(Fic) Vasa Jijri ("Under the Skin") - Chapter Four

[black_sluggard]

Title: Vasa Jijri ("Under the Skin")
Fandoms: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Fantasy, Family, Angst
Warnings: Racism, threats of racially motivated violence, mildly violent bullying, religious drug use, non-consensual drug-use, under-aged drug use, accidental poisoning, harm to children.
Details: Gen, pre-canon, prequel, fantasy, magic, demons, Faustian deals, tragic love, family, cultural differences, distant fathers, questionable parenting decisions, anthropomorphic animals, fantasy racism, angst, lies and deception, stealth crossover, unbetad.
Characters/Pairings: OCs, Frida, Fruki, Skald the Elder, Dro'marash, Bulfrek, mentions of others.
Wordcount: 7,490
Summary: The father he had never met had left him with a Breton name. Growing up in Dawnstar, his mother's people had bestowed the ignoble kenning of "Honeymilk". His mother's friends among the Khajiit caravans outside the city called him ja'ahn kriniit, which in Ta'agra meant "laughing boy". But the caravan leader, Ri'yaan, had always called him ahzi' ja'ahn—"my boy"—and when he was young, it was this name he had loved best.
(The story of a half-Nord boy growing up in Dawnstar, and his friendship with the Khajiit of the caravans.)

Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four

When Kevin woke before dawn the next morning, he realized that he had to make a choice. By the Jarl's decree the Khajiit would soon be forced to depart, and once they were gone it would be more than half a year before they would return—if indeed they ever returned at all. Though Kevin did not know if he was ready to face his father, if he did not speak to Ri'yaan before then it was possible he might never have the chance.

Kevin debated the question abed for as long as he thought he could afford. Though he might have asked his mother's counsel, once he rose he found to his surprise that she was gone. Though it occurred to him after a moment that this was probably not so strange. If there were any affairs which needed tidying before the Khajiit could safely depart, there was no one but his mother likely to attend them. Kevin didn't like the idea of leaving the house without telling her, especially after all the worry and trouble he had already caused, but his time was very limited.

If he wanted to ask his questions—if he wanted his chance to say goodbye—he knew that he had little other choice.

When Kevin returned to the caravan, he saw that much of it had already been dismantled. Both tents had been reduced to the wooden skeleton of their frames, and Ma'shiija was rolling their covers of stitched hide carefully away. Marash and J'draash were carefully wrapping the more delicate wares, and packing them back into their crates for travel. Though they all were busied, Kevin could easily read the change that had written itself in tense shoulders and alert ears, and their anxiously lashing tails.

He knew they saw his approach, though none of them raised alarm. For all the attention they paid him, Kevin might have been a ghost. J'draash's eyes slid over him quickly before returning to his task, as if he were trying not to look, and Ma'shiija seemed never to have noticed him at all, though Kevin knew better. The only acknowledgment he received was from Marash—just a glance and a silent jerk of his chin toward the area of the camp where the horses were tied.

Kevin did not know what to make of their silence.

Ri'yaan was exactly where Marash's brief gesture had indicated he would be—checking the fitness of the horses, and of their tack and harness. Ri'yaan's ears gave a minute twitch as Kevin drew near, swiveling slightly before turning back ahead. But there was an overall stillness which settled over the Khajiit's body that gave the lie to his attempts to feign ignorance of Kevin's being there. Kevin's eyes teared a bit, but he managed not to make a sound. Yet as confounding as the silence was coming from the guards and J'draash, from Ri'yaan it simply hurt, and Kevin found he could not bear it.

"The others..." Kevin managed finally, breaking the silence. "Are they angry at me?"

His voice was steady—a fact of which he was glad. Ri'yaan dropped the straps he was working with turned to look at him. The Khajiit seemed poised for a moment to take a step toward him, but the step hesitated and faltered, and the hand he had half-lifted fell quietly at his side.

"No," Ri'yaan said, his own rough voice turning as soft as Kevin had ever heard it. "No, do not think that. But with what has happened, they fear the risk should they be seen speaking with a human child."

