Fear and Loneliness in Seyda Neen

Seyda Neen reminded Ma’zurah a little bit of home. The tall trees, the smell of water and vegetation, the guar–gods, Ma’zurah had not seen guar since she left Elsweyr–it all conspired to be both painful and comforting.

Her first few steps of freedom after completing the paperwork they made her sign for her release revealed that there was not actually all that much to the town. She could easily see from one end to the other. There were the docks, bordered by the Census and Excise office and a few small warehouses, with a handful of other houses and buildings beyond that. They looked new. Beyond the docks and warehouses on the shore, nestled into the edge of town stood a cluster of older wooden shacks that looked out of place next to the stone and thatch of the new Imperial buildings, like a fishing village that had gotten lost.

Scanning the surrounding area, Ma'zurah saw trees and swamp in one direction, and the sea in the other. She spotted a lighthouse perched at the end of a small peninsula past the last wooden shack; not exactly part of town, but not far enough away to be isolated either. Across a stretch of water, down the uneven coast, Ma'zurah thought she could see something floating like a small moon on the horizon, with buildings standing beneath, but they were much too far to make out any detail.

A cursory search for someplace resembling a shop or an inn revealed the tradehouse, located halfway between the new and old parts of town. Her attempts at conversation resulted in an informative exchange with a Redguard scout who was happy to give her an overview of the local geography.

It was approaching evening by the time Ma'zurah reluctantly turned her mind to what to do next. The tradehouse had no rooms available, and she had her orders: go to Balmora, deliver a package, and receive her next set of instructions. She had been given enough money to afford a fare on the strange, tall insect whose echoing call reverberated like something that should by all rights have been underwater. The ride was exciting, like riding a walking tree while the sun set in fabulous shades of pink and red around her. It was long past dark by the time the insect brought her to her destination.

Balmora did not remind Ma’zurah of home, and she was not sure if she should be disappointed or relieved that not all of this new strange land plucked at her emotions the same way the swamp did. Though the hour was late, there were still people about, mostly Dark Elves who gave her sidelong looks that she did not know how to interpret. She moved past them quickly, too aware of how visible her white fur was in the dark.

Finding Caius Cosades proved more difficult than she had anticipated, and sent her through parts of town she would otherwise have avoided, especially at night. She found him in what had to be the smallest house in the dirtiest alleyway in Balmora. He opened the door bleary-eyed and shirtless, and Ma’zurah immediately smelled moon sugar. It would have been a welcome scent if she had been in Elsweyr, if he had not been Imperial. Instead, it irked her. She had seen what happened to non-Khajiit who used the stuff in the Imperial City, and she did not like it. There was a good reason it was sacred to the Khajiit but denied to all else.

Tight-lipped, she proffered the package. Cosades read the label. His gaze sharpened and he waved her inside, all hint of the effects of the sugar gone from his stance as soon as the door was shut. He bolted it behind him, and Ma'zurah’s heart sped up. Her fingers felt the familiar, comforting gestures of an invisibility spell, but she did not put any magicka into it. This man was supposed to be her “superior and patron” in Morrowind? The tip of her tail twitched in nervousness as Cosades read in silence.

Her waiting was rewarded with something that might have resembled an explanation if it had not been so absurd. The Emperor wanted her to become a Blade.

She dismissed the “Emperor” part immediately. She could safely assume he did not mean the literal Emperor. That was how these official types liked to talk; any action taken on behalf of the Empire was always the work of the Emperor. She knew about the Blades of course; they were supposed to be the Emperor’s spies and personal guard. She was not exactly sure how she was expected to go directly from imprisonment to becoming a Blade entrusted with state secrets and the Emperor’s life, but it seemed suspect at best.

“There must be some mistake,” she told him.

He gave her a piercing stare, looked pointedly at the document he was holding, and asked, “You are Ma'zurah, correct? No surname, formerly of the state of Pellitine?”

Ma'zurah nodded mutely.

“No mistake. You are to become a Novice in the Blades, and that means you’ll be following my orders. Are you prepared to follow my orders, Ma'zurah?”

Her fingers itched for the invisibility spell, but he was standing between her and the door, which was locked. “What happens if Ma'zurah says no?” she asked weakly.

“Then I will have to put you back on a boat for the mainland and return you to prison.” His tone was dismissive, but Ma'zurah could tell he was watching her closely.

There was a long pause as Ma'zurah digested this information.

“Indefinitely,” he added as the silence stretched.

The fur on the back of her neck stood up, and she felt a flash of anger for a brief moment before her anxiety subsumed it. She could not afford to lash out. She had to consider her options rationally.

She could probably get past him if she really tried, but if he really was a high ranking member of the Blades, and she could not see any way that he was not, then he would probably just put out a warrant for her arrest. In a strange province with no friends, or clan, or even allies, no real knowledge of the land, and with her distinctive appearance, it was doubtful she would be able to hide for long.

No friends or clan; she had not realized how vulnerable that made her. She was all alone. Her anxiety curdled suddenly into an icy spike of true fear. This had to be illegal, right? This was coercion. But there was no authority she could appeal to that would be willing to stand up to the Blades. Would anyone even believe her?

No running then. Maybe it would not be so bad. It was not her ideal job, and she had no loyalty to the Empire, but maybe she could get something out of it–some money and a place to sleep at the very least–even if the whole thing still rubbed her fur the wrong way.

“May Ma'zurah ask why she has been chosen for this honor?” she finally asked, her tone careful.

The man raised one brow at her. “No, Ma'zurah may not. Now will you take the oath, or am I going to have to send you back to Cyrodiil?”

Ma'zurah took the oath.

The next few days were a whirl of instructions and introductions. She did indeed get some money, and was told to get her bearings in Balmora, and get some equipment and training. To that end, Cosades sent her to three Blades agents in Balmora who would be able to provide the necessary training–for a fee, of course–and assistance in an emergency. When she had returned from introducing herself to them, three small gifts and much advice richer, Cosades gave her the names and locations of four more around Vvardenfell she should introduce herself to at some point. He suggested she start with the Redguard scout in Seyda Neen. Elone would be able to help her get the lay of the land, he said. Ma'zurah did not know how to feel when she realized she had probably met the woman already.

