long enough for the echo of effort to settle, for the tightness in his chest to ease just slightly, for the world to feel…quieter. Almost normal. He exhaled, slow and steady, then turned and stepped back out into the growing night. The yard had shifted. Men stood in looser clusters, attention angled toward the fire where the newcomers had gathered. The low murmur of unfamiliar voices threaded through the familiar ones, changing the shape of the space. Marcus walked toward it, pace even, expression set. The fire was bright enough to cast the gathered figures in sharp relief; a dozen or more, sitting on crates and stumps, accepting bowls of stew, warming their hands. The smell of woodsmoke and cooking meat mingled with the rhythm of conversation, low and easy, and for a moment the world seemed a simple quiet place. Two figures, in particular, stood out – they were nearest the fire while the other ten were farther back, which made them the probable leaders of whatever this group was. One was a Khajiit, sitting on a stump like a king holding court. The other seemed like a woman with dark hair but Bent stood between them, so Marcus was unable to get a good look. "...and that is why," the Khajiit was saying, his voice a low, dry rumble, "Ma'iq no longer fights for money. Ma'iq has seen the alternative to his tongue, and it involves a great deal less sitting and a great deal more running. Ma'iq prefers sitting." Someone laughed and the Khajiit's ears twitched. Bent said something Marcus could not catch and the Khajiit replied, "Ma'iq would rather be warm and fed than correct. But if both are possible, Ma'iq will take them." Marcus was still three paces from the circle when Bent, sensing him, looked up and smiled and shifted slightly to the side, making room, clearing the line of sight. The woman turned and the fire caught her features and Marcus froze in place while fortune slammed its trap amidst gleeful cackles. Dark skin. High cheekbones. Narrow mouth. The hard, worn architecture of a face that had weathered more than it should. Jet black hair pulled back, the barest hint of grey at the temples. Eyes the color of sapphires that met his across the fire. Marcus felt the world drop away. There was no mistaking it. Every line of her face was etched into him -- into Trendil, into the child she had been, into the daughter who had slipped out of a dark house seven years (in this Skyrim, only five months) ago and never looked back. The same eyes that had watched her across the training floor. The same mouth that had shaped the words that made up Trendil’s life. Melissa Shae. Her mother. Marcus stood where he was, barely breathing, and waited for the world to start moving again. As if sharing his fear, it refused. Next chapter Previous chapter Start from the beginning Join the Shae's Discord!

Some people were born to be bureaucrats

Good to know. Plus he can teach me all sorts of tricks, like dragon riding

I have never played through Dragonborn so this is news! If he is so innocent, why are his cultists attacking me?