And Kevin supposed that it made sense, but still it stung, and as he stood there his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

"Do they know that—" Kevin's voice failed, cutting the question short. "Did they know?"

Did they know what Kevin was? Did they know that Kevin was his?

Ri'yaan released a breath, shaking his head.

"Marash was never told who you are, but instead guessed for himself," Ri'yaan told him quietly. "J'draash suspected a relationship with your mother, but knew nothing more. Of Ma'shiija, Ri'yaan cannot begin to guess what she might have known of the truth... Yet all were told last night. Skyrim is a dangerous enough place for Khajiit as it is, and they deserved to understand how this one had put their lives at risk, and why."

Ri'yaan fell silent, and he examined Kevin carefully.

"Does your mother know you have come?" Ri'yaan asked him finally.

Kevin hesitated briefly, but he quietly shook his head. The grey-furred Khajiit released a sigh and turned his eyes away.

"You should not be here, then," Ri'yaan said, ears falling flat as he spoke. "Return home. You will make her worry, taking off on her again."

Though the dismissal stung and his throat felt tight, Kevin did not let the hurt drive him away. He plowed ahead instead with the questions he so badly needed to ask.

"The letters..." Kevin asked. "You wrote them didn't you? Was any of it true?"

Ri'yaan seemed almost startled by the question and turned to look at him once again. Finally he took the step forward that he had earlier denied himself, dropping down into a crouch to meet Kevin's eye.

"Some of it was not," Ri'yaan admitted softly. "Ri'yaan was often not in Bravil when he wrote his letters, but closer—usually in Bruma, or Chorrol or the Imperial City. And much of what was written of your father's past and how he spent his time away were also lies... But know that every time your father wrote that he loved you—that every time he wrote that he was proud, or that he wished he could be there—that was always true, every word of it."

And Kevin's throat tightened even more when he saw the Khajiit's green eyes were wet with tears. Kevin's soon were as well.

"And the moon sugar?" Kevin asked him hoarsely. "Why—"

Kevin's voice cracked and he looked away. Inhaling sharply, he narrowly kept the failed question from turning into a sob. Ri'yaan did not answer right away.

"This one had his reasons," Ri'yaan said, very quietly, "and yet none of them excuse the harm that he has done. But if you wish to know..."

His head and shoulders fell briefly with his sigh, but he forced himself to look Kevin in the eye.

"There was nothing Ri'yaan desired more in this world than to be here for you and for your mother," Ri'yaan began, slowly. "And yet he was forced to miss so much of your life. Forced to watch you grow from afar, pretending you were another's son—to be a friend to you, but never your father. As rare a joy as it was to have you near, rarer still were the times when it felt like you were truly his. The cub Ri'yaan had held the night you were born might as well have been a dream that only he remembered..."

And the Khajiit's rough voice had begun to turn quite hoarse.

"So much time lost..." Ri'yaan said, staring into hands held empty before him. "At times it hurt so much Ri'yaan thought he might die of it. And you likely will not remember that on your fifth birthday Ri'yaan could not be there, but the fifth year is...very important, in Elsweyr. It signals the end of the milk-years, when children start to grow out of their parents' pockets, and begin to belong to themselves. Ri'yaan was so angry with himself that he was not there..."

The Khajiit slowly shook his head.

"Ri'yaan had missed so many important moments in your life," he said, so very quietly. "Your first words, your first steps, the fall of your first milk-teeth...but Ri'yaan knew there was one first to which your mother would never lay claim. For the fifth year is also the start of the sugar-years, when young Khajiit begin to learn the history of their people—and about the Moons, and the ja-Kha'jay, and the tides—and the cubs are given je'm'ath for the first time, so they might take the soul of their gods inside of them."

"It was not something we ever spoke of, but Ri'yaan knew your mother would not want it," his father admitted wearily. "Yet he was angry, and his anger made him selfish, and so when he returned he came bearing the first of what would be many secret gifts. And this one told himself it would only be once—that in that one moment he could be a father to you, and you could be Khajiit—and that then he would leave again and try to forget..."