Finally, Cosades told her to establish a cover identity, and instructed her to check in with him next month to discuss its progress. “I don’t care what it is, so long as it doesn’t point back to us,” he told her. “Go back to prostitution for all I care. The point is to establish a history for yourself here.”

Ma'zurah scowled and went to sign up with the local Mages Guild instead. When she asked for work, she received an assignment from a distracted, but friendly Suthay alchemist to gather mushrooms from the swamp.

Happy to have such a solid excuse to return to the swamp that reminded her even a little of the jungles of her homeland, Ma'zurah procured a herbalist’s bag and a book of local plants in a language she could actually read, and set off the next day, walking instead of riding, taking in the landscape at her own pace. It was beautiful, but lonely. She wished she had someone to share it with.

At least she had direction. She was not sure what she would have done with herself without direction. She had a task, and it distracted her minutely from the horrible anxiety of being so completely alone in a foreign land full of strangers who did not care about her. She wished she had a friend. Just one person who cared would be enough. Maybe then she would not feel as though she was climbing a narrow tree branch over the head of a hungry tiger. She had no one to steady her if she started to lose her balance. The utter lack of social connection was a new experience for her, and not one she liked. She felt vulnerable.

She missed her friends back in the Imperial City. She had not felt so alone since she had found out she would never be allowed to return to Elsweyr, and even then she had still had Dra'nassa. She had gone from a tribe of many to a tribe of two in a single day–a day she had previously considered to be the worst in her life. It had been hard building up connections after that, to replace the support of the tribe she had grown up in with one of her own making, but she had done it. When Dra'nassa had died, she had made enough friends to see her through her grief without despair.

This was worse. Now she had no one. Cosades had made it clear she could not go back to her old life. She would have to start over from nothing again, this time without Dra'nassa’s help.

It was enough to make her want to cry. She saw a mushroom and distracted herself with the task at hand. If the fur of her cheeks was wet, the mushrooms certainly did not care.

She had already filled the bag halfway by the time she got back to Seyda Neen. She presented herself to the scout Elone–again–and tried not to feel horrible and ridiculous when she introduced herself as the Blades’ newest novice.

The woman seemed friendly enough, and gave her a copy of “Guide to Vvardenfell” with accompanying maps. Ma'zurah was grateful. Maps were expensive. Ma'zurah asked if there was anything she could do to help her in return. Elone pursed her lips and sent her to check on a friend of hers who lived a short way outside of town.

“She was supposed to come see me after she got back from her scouting,” Elone told her. “She’s late. I’d check on her myself, but I have work I have to finish. It’s probably nothing, Jasmine can take care of herself, but it’s not like her to stay out for so long. Just check at her house and tell me if she’s there. She might just be sick or something.”

Ma'zurah agreed and went to check.

The house was locked and appeared empty. There was no answer to her knock, so Ma’zurah peeked through the window, and saw no lights lit. Frowning, she checked the muddy path for tracks, trying to determine if Elone’s friend had been home recently enough to leave evidence. Ma'zurah was not the greatest tracker, but she knew enough to hunt animals in deep jungle, and enough to discover a faint set of prints leading up to the house, and another of the same size heading down the path in the direction of the town. Perhaps she had just missed the woman? But no, neither set seemed fresh enough.

She followed the path and the footprints back in the direction of Seyda Neen, resolving to tell Elone of her discovery. She was most of the way back to town when she came across several more sets of footprints–at least three, all overlapping–intercepting the first set of footprints. The trail became smudged and some of the prints scattered and came back, and the next trail Ma’zurah could find led into the underbrush at an angle, away from town. Whoever they were, they had taken Elone’s friend with them for reasons inscrutable to Ma'zurah. Kidnapping was not typical behavior for bandits, and surely if the woman had come across friends on the path, they would not have trampled the ground quite so much. Each subsequent scenario Ma'zurah thought of was more worrying than the last.

She followed the tracks to a cave, thanking Azurah for the wet ground. Trampled plants stuck to the mud, making the trail easy to follow all the way to the stone of the cave mouth. It was hidden against a hillside at the edge of the swamp, behind a set of boulders that blocked line of sight from the path. Ma’zurah cautiously poked her head inside, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dimness, and saw the glow of a fire.

She followed the cave a few paces deeper into the hillside until she found the source of the light: a campfire, with a Dark Elf woman tending it. An overturned rowboat had been pulled into the shelter of the cave as well, and the back wall was blocked off by a fence. There was something wrong here, something obvious Ma'zurah was missing, but she could not pinpoint what.

And she would not find out what was going on by standing here like a lump.

“Hello?” Ma'zurah called.

The woman by the fire whirled, knife drawn. Ma'zurah gasped and cast invisibility on herself and dove for the shadows.

“Ku’or havag?” the woman called, stalking toward the cave entrance.

Ma'zurah could have kicked herself. Why would a woman sitting in a cave at the edge of a swamp respond positively to an unexpected stranger, no matter what reason she had for being there? She should have predicted this kind of a reaction instead of calling out and making it that much harder to sneak past an alert person. And of course a Dark Elf would be speaking the Dark Elven language in Morrowind. Somehow, Ma'zurah had not yet run into the language barrier in any significant way. She was going to have to learn the language.

“Ku’or edur diru?” The woman passed Ma'zurah’s hidden form and stared out into the swamp, frowning.

There was a moment’s pause, and Ma'zurah huddled against the wall of the cave, wondering what she had gotten herself into.

The woman turned abruptly on her heel and approached the wooden fence set into the back of the cave, muttering something incomprehensible under her breath.