The Amulet of Mara was still sitting in a corner of my mind, small and heavy, when the walls of Solitude first appeared on the horizon. I hadn't mentioned it. What was there to say? “Hey, I noticed you're wearing the same fucking marriage amulet we just talked about not using, any particular reason or is it just a fashion choice?” My conclusion was that he was trying to torture me by making me feel the same he had when I was wearing the damn thing. In which case, mission fucking accomplished. That meant asking about it would play right into his sneaky little game. “Oh, this old thing? Just found it lying about and figured, what the heck!” The silence around it had calcified like my brother’s Achilles after he ruptured it twelve times over the course of one summer but hadn’t realized it until what remained snapped. My brother is nearly as oblivious as Kellan. But now Solitude rose ahead of us, pale stone catching the weak afternoon light, and the amulet problem got shoved aside by a different weight entirely: the knot in my chest that tightened with every step closer to those gates. It wasn’t fear -- at least, not the kind that makes your heart race and your hands shake. It was slower than that, heavier, like a stone Sisyphused right into my chest. The road itself didn’t help - it curved along the coast in that long, patient way some roads have that seems designed to remind you exactly how far you still had to go. The Karth estuary stretched to our right, blending with seamless abandon with the swampland beyond; sheer cliffs rose to our left. Wind carved its opinions into both with equal enthusiasm. Kangme walked ahead, as always -- precise, tireless, a living embodiment of efficiency. Kellan stayed beside me, close enough that our shoulders brushed now and then, though neither of us acknowledged it. Once Solitude’s spires appeared, pale stone rising out of the rock like it had decided gravity was optional, I kept my eyes on the road under the same logic that those sunglasses in Hitchhiker’s Guide did. You know, the ones that turned completely dark only when you saw something dangerous on the grounds that if you can’t see it, it can’t hurt you? It was like that, and worked just as effectively. “Okay,” I said abruptly. Kellan glanced over. “That sounds like the opposite of okay.” I blinked, startled -- I hadn’t actually realized I had spoken out loud. “Yeah, well…” I exhaled hard, then lowered my voice, glancing ahead to make sure Kangme was far enough away. “I need to say something before we get there.” “All right.” I hesitated, then pushed through it before I could talk myself out of it. “I’m giving serious consideration into going AWOL.” He blinked. “Go…what?” “AWOL. Absent Without Leave. It’s…” I made a vague gesture. “Military thing. On Earth, anyway. It means you just…leave. Don’t come back. Stop following orders. Disappear.” Kellan stared at me for a long moment, then said, very carefully, “You mean…desert.” “Yeah, that. But with more paperwork if they catch you.” He huffed out a breath -- almost a laugh, but not quite. “And you are considering this.” “I’m considering not walking back into a place where I’ll go back to wasting my time scrubbing forgotten corners and giving out handjobs like I’m the President of the fucking United Cocks.” He didn’t even crack a smile, the bastard. I pressed on. “I’m serious, Kellan. We could just…not go back. Head west. Or south. Or literally anywhere else. We’ve got skills, we’ve got supplies -- well, we can get supplies -- we’ve got…” I faltered. “We’ve got options.” “Do we?” “Yes.” “No, we don’t.” He said the words quietly, which just seemed to make them louder. “You have a path. And a very large number of people who would notice if you stepped off it.” I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped. Because, of course, he wasn’t wrong. He went on, still that steady, grounded presence I both relied on and occasionally wanted to punch. “You’re not just another soldier, Sian. You’re…” He gestured vaguely. “You. Dragonborn. Keṣ Tshaâki.” “She-Devil,” I muttered. “Naasektenti as well, yes. If you vanish, they won’t shrug and move on. They’ll send people. A lot of people.” I stared at the road. “Yeah, well. They can try.” “They will do more than try. You have become formidable -- I’ve seen it. But there’s a difference between winning fights and living a life where every road has eyes on it.” A pause. “Also,” he added in a looser tone, “they’d be coming after me, too, because they would assume I would know where you are.” I blinked. “You mean you wouldn’t toss away your entire life including everything you have worked for and everyone you love to follow me as I scurry around the world on the desperate edge of living waiting for the day a thousand soldiers show up to butcher us?” He laughed. “Mmmmm…no. I think I’ll take a pass on that.” “Hey! That’s an Earth phrase! Look at you, taking after me!” His eyes widened in mock (I assumed) horror. “Divines save me!” We both laughed, but mine turned into a sigh. “It does sound exhausting.” “It would be.” Then, softer, “And lonely.” I took in a breath, then exhaled, long and slow, the fight draining out of me in a way that felt suspiciously like defeat. “Okay. Fine. We go back. I report in. I smile and nod and pretend I don’t want to burn half the city down.” “A sound plan.” “As are all of my plans.” I ignored his sputtering as we continued on and the weight in my chest settled into something dull and manageable. Not gone, just…contained. Which, in my experience, is about the best you can hope for. After a moment, I sighed. "I know it was a stupid thought." "It wasn't stupid. It was honest." A pause. “Okay, it was kind of stupid too.” We both burst out laughing again, this time garnering a glance but no more from Kangme, then walked in silence the rest of the way. --- The garrison felt smaller than I remembered. Or maybe I felt larger. The corridors smelled of lamp oil and old sweat and the particular staleness of institutions that never quite air out. It somehow reminded me of my high school locker room, except with lewdness replacing the cattiness. Legate Rikke was where she always was -- at the map, surrounded by markers and reports and the quiet hum of people pretending they knew what came next. She glanced up as we entered, eyes flicking over Kangme and me in a single efficient sweep. “Commander,” she said. “Report.” Straight to it -- no preamble, no welcome back. At least she didn’t sound surprised. “Fort Hraggstad is clear,” I said. She nodded once. “Resistance?” I shrugged. “There were a few dozen. To make things fair, I faced them all at once.” For the first time since I met him, Kangme lost his composure – he made a choking sound that he turned into a cough before resuming his usual stoic stance. I barely contained a grin. Rikke studied me for a moment longer than necessary -- just long enough that I wondered if she knew I wasn’t telling the whole story -- then nodded again. “Good work.” That was it. No questions. No digging. Just…acceptance. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or offended. “You’re just in time,” she added, already reaching for a document. “New orders came in this morning.” She slid a scroll across the table. I picked it up, broke the seal, and read fast. My stomach dropped halfway through the objective. ________________________________________________________________________ IMPERIAL LEGION – NORTH PROVINCE COMMAND Office of Special Operations Liaison Solitude ________________________________________ OPERATIONAL ASSIGNMENT ORDER Document Code: NPC SO K/09 A Clearance Level: Red Black (Keṣ Tshaâki) Date Issued: 16th of Evening Star, 4E 201 ________________________________________ TO: Sian Fraser Elizabeth Keṣ Tshaâki Operative, Special Forces Imperial Legion, North Province ________________________________________ SUBJECT: Field Command Assignment – Company Khi Reach Containment Operations ________________________________________ Pursuant to Imperial Military Code §IV 19 (Special Forces Deployment Authority), Imperial Military Code §VII 12 (Temporary Battlefield Command Authority), and under discretionary command authority vested in the Office of Special Operations Liaison, you are hereby issued the following assignment: ________________________________________ 1. OBJECTIVE You are ordered to assume temporary field command of Company Khi and proceed immediately to The Reach in support of ongoing stabilization efforts. The objective includes, but is not limited to: Containment and reduction of identified Forsworn activity within assigned operational areas Protection of Imperial infrastructure, supply routes, and settlements Identification and disruption of hostile encampments, support networks, and refuges Restoration and maintenance of Imperial security throughout designated operational zones Support of Operation Gopherhole in accordance with instructions to be provided in the field Implementation of any additional directives issued by authorized command personnel ________________________________________ 2. OPERATIONAL PARAMETERS Deployment Type: Independent Field Command Acting Commander: Sian Fraser Elizabeth (Keṣ Tshaâki) Attached Formation: Company Khi Command Center Oversight: Remote Area of Operations: The Reach Timeframe: Immediate deployment upon receipt of orders Special Operational Directive: Operation Gopherhole materials, procedures, and operational requirements are classified above the clearance level of this document and will be briefed separately upon arrival in the area of operations. Company Khi shall remain under your operational control for the duration of this assignment unless otherwise directed by North Province Command. Given the nature of your classification and previous operational performance, broad discretionary authority is authorized regarding strategic, tactical, and logistical decision-making. ________________________________________ 3. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT Standard Imperial military regulations apply. Standard Keṣ Tshaâki engagement protocols apply. You are authorized to employ Company Khi as necessary to achieve assigned objectives consistent with Imperial interests and regional security requirements. Use of force beyond assigned operational boundaries requires justification in post-operation reporting. ________________________________________ 4. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS Upon completion of the assignment, or upon relief by authorized command personnel, you are to submit: A complete after-action report Personnel casualty assessment Material expenditure assessment Summary of Forsworn activity encountered Assessment of operational effectiveness Recommendations regarding continued Imperial operations within The Reach Interim reports may be submitted at your discretion or upon material changes in operational conditions. ________________________________________ ISSUED BY: Stoloric Biehls Operations Coordinator Office of Special Operations Liaison Imperial Legion, Solitude By order of North Province Command. ________________________________________ ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF RECEIPT: ☐ Confirmed ☐ Pending ☐ Refused (Note: Refusal subject to disciplinary review) ______________________________________________________________________________ "We’re going after the Forsworn? Why? Did they join the Stormcloaks?" Rikke's brow furrowed. "The General doesn't want to make a push on Windhelm with them at our backs." I opened my mouth, then thought better of my retort and re-closed it. The fucking Forsworn. I thought of the weeks in Cidhna Mine, more often with a Forsworn inside me than not, and their leader Madanach with his calm eyes and quiet voice. Well, before the mob tore him apart. And, of course, I couldn’t think of that place and not wonder where Borkul had ended up this time around. Hopefully somewhere far away from me. I had no love for the Forsworn, but this seemed asinine. The Forsworn stay in their mountains, I wanted to say. They harass Markarth, which is a city so crooked it practically sweats corruption, and honestly? Good on them -- I'm Team Forsworn on that one. For the rest…they weren’t marching on Solitude. They weren’t laying siege to Whiterun. They were…contained. And now we were going to go uncontain them? Obviously I didn't say any of that – I know when shit is above my paygrade. I just nodded, folded the scroll, and tucked it into my belt. "Yes, Legate." She dismissed us with a wave, already back to studying her map. The walk to the inn felt longer than it should have. Not physically, just…mentally. Like each step gave my brain more time to run in circles, chasing thoughts I didn’t want to catch. By the time I reached the door, two things had settled into place: On one hand, this was good -- no more scrubbing kitchens, no more being handed a rag and a bucket while Lazhah smirked from a distance. Company command meant I'd be out of Solitude, out from under his petty thumb. The other hand, however, was going to be busy. Company command meant I'd be with a company. Day in, day out. Marching, camping, fighting -- and at night, when the fires burned low and the men got restless, there would be expectations. Expectations I couldn't dodge by being a Commander. Expectations that came with every woman in the Legion, no matter how many forts she'd cleared, how many ugly crowns she had found, or how many catapults she'd shattered. I spent a solid five minutes going through every curse word I knew in every language I could think of, then made up more on the spot. Don’t feed the bastards. Feed yourself instead. Next chapter Previous chapter Start from the beginning Join the Shae's Discord! If you like my work, please consider supporting me by buying my book. It is good, I promise!

if you are feeling brave and have time, try a new profile in your mod manager and start with the minimal mods plus SS and gradually add the others back on

the original is not necessary and would cause issues. did i already ask if this is on a brand new game, not a save (including "new" games that are untouched saves at the very beginning, which aren't really new games)?

Try reinstalling it. That is the cause of your issue 99.99% of the time