"But Ri'yaan could not forget," his father said finally, "and if it was selfish to defy your mother once, then to continue was spiteful. This one allowed his jealousy of the time your mother had with you and his own regrets to ruin his sense. And as when he betrayed your mother before, he failed to see beyond himself and what he desired to the consequences it would bring. But now he sees, too late for it to matter, how he has harmed not only you and your mother, but also put his friends in danger that could have destroyed us all."

Once Ri'yaan fell silent, neither one of them moved or spoke for a time. Though the Khajiit still crouched nearby, his head bowed, Kevin was left in solitude with his own thoughts. And he did not know what to think of his father's words, or his reasons—he did not know which parts, if any of it to believe. The question was too heavy for him to decide.

Instead he asked another of his own.

"If I..." Kevin's words trailed off as Ri'yaan's eyes watched him cautiously.

And this time, in spite of his disgust for it, Kevin could not stop himself from touching the Ornament where it hung beneath his clothes.

"How would I look?" Kevin asked his father, shakily. "I mean...do you remember—"

It wasn't just his voice, Kevin realized, he was trembling just a little. Throwing off his earlier hesitance, Ri'yaan's hands found Kevin's shoulders, holding them gently.

"Of course Ri'yaan remembers," his father told him. "He remembers well his first sight of you..."

Letting them fall from his shoulders, Ri'yaan took Kevin's own small hands in his.

"All cubs bear a similar shape at birth," Ri'yaan told him quietly, "but Khajiit parents pay careful heed to the Moons under which their children are born. Masser, the great red Moon, was still growing in the sky, but Secunda, the white Moon, was full in its power—and so you would be Cathay, like Marash and Ma'shiija."

Ri'yaan lifted one hand away to touch Kevin's cheek, brushing gently the tracks of tears which had escaped with the soft pad of his thumb.

"Your pelt was grey," he continued, "like Ri'yaan's, but darker, and without stripe. But your eyes were not yet open, and so this one does not know how they may have looked. For most Khajiit, they are gold or green, but Ri'yaan's mother had blue eyes that were almost the color that yours are now, and so they still might be."

Ri'yaan offered him a wounded but gentle smile.

"And you would be as clever and as quick and as handsome a young cub as you are a boy," Ri'yaan said finally, "and by your mother's grace we would have named you Khavi, as this one's father was once named."

Ri'yaan's answers and his reasons did not heal the hurt, not completely, but in that moment Kevin found himself releasing much of the anger which had held him back. He reached out for Ri'yaan, holding him tightly, and soon he was crying.

"I don't want you to go," he said, words half-muffled against Ri'yaan's shoulder. "It's not fair."

Ri'yaan's arms went around him, holding him close.

"It is not," Ri'yaan agreed, "but life does as it pleases in spite of us."

He pushed Kevin back with a sigh, and lifted his chin to look in his eyes.

"But do not worry," Ri'yaan said. "People's ire will cool, and we will come back with the next spring, as we always do."

"I don't want to wait a whole year..." Kevin said. "I barely got to see you. And now that I know—"

He stopped, just catching his breath before it could run away into tears once again.

"Let me come with you?"

"Kevin—"

"Please?" Kevin begged him. "I hate it here."

It wouldn't have been true, before, but it had become true. For by mid-morning all of Dawnstar would know what had happened. True or not, they would know that Sigun's half-blood son had stolen moon sugar from the Khajiit, and of the harm that had been done by it. Hjalfi's attack the day before would be just the beginning of the grief he would be made to feel for it... And after what he had done—and with both of her parents as well as the rest of the town set against him—Kevin knew better than to hope that his and Fruki's friendship still held true.

Kevin's throat felt tight, and his fingers found their way to the chain hanging around his neck, ready to leave it all behind— It was Ri'yaan's hands on his wrists that stopped him.

"Tss," Ri'yaan hissed anxiously. "Selfish boy. You must not abandon your mother now."

Releasing Kevin's hands, Ri'yaan took his shoulders and shook him gently. And looking at him, Kevin saw the Khajiit's ears pressed back flat against his skull with the distress he felt to be turning his son away.