Ma'zurah followed as closely behind her as she dared, practically holding her breath. Her heart was pounding. There was definitely something wrong here. She was sure of it now, even if she could not say why. It was a subtle thing, told in the set of the woman’s jaw, or the hardness of her expression. It made the fur on the back of Ma'zurah’s neck stand up.

If she could only figure out what was going on, or even just confirm that Elone’s friend was here, she would not have to report back to Elone with so little news. She wished she had asked Elone for a description of her friend Jasmine.

The Dark Elf opened the gate and Ma'zurah slipped in behind her. Beyond the gate, the cave split into two paths, the leftmost branch leading up to another fence with a gate in it, and the rightmost branch leading down a slope and out of sight. Ma'zurah thought she could hear running water somewhere below.

The Dark Elf woman took the rickety wooden ramp down the uneven stone slope to the right. Ma'zurah started to follow when the woman called something ahead of herself. Two more Dark Elves appeared at the bottom of the ramp, and the woman spoke urgently to them. Their faces turned grim, and both stalked toward Ma'zurah’s position.

Ma'zurah nearly panicked, trying to scramble out of their way without making any noise. She darted up the ramp to the left until she was almost backed up against the fence at the top. Oblivious to Ma'zurah’s presence, the two Elves exited toward the mouth of the cave, leaving the woman at the bottom to retreat further down and out of Ma'zurah’s sight.

Heart racing, Ma'zurah slumped against the fence, and the invisibility spell broke.

“Hey,” a low feminine voice hissed urgently through the fence behind her, making Ma'zurah jump. “Do you have the key?”

Ma'zurah’s fingers froze in the process of reapplying her invisibility spell as she registered the words. She peered between the slats of the fence and discovered a brown oval face with wide dark eyes and long black hair.

“Are you Jasmine?” Ma'zurah whispered back.

The face hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Please, you have to get us out of here.” There was the faintest edge of desperation in her whispered tones. Ma'zurah’s hackles rose again.

“Us?” Ma'zurah asked numbly.

Jasmine stepped back, allowing Ma'zurah to see through the narrow gaps in the fence. Huddled at the back of the small enclosure were two Argonians and a Suthay-raht, all wearing only the barest scraps of clothing. The Argonians both had a greenish tint to their scales, but one of them was shorter with a long row of spikes protruding from forehead to back of the neck, while the other had a pair of spikes on either side of the head. The Khajiit was orange-furred, with black markings around his eyes and nose, and had long mustaches which hung down on either side of his mouth. He was also topless, Ma'zurah observed, feeling faintly scandalized by the display of torso fur. And she could see his ribs beneath his fur, she realized with a different kind of shock. She did not know much about Argonian anatomy, but they did not look too good either.

The pieces slotted into place suddenly, along with the memory of half-heard rumors from Cyrodiil. This was slavery. Those Dark Elves out there meant to sell these people. She had heard the Dark Elves kept slaves, but she had not realized what that meant before. Sudden tears of horror and sympathy pricked at her eyes.

“What should Ma’zurah do?” she asked Jasmine urgently. Jasmine was, she noticed, by far the healthiest looking of the group. “She can… She can run and get help?”

“There’s no time,” Jasmine whispered back. “I overheard them say they were going to move us. We have to get out of here before that happens or you’ll never be able to find us again. You’ve got to get the key to the gate, and maybe the keys to our shackles. If I had a weapon, I could fight, but I don’t think the others could.”

Ma'zurah nodded firmly. “Ma'zurah will be back.”

She stalked invisibly down into the depths of the cave, past a branch of tunnel filled with water, and up a wooden deck covered with crates. Fury had eclipsed her fear. Her hands shook with how angry she felt. It was not right. How could anyone hold people captive like this and disregard their suffering? How could they use people’s suffering for profit? How could they live with themselves?

The Dark Elf woman was not in sight, so Ma'zurah began searching crates. She had searched two, finding nothing but alcohol and cheap imported clothing before her head caught up to her and she cast a spell, willing her magicka to show her keys.

She saw the glow of something small atop a crate when her time ran out, and the Dark Elf woman walked into view.

Ma'zurah panicked, but instead of fleeing again, she dove for the woman, claws extended, spurred on by the anger that mixed oddly with her fear. The woman only had time to shriek “N'wah!” before Ma'zurah’s hands wrapped around her throat, claws tearing.

The next thing she knew, the woman was motionless on the ground, and Ma'zurah’s hands were slick with blood. She felt like she could not breathe properly, like someone had punched her in the gut. She had never hurt anyone before in her life, and now…

She scooped up the key and the woman’s dagger and retreated up the ramp to free the others before her thoughts could catch up with her and render her useless. Her hands shook as she fitted the key in the lock, and the key nearly slipped between her blood-slick fingers.

The door came open, and Ma'zurah thrust the dagger into Jasmine’s hands. “Here. Ma'zurah did not find the shackle keys. Can we leave without them?”

“Keep looking,” one of the Argonians advised in a half-cracked voice. “We will not find many willing to remove slave bracers. We will draw too much attention wearing them.”

“There are at least two more people around here,” Ma'zurah warned, mentally beating her emotions into submission. Her hands were still shaking. “We will have to hurry before they come back.”

They filed down into the lower recesses of the cave, Ma’zurah at the front, Jasmine bringing up the rear with the knife. The Suthay-raht looked sidelong at the body of the fallen Dark Elf as they passed, eyes flicking from the claw gouges on her neck to Ma’zurah’s bloody hands. There was something like approval in his eyes.

Ma’zurah cast the spell of finding again, looking for something that might unlock the magic suppressing bracers on the wrists of her companions. The spell revealed another key on the body of the Elf, but it was too big to fit into any of the shackles.

They proceeded further into the cave, uncovering more crates, more clothing, more alcohol, a small stack of coins, and a pile of pillows with what Ma'zurah’s nose told her was moon sugar smuggled inside. She dumped one out, frowning at the little purple vials that fell along with the paper envelopes of white crystals. Confused, she sniffed one of the vials and got the overpowering scent of moon sugar and alchemy for her trouble.

“Skooma,” the Suthay-raht rasped behind her in explanation.

Ma'zurah dropped the thing hastily. The Clan Mothers always taught that moon sugar was a blessing from Azurah, but skooma was a perversion created by Imperials.

It was also not a key. She searched the crates again for the telltale glow of the spell, but found nothing.

“There are no keys here,” she told the group. They would have to keep moving.

They twisted around a narrow gap at the back of the cavern, only to find another wooden fence, and beyond it, a flooded tunnel descending down even further.

“We could dive for it,” one of the Argonians offered, and distractedly Ma’zurah realized from her voice that the Argonian was probably female, though Ma'zurah was hardly in a position to judge someone’s gender based on their physical attributes.

“I doubt they hid the keys underwater though,” the second Argonian concluded.

There was a sudden shout from back the way they had come and Ma’zurah’s breath caught in her throat. The overwhelming emotions she had been suppressing threatened to overtake her again. In her peripheral vision, she saw Jasmine raise her knife and start back toward the noise, and Ma'zurah realized she had also committed herself to protecting these people. She frantically tried to remember everything she had learned about Destruction magic at the Arcane University and ran past Jasmine, readying a blast of frost.

She had just enough time to register that the two Dark Elves who had left had returned with three others in tow, and that they had just stumbled on the dead body of their compatriot, before she loosed the spell in her hands with as much force as she could muster.

There was a reverberating crack and a hair-raising rumble as the telekinetic blast propelling her spell forward connected not just with her foes, but with the far wall of the cave and a low hanging portion of the ceiling. Stone cracked, the ground shook, and before anyone had time to do anything more than scream, the roof caved in, burying the group of Dark Elves and the exit.

A deafening silence followed. Nobody moved.

“Well,” Jasmine began, lowering her dagger.

The mountainous pile of rock and gravel that covered the exit shifted slightly, and a scattering of scree clattered down the heap. One of the torches illuminating the cave flickered and died.

Ma’zurah sat down on the ground and promptly burst into tears.

“Oh no…” moaned the Suthay-raht. “Oh nooo…”

“Let’s not panic,” Jasmine said, with a kind of calm Ma’zurah could not imagine she actually felt. They were stuck here, and it was all Ma’zurah’s fault. She felt herself begin to hyperventilate.

“Be right back,” one of the Argonians said in a matter-of-fact tone. There was the sound of retreating footsteps, then a ripple of water and a splash.

A flicker of hope cut through Ma'zurah’s panic at the sound. There might be another way out! She scrubbed at her face with her hands, trying to quiet her emotions. The scent of blood assaulted her nose like a warhammer and she recoiled, trying not to begin hyperventilating again for a different reason.

“Alright,” a deep reptilian voice said from just behind Ma’zurah, and Ma’zurah felt hands under her armpits, lifting her to her feet. “Come on, get up.”

The remaining Argonian clasped his hand around her upper arm and led her through the back of the cave to the flooded tunnel. He stopped at the water’s edge. “Clean yourself up a bit. You’ll feel better.”

Ma’zurah nodded gratefully and knelt to wash her hands and face.

“Sorry,” she said guiltily once she had finished scrubbing. The cold water had grounded her flying emotions into a hard but manageable lump, and her newly regained clear-headedness brought with it an awful awareness. These people had been literal slaves, and here she was the only one crying like a newborn kitten.

The Argonian looked at her with an indecipherable expression. Heat blossomed in her face despite the chilly dampness of her fur. Her emotions still felt like a tangle, and she could not find the words to adequately explain why she was apologizing. “Thanks,” she finally said instead.

The Argonian turned his head away. “Don’t mention it.”

Jasmine appeared behind her with the Suthay-raht just as the water rippled and the other Argonian surfaced.

“It’s a bit of a climb,” she told them in her odd rasping accent, “but it looks like there is a way out.

Jasmine nodded firmly. “Alright, gather what you want to take from here, and let’s go.”

Ma’zurah simply sat at the water’s edge and waited for the others. The roiling tangle of emotion in her gut made the prospect of looting the remaining crates totally unappealing, and besides, the others probably needed the things more. They could get new clothes at least.

The Argonian was right. It was a bit of a climb. Once they surfaced on the other side of the flooded tunnel, they had to climb a tall bank to get out of the water, and then up a steep tunnel that opened suddenly behind a cluster of stalactites into the cavern wall above and to the right of the fence that led to the freed slaves’ erstwhile cell. Once they made the drop down, they had only to walk over and open the gate that led to the cave entrance.

“Wait,” Ma’zurah said suddenly, remembering. “Your shackles–”

“We know,” said Jasmine quietly.

“The keys were probably buried,” one of the Argonians explained. Guilt shot through Ma'zurah. No one had cast any blame, but she still felt it.

“We’ll figure something out once we get out of here.” Jasmine gestured them through the gate. “We can go to my house. It’s not far.”

They went to Jasmine’s house. She retrieved a key from a flower pot and let them inside, and the five of them collapsed onto the plush rug in the middle of Jasmine’s floor, relieved and emotionally drained after their ordeal. There was a long moment of silence.

Jasmine got up abruptly and rummaged through her cupboards. She returned with half a loaf of bread and a knife, and served each of them slices.

Ma’zurah chewed hers in silence. As soon as Jasmine’s door had closed between her and the outside world, she had felt her grasp on her emotions slipping. She could feel the tears coming. She could not let the others see her cry again. She did not know what would be worse, having them ignore her or try to comfort her.

She stood up. “Ma’zurah needs to– Ma’zurah has got to– Be back.” She fled out the front door and into the little outhouse at the side of Jasmine’s house. She closed the door behind her and took one shaky breath before the tears came in full force and she was sobbing and shuddering. She sat down on the wooden outhouse seat, still in her damp clothing, and rode the wave of her emotions.