"If you leave her alone," Ri'yaan said softly, "it would break her heart."

Kevin sniffed against his tears.

"Go home. Get your things"

Kevin and Ri'yaan both turned, startled at the sound of his mother's voice. Sigun stood by the tents, watching them both, a cloak pulled around her shoulders against the early morning chill. She watched them closely, and the thoughtful expression on her face said that she clearly had been for some time. Seeing her Ri'yaan stood, quickly, but the Khajiit did not step away.

Kevin, for his part, could only stare at his mother, startled by what she had said. She seemed to see this and stepped toward him, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"We're leaving," his mother said to him. "Go. Bring everything you might need, and no more than you can carry, for we have far to go, and we might not have the rest for quite some time."

Ri'yaan's tail gave a quick lash in surprise.

"Sigun..." he asked her cautiously. "What are you thinking?"

Kevin's mother turned to look at Ri'yaan with a sad smile.

"That we should have done this a long time ago," Sigun said. "I've spoken with Frida, and she agrees with me. Dawnstar...has been my home since I was a girl, but it's no place for us now... It hasn't been for some time."

And though it seemed to Kevin that she mourned that fact, as always when she came to a decision she was as steadfast as her name.

"Kevin and I will come with you as far as Whiterun," she said quietly. "If you'll have us. I've saved much of the coin you've sent us from the south. It should be enough to start our new life there. Frida has agreed to sell our home and have the rest of our belongings sent when we are ready."

Ri'yaan watched her for a moment in cautious silence.

"You are certain?" he asked.

Sigun answered him with a nod, though there were tears in her eyes.

"I shouldn't have stayed," she admitted quietly. "I stopped belonging here the day that we married, and after my mother's death there was nothing keeping me except stubbornness. I've been afforded tolerance for the sake of a husband's wealth, and pity for the sake of his absence..."

Sparing a glance back toward the town, she shook her head with a sigh.

"And I've long grown weary of both," she said.

Ri'yaan was silent for a moment, then offered her a solemn nod.

"Very well," he said.

Kevin's mother squeezed his shoulder gently.

"Go," she told him. "I will soon follow."

Kevin looked up at her uncertainly for a moment but finally did as he was told, leaving his mother and Ri'yaan and the caravan all behind him.

The sun was fully up and the town just coming to life as Kevin returned to Dawnstar. It seemed he drew no greater attention as he passed through the street than he did normally, and for that he was thankful. Still, he knew it was only a matter of time, and for just that reason, he was determined to be quick about his task.

Once he was home, Kevin busied himself with packing his things, just as he had two days before.

As he had those two days ago, he gathered his clothes and his bedroll—though he was forced to retrieve much of the former from where it had been hung to dry by the fire yet again. He also packed his winter cloak, and the sturdier boots he also wore in winter, for though Whiterun Hold was warmer than the Pale, he knew—in fact nearly all of Skyrim was—he thought it was better not to take his chances. He packed the daggers that Ri'yaan had given him, and a few of his favored books, as well as the new ones he had not yet read.

At the bottom of his bedside chest there was a ratty old blanket, meant to keep out the damp which, in spite of his mother's noble efforts, managed to invade their home every winter. Hidden in the folds of the blanket was a small wooden box. It held a number of small trinkets that were of little value—a sabrecat's tooth, half of a Dwemer arrowhead, a single coin that was lucky because the image of Talos had been stamped on both sides—as well as a small pouch with seven septims he had saved away. But it also contained what Kevin had long considered his most important possessions...

His father's letters.

Sitting on the floor beside the chest, Kevin opened the box carefully. He was greeted as usual by the soft crackle of shifting parchment, the smell of dust and of the herbs Frida had given him to keep the bugs away. When he had still been very young his mother used to read them to him, but as he got older he had learned to read them himself. He had read every one of them more than once, and could probably recite many of them by heart. In the past, when he read them, Kevin had often tried to imagine his father writing them, far away in some distant place—a Breton with the green eyes his mother had described, but with light brown hair like his own where Sigun's was wheaten gold.