She felt bad. And once she felt bad about one thing, more reasons to feel bad flooded her. She could have died! She had not cast invisibility, and instead she had fought, and she could have died. She had never hurt anyone before, but this time she had fought and killed someone. Several someones, actually, but the rest were not nearly as personal as the first someone. They could have killed her, but instead she had their blood on her hands, figuratively and literally, though she did not think she felt nearly as bad about them being dead as she did about having to be the one to commit the act. That also made her feel bad. What was wrong with her that she was more upset about having clawed a woman’s throat out than about the woman being dead? She was no stranger to blood, but killing animals was nothing like killing people. And still, she felt less upset about having dropped a cave on top of a group of people than she did about the memory of warm blood beneath her claws. She should not feel like this!

And then there was the slavery. She had not thought about what slavery was really like before. It had always been an abstract concept that was far away and never affected her personally. To be confronted by the reality of it so suddenly was a shock, though she probably should have seen it coming. She just had not connected the Morrowind of Imperial rumor and speculation with the Morrowind she had been sent to. Was she in danger of being captured and sold? She supposed she was, especially since that seemed to be what had happened to Jasmine, and Jasmine was not even Khajiit! This province was dangerous. She did not feel safe!

Why had they sent her here? She did not want to be here! She did not know anything about this place. She did not even speak the language! She wanted to be back in the Imperial City studying magic and laughing with her friends. She was alone here. She did not have any friends in this strange land–no clan, not even the self-made clan she had gathered around herself after she had been exiled from Elsweyr, and after Dra’nassa had died. She had never been so alone in her life. It was terrifying.

The tears came harder. She felt so bad! The mental refrain felt like a wail.

And she could not leave! She could not leave after swearing an oath to the Blades, or she would be branded a traitor and hunted down and imprisoned for the rest of her life! It was a kind of slavery itself, whether she stayed or tried to leave. She had not done anything to deserve this kind of treatment! Whoever had picked her to join the Blades obviously did not know anything about her. She was the worst pick for that kind of job. They should have asked instead of forcing her to join. She did not want it! She just wanted to leave. But she could not, because they were coercing her, and she was scared. She was scared of being branded a traitor and hunted, she was scared of the Blades, and she was scared of Caius Cosades. Caius Cosades was not a nice man. She wished she never had to speak to him again. She wished she never had to speak to any of the Blades again, even Elone, who seemed nice, but could not be trusted because she was a Blade, and the Blades were not nice people.

She felt so bad. She felt so bad! She was alone in this province, no friends, no clan, no one who cared if she felt bad, and she could not leave, and she was angry and scared, and she felt so bad!

There was a knock on the outhouse door. “Ma’zurah?” Jasmine’s voice was muffled, but recognizable.

Ma’zurah sniffled and scrubbed at her face with the heel of her hand. The fur of her cheeks, already damp from the swim through the flooded tunnel, was soaked again. “Sorry, Ma’zurah will be out soon,” she managed to croak out. Her nose was stuffed up, and her eyes were sore and puffy.

“I brought you a change of clothes. I thought you might want something dry.”

Ma’zurah opened the door. Jasmine’s face fell at the sight of her. “Oh dear…”

Ma’zurah shook her head violently. “No no, Ma’zurah does not want to hear it. Jasmine has been through much worse.”

Jasmine drew her brows together. “It’s not a competition. What’s wrong?“

Ma'zurah shook her head mutely. There was no way she was going to lay her troubles on someone who still wore the shackles of slavery. The Clan Mothers had not raised her to be a burden.

Jasmine clicked her tongue. "Well, it looks like a change of clothes isn’t going to be enough. Come inside and I’ll get you a towel. Baadargo is using my washtub right now, but you’re welcome to bathe after him.”

With guilt, Ma'zurah realized she had not asked for the names of any of the others. How self absorbed was she? Her emotions felt like they had been scraped raw, and tears welled in her eyes again.

Jasmine’s eyes went wide. “Whoa, hey, it’s alright! You’re alright, okay?” Her hands fluttered around Ma'zurah’s shoulders, but did not quite touch her.

Ma'zurah nodded agreement, but the tears would not go away. She contemplated retreating into the outhouse again, but she had already alarmed Jasmine enough. She needed a distraction.

“Tell Ma'zurah–” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat and tried again. “Tell Ma'zurah how Jasmine got in that cave?”

Jasmine’s shoulders slumped and she let out a long sigh. Alarmed at her suddenly morose expression, Ma'zurah made a placating gesture. “You do not have to–”

“No, it’s– You deserve to hear it after everything you did for me. Actually, I was meaning to thank you. If you hadn’t come along…” Jasmine paused, eyes distant. “I was just trying not to think about it yet.”

“Ma'zurah is sorry–”

Jasmine shook her head. “You have nothing to be sorry about.” Her shoulders straightened again. “In any case, there’s no point standing around out here when we could be sitting inside. I’ll find you a towel, and then I’ll tell you the whole thing if you want.”

Ma'zurah followed Jasmine inside, reluctant to show her face to the others, but unwilling to be rude to the woman who was trying to be nice to her.

As soon as they got inside, the pair of Argonians approached them. Ma'zurah tried to hide behind Jasmine without looking like she was doing so.

“You have been a most generous to host us,” the deeper-voiced of the Argonians told Jasmine, making a complicated hand gesture.

“And a kind rescuer,” the second interjected, pointedly looking at Ma’zurah and making the same gesture. Ma'zurah’s face felt too warm.

“And we wish to show our gratitude.“

The pair of them exchanged glances, and the second one took up where the first had left off. "We have nothing we could offer as thanks, so we were thinking–”

The first one made eye contact with Jasmine. “If you are willing to lend us the use of your cooking fire–”

“And you are willing to wait for us to catch the fish before we cook them…” The second Argonian shoved an admonishing hand against the first’s shoulder with a look that might have contained amusement, though Ma'zurah was no expert at reading Argonian expressions.

Jasmine blinked at the pair. “By all means, feel free,” she told them, sounding surprised.

“Then we will be back with a feast!” the first Argonian declared, and the pair of them exited the house.

“At least they’re happy,” Jasmine said with a shake of her head. She crossed the room and searched her cabinets for a towel.

Ma’zurah stood in the doorway and took in the room for the first time. The house was small, probably only two rooms large; modest by Imperial standards, but clean. The room she was in held a kitchen in the Imperial style, a table, a fireplace, a writing desk, and a large bookshelf, but no bed, and no washtub. Ma’zurah could hear the sounds of splashing from the next room. She could even hear the Suthay-raht, Baadargo singing muffled snatches of song in what must have been the Dark Elf language, because it certainly was not Ta'agra. With a pang of loneliness, Ma’zurah realized she had not heard anyone speak Ta’agra since she got to Morrowind. She hugged her arms around her chest.

Jasmine returned with a fluffy towel, which she draped gently across Ma'zurah’s shoulders, and led her out of the doorway. Ma’zurah followed her with a painful hope in her chest. Jasmine was being nice, friendly even, and Ma’zurah had been so alone. She desperately needed a friend. She felt like they had the spark of connection; maybe Jasmine could be the friend she needed.

Once Ma’zurah was dry and clothed in Jasmine’s loaned dress, she found herself sitting next to Jasmine at the table as the woman began the story of how she had gotten caught.

“I’ve been working with my friend Elone to track the activity of smugglers along this section of the Bitter Coast–”

Ma'zurah had to interrupt. “Is Jasmine a Blade too?” she blurted out, dreading the answer. Blades could not be trusted, no matter how nice they were. She cringed, realizing what she had just said.

Jasmine gave her a puzzled and vaguely alarmed look. “No, I’m technically an independent contractor. Elone commissions me to help her when she gets assignments too big for one person or she’s too busy to go out herself. But now I’d like to know how you know Elone is a Blade. Not many people know that.”

Ma'zurah bit her lip. She had probably given away too much already. She had been raised by the Clan Mothers; she was supposed to know the value of keeping secrets. She knew it was expected of her as a Blade, but she just was not cut out for weaving the kind of elaborate subterfuge required of a spy. They should have asked her before dragging her into this mess. She felt bitter about the whole thing, and not a little rebellious. She was tired and lonely. She wanted to tell Jasmine. Besides, if Jasmine knew the truth about Elone, Cosades probably would not punish her for telling the truth about herself as well. Especially if he never found out.

“Ma'zurah is a Blade too now,” she mumbled. She felt absurdly like she was telling a dirty secret, though she was not sure she could articulate why.

Jasmine opened her mouth, stopped, and closed it again. “I see,” she said finally. Something in her expression became ever so slightly more closed off, as though she was watching her words in a way she had not been before. Maybe she was worried about getting Elone in trouble, or maybe she did not trust the Blades either. Maybe she thought Ma'zurah was like Cosades. The thought made Ma'zurah feel as though she could not breathe. She was filled with the sudden, desperate need to tell Jasmine the whole story; to distance herself from the Blades and prove she was not one of them, not really. She wanted to regain that small measure of trust that she had just lost. She was already so isolated, she did not want to lose this connection. She needed a friend so badly.

“You asked why Ma'zurah was upset,” she began urgently, leaning closer to Jasmine.

“Yes?” Jasmine looked surprised at the change of subject.

“It is related.”

The story came torrenting out: the illegal prostitution charges, the prison sentence, the inexplicable deportation, the package for Caius Cosades, the extortion. She told her about how she did not want to be a Blade, how she did not feel safe in Morrowind, and how she could not leave. She started crying again in the middle of it, and Jasmine put a hand on her knee. Ma'zurah hid her face in her damp towel, but kept talking until she got it all out.

“I’m sorry, that sounds awful,” was Jasmine’s quietly horrified response. Ma'zurah’s gaze flicked to the magic suppressing slave bracer still locked around Jasmine’s wrist and remembered her resolution not to be a burden. She could not bring herself to regret telling Jasmine though, because there was genuine sympathy in her eyes now instead of that quiet wariness. And Ma’zurah would not be a burden if this was a mutual exchange.

“Your turn,” she said, sniffling. “You just got captured by slavers. Do you want to talk about it?”

Jasmine closed her eyes. “No, but I should.”

She told Ma’zurah about how she had been scouting, and been caught snooping too close to the smugglers’ cave. She had made a hasty retreat, and thought she had avoided being pursued, so she had gone home. She was on her way into town to report to Elone when she had been ambushed. She could have fought them off if one of them had not snuck up on her from behind.

“I was so scared…” Jasmine’s voice was so small it was nearly a whisper. “They were going to sell me. Who knows what would have happened to me after that. They said I would be… valuable. Because of my looks. I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life. Not even when–not ever.” She closed her eyes, and the tears that had been slowly welling in them finally spilled over. She swiped at them with her fingertips. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“It is fine.“ Ma'zurah put a hand on Jasmine’s knee. "It seems like a reasonable reaction.”

Jasmine shook her head and covered her face with her hands.

Baadargo chose that moment to open the door to the next room. He looked much better. His orange fur had been combed, and he was dressed in more than just rags. He took in the scene and his eyes gained a quality similar to those of a frozen deer. Ma’zurah tried to offer him a tremulous smile, but he retreated, closing the door behind him quietly.

“Sorry,” Jasmine repeated once her shoulders stopped shaking. She tried to wipe her face with her hands, and Ma’zurah offered a corner of her towel. Jasmine looked at it skeptically, and went to retrieve a washcloth instead.

“In the cave,” Jasmine continued after she had wiped her face and steadied her breath, “you asked me if I was Jasmine. How did you know who I was, and where to find me?”

“Elone asked Ma’zurah to check at Jasmine’s house to see if she was there. Ma’zurah found footprints leading from Jasmine’s house, and she followed them.”

“I see. Thank you. I can’t imagine what would have happened to me if you hadn’t done that.”

Ma’zurah nodded and opened her mouth to reply, but Jasmine had closed her eyes and was sitting very still. She looked like she was waiting, Ma’zurah thought, or listening.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s over.”

“It is,” Ma’zurah assured her. “They cannot sell you, or anyone now.”

Jasmine just shook her head. "The thought of going back out, scouting the Bitter Coast like before…” Jasmine took a shuddering breath. “I don’t think I can do it. Not–not yet. Not for a while, maybe, and not by myself.”

Ma'zurah nodded sympathetically.

“What are you doing after this?” Jasmine asked, turning her focus back to Ma'zurah with a suddenness that startled her.

“Er, Ma'zurah is doing jobs for the Balmora Mages Guild, she thinks. Why?”

“Do you think–” She stopped and tried a new tack. “You seem like you can take care of yourself.”

Ma'zurah nodded slowly. She usually took care of herself by turning invisible when things became dangerous, but she supposed today’s events proved she could take care of herself in other ways too. She was not sure where Jasmine was going with this.

“Do you think I could… travel with you for a while? Help you with jobs?” Jasmine’s voice sounded hopeful, and her words tumbled out in a rush. “Only if you want the company. I wouldn’t be a burden. I have a strong sword arm, and I’m good with a bow. I couldn’t ask Elone for something like this, she can’t leave the Bitter Coast right now, and I don’t know anyone else well enough to be able to ask–”

“Yes!” Ma'zurah felt like she would burst. She would not be alone anymore! She threw her arms around Jasmine’s shoulders. “Yes, of course! Ma'zurah would be glad to have your company.”

Jasmine stiffened in surprise, then released a breath and returned Ma'zurah’s embrace, smiling ruefully. “It will be good to get back on the road again.”

Ma'zurah sat back and beamed at her.

“First things first. We have to take care of these.” Jasmine tapped the bracer on her wrist. “I don’t think it would be safe to ask a blacksmith or a locksmith for help, but I was thinking maybe we could get some scrolls. They might be expensive, but maybe Elone knows someone who–”

“Hold on.” Ma'zurah’s brow furrowed. The idea of scrolls pinged something in her recollection. “Ma'zurah has a thought. In theory, Ma'zurah knows a spell. She has never used it, but before Jasmine speaks of buying expensive scrolls, perhaps she would like Ma'zurah to try.”

“Is it dangerous?”

Ma'zurah pursed her lips. “Not really. Definitely not if it is cast correctly.”

Jasmine gave her a searching look and hesitantly proffered her arm.

It took two tries. The first time it failed outright, and Ma'zurah wished she had access to her notes far away at the Arcane University. The second time the lock came open with a muffled click.

“Thank you,” Jasmine breathed, rubbing her wrist and sounding supremely relieved. “I should–we should let the others know.” She rose and knocked on the door to the next room. “Baadargo?”

There was no answer.

Frowning, Jasmine opened the door.

The orange Khajiit was asleep on the floor, curled into a tight ball in the corner of the room.

He peeked an eye open at their approach. “This one can come out now?”

“Why are you on the floor?” Jasmine asked, bemused.

“Where else should this one be?”

“The bed?”

Baadargo looked over at the bed and Ma'zurah followed his gaze. It was a nice bed, with soft, clean blankets smoothed over the top, and not a wrinkle in sight.

“That is the bed of muthsera Jasmine, not Baadargo.” The Khajiit’s voice was plaintive. “This one did not want to mess it up.”

Jasmine tisked, but let it drop.

“Show Ma’zurah Baadargo’s bracer please?” Ma'zurah asked, helping the Suthay-raht to his feet.

He held out his wrist and Ma’zurah opened the lock.

“Fantastic! Can this one learn to do such things?” Baadargo’s tone was wondering, as though Ma'zurah had handed him a precious gift and he could hardly believe it.

Jasmine laughed along with the joy on the Suthay-raht’s face, but Ma’zurah gave his question serious consideration. “Does Baadargo have a talent for magic?”

Baadargo’s face fell slightly, though the joy remained. “This one does not know. This one has never had the bracer off long enough to find out before.”

“Never?” Jasmine asked, horrified.

“This one was born with it.”

Ma’zurah gaped at the Suthay-raht. Her mind boggled at the thought of being born into slavery. She could not imagine a life like that.

A look of concern had affixed itself to Jasmine’s face. “If you’ve never been free, do you have anywhere to go? Or anywhere you want to go?”

Baadargo nodded. “This one has heard rumors. They say the scaled ones in Ebonheart will help those who want to leave. Baadargo was going there.”

“Alright.” Jasmine glanced at Ma’zurah. “I guess that will be our first stop.”

Ma’zurah nodded.

Jasmine spent the next hour packing and preparing her house for her imminent absence. Ma’zurah laid the things in her bag out to dry, lamenting the water damage to her new maps, and then proceeded to sit at the kitchen table and attempt to teach Baadargo how to access his own well of magicka.

At some point the pair of Argonians returned with three large fish and a mudcrab, which they gleefully cooked. Ma’zurah demonstrated again the spell of opening, which prompted the Argonians to speak animatedly of their plans to return to the marshes of their homeland. Jasmine suggested they travel with Baadargo to look for assistance first, and to that end, the five of them hired two fishing boats from the outskirts of Seyda Neen to take them to Ebonheart directly, avoiding the main roads. Jasmine and Ma’zurah stopped to assure Elone that Jasmine was fine before they departed.

When they arrived at the fort, Jasmine had only to ask for “the Argonians” to be directed to the Argonian Embassy. They had barely taken two steps inside before they encountered a tall Argonian in an elegant robe, who quickly divined the situation and whisked the three former slaves away to a safe place.

Then it was just Ma’zurah and Jasmine. Ma’zurah gave Jasmine the details of her job for the Balmora Mages Guild, and the pair of them set off in the direction of Balmora. There was a lightness to Ma’zurah’s step that she had not felt since before she had been imprisoned in Cyrodiil.

Ma’zurah looked over at the Redguard walking beside her. She still missed the life she had lost, the life she could not go back to, but at least now she was not completely alone. Now she had a friend.

Short Fic: Ma’zurah tries to get a promotion in House Hlaalu. Rated M. Content warning for sexual harassment and trans/intersexphobia.

—

“First, I want to see who I’m dealing with. Show Uncle Crassius what you have to offer. Don’t be shy!”

Ma’zurah stared horrified at the Imperial man in front of her. He couldn’t possibly be serious… right? She glanced behind her at the Dunmer loitering in the doorway.

The Dunmer sidled up behind her. “Does he mean…”

Julan’s whisper trailed off as Ma’zurah flapped a hand at him to get him to shut up.

“Come on, dumpling, don’t be shy,” the Imperial encouraged with a smile that Ma’zurah suspected was supposed to be charming, but only came across as creepy. “Just do this one little favor for Uncle Crassius.”

Ma’zurah’s whiskers twitched. “Must Ma’zurah?”

The Imperial shrugged. “Well of course you don’t have to, sweetie, but if you want my sponsorship…”

Ma’zurah suppressed a grimace. The man didn’t need to finish the sentence. She knew he was likely her only chance for sponsorship in House Hlaalu. Without his backing, she would be unable to obtain any more work, and her rising career in House Hlaalu would stall.

She put on her best winning smile. “One moment!”

She backed out into the hall before the Imperial had time to respond, pulling the Dunmer after her.

“Look, just say the word, and I’ll punch him,” Julan muttered as they walked up to the Redguard and the Bosmer waiting in the next room. “Unless you want that honor?”

Ma’zurah shook her head and gestured all three of them out of earshot of the open doorway.

“How did it go?” asked Jasmine.

“I think he wants her to take her clothes off,” Julan explained. He balled his fists. “I mean it, just say the word.”

“The pig!” Constance’s voice was shrill, and Ma’zurah hurriedly shushed the indignant Bosmer.

Jasmine gave Ma’zurah a penetrating look. “What are you going to do?”

It wasn’t that Ma'zurah cared overmuch about her modesty. No, given the opportunity, she wore clothes with as many sheer panels as socially acceptable to show off her black and white stripes. It thrilled her that she could so easily break the taboo of displaying torso fur outside of Elsweyr with so little comment, or even the knowledge of the oblivious people around her.

But the Imperial’s smug entitlement, his patronizing attitude, and blatant objectification galled her. He probably thought he could get away with whatever he liked because Ma’zurah was Khajiit. And in Morrowind, he would be right. The Ordinators wouldn’t care. The House guard wouldn’t care. The average Dunmer on the street wouldn’t even care. The only people who really cared about her wellbeing in all of Morrowind were the three standing next to her.

She looked at them. Two outlander women and an Ashlander. Great. Not an ideal defense against a Councillor from House Hlaalu. The man could probably do what he wanted with impunity even if she had been Dunmer.

The Imperial’s reaction if she did strip for him didn’t even bear thinking about. Her previous experiences with Imperial men warned her that it was generally dangerous to reveal her atypical body configuration to people who weren’t Khajiit. They either reacted with disgust, sometimes violently, or they saw her as an exotic encounter. Ma’zurah suspected that Curio was likely to be the latter, but still, the potential was there. Ma’zurah’s first sexual experience after leaving Elsweyr flashed through her mind. The Imperial boy had been nice, eager–that is, until she had stripped for him and his eagerness turned to anger, and Ma’zurah’s arousal had turned into humiliation and fear. She was Khajiit and clever and knew the use of invisibility spells, but the experience had left an impression.

“You’re not seriously considering…?”

Ma’zurah’s focus snapped back to the present and she glared at Julan. She was in an awkward position. She had joined House Hlaalu as a haven against the xenophobic sentiments of the native Dunmer only to discover that their acceptance of the Empire was more complex than she had been led to believe. House Hlaalu had not turned out to be the open-minded, cosmopolitan organization with readily available work for anyone of any background that she had hoped it would be. They merely appeased the Empire, and still exploited the Empire’s grudging tolerance of slavery. She had turned to the Thieves Guild to supplement her income, but she had hoped that if she could just prove herself worthy, just gain enough prestige, enough recognition, she could rise above it all. She might even be able to gain enough influence to change things for the better.

And here was this infuriating Crassius Curio, this lecher, this… Imperial, standing in the way of her ambitions. What was he even doing in a Dunmer Great House? Of course, if she thought about it, she knew. This was more appeasement of the Empire. They had put the fool in power to exploit him as a symbol of their cooperation with the Empire, or because he had powerful connections, or something along those lines. It didn’t matter why, it merely mattered that he had a great deal of power, and she could either take his sponsorship and everything that entailed, or she could leave.

She didn’t want to leave. She had done so much to try to prove herself. She had worked so hard with the scraps they had given her. She didn’t want it to have been a wasted effort. She considered her options again, mentally reviewing the information Hibasi had given her. The two female Dunmer councillors were in the pocket of the Camonna Tong. They would be no help. Approaching them at all might even be dangerous. The Nord councillor was supposed to be an even greater fool than this Curio man, and by all reports, lived up to the name of Half-Troll. No one could even find the last councillor, and with the Morag Tong after him, he would likely be a short lived sponsor even if he did accept her. Curio was the only viable option. Without sponsorship, she couldn’t advance, without advancement, nobody took her seriously. If nobody took her seriously she didn’t have a future in House Hlaalu.

Strip, or leave? Strip, or leave? Her friends were giving her worried looks. The decision was harder than it should have been. Expose herself to humiliation, further harassment, and potential violence, or abandon her ambitions in the House? The Mages Guild could only give her so much social influence in this land of Telvanni mages and distrustful natives. House Hlaalu had so much more to offer, but if this was the price…

“Ma’zurah?” Constance’s voice sounded worried.

Ma’zurah sighed. “Come on. We are leaving.”