Now, as he sat there leafing through them, Kevin tried to imagine Ri'yaan in that man's place...

He found the task both easier and more difficult than he would have expected. It was almost too simple, in a way. Ri'yaan was whole and tangible, a thing of flesh and blood that Kevin had known for all of his life, whereas Ian Peltienne had always been a phantom of sorts. Even when Kevin had believed him real, he had seemed part of a wishful dream—a long-held fantasy that had never truly been. And it was strange, but letting go of that fantasy hurt far less than Kevin might ever have imagined... No, the hard part in imagining those scenes now lay in picturing Ri'yaan—who had always shown him affection, and whom Kevin had always loved in return—sitting down in Chorrol or Bruma or some other place far away to write down for him the things he had never been allowed to say.

The image placed a tightness in his chest around which he almost could not breathe.

It was then that Kevin remembered the book which held the latest set of letters still folded carefully between its pages. In his anger the night before, Kevin had hardly spared a thought toward putting them in their proper place. He did so now, retrieving the book from his pack, folding them gently, and placing them carefully in the box with the rest. He was stowing the box carefully in his pack when his mother and Frida came in, the book still sitting in his lap. It was the one about Akavir, he saw, which Fruki had wanted to look at...

Though she had gotten drowsy before she ever had the chance.

Remembering his afternoon with Fruki—only yesterday, though it felt like forever—Kevin felt a lump form in his throat. He fastened his pack carefully and tightly before he stood, setting it down on the bed. Then Kevin turned to look at Frida, the book still clutched tightly in his hands.

"Can you..." Kevin looked at the book a moment more before he held it out to her. "Can you give this to Fruki? After I'm gone?"

Kevin's mother made a soft noise, putting an arm around his shoulders to hug him gently, and placing a kiss on the top of his head. Frida offered him a smile.

"Of course," Frida said, taking the book from his hands.

Kevin and his mother and the Khajiit left Dawnstar well before midday came. Still, the Jarl had sent his men to follow until the town was long out of sight, leaving them where the road forked westward past the wind-eaten ruins to the south. The Khajiit had all been tense in their presence, though they betrayed themselves only with the minute tail-twitch here and there. Once the guards finally left them to their travels the relief was almost palpable. J'draash in particular—whose body had fairly shook with nerves—all but melted once the guardsmen were safely away, falling to his knees with a breathless laugh. Marash's laugh which followed was of a more genuine, though coarser, humor.

"A pity the Jarl's bed will go cold for want of furs this winter," Marash jeered, "when he might just have asked Ma'shiija nicely."

Ma'shiija, for her part, said nothing, though from the way Marash bent double as she passed Kevin thought she must have made her retort in the form of a blow his eyes failed to see. She waited only for the other guard to recover his breath before leaving their company to scout the road ahead. Marash wished her safety and a swift return even as he leveled a rude gesture at her departing back. Sigun admonished him sharply for his behavior, though he seemed shamed by it not at all.

As Ma'shiija fell out of sight, Kevin found himself watching the empty road, unaware of his silence until Ri'yaan's hand fell upon his shoulder with a reassuring squeeze.

"Is the road to Whiterun long?" Kevin asked, hoping to lighten his father's concern.

"No, not long," Ri'yaan answered, shaking his head. "A two days perhaps, if we press, though three is more likely. There is a fort not too far south near which we might safely camp for the night."

A sharp, shrill whistle caught their attention moments later, which was Ma'shiija's way of signaling that it was safe to move ahead. And as the others began to move, Kevin found himself hesitating, and only his mother's wary glance at the hand he held over his breast had him understanding why.

Kevin brought the Ornament from its shelter beneath his tunic. He tried not to scowl at the leering face which stared back. He knew the others were all watching him—Ri'yaan and his mother most of all—and his heart beat very fast as he gathered up the courage to ask the question weighing upon both his feet and his heart and mind.

"Can I?" Kevin asked, looking up at his mother. And for what he was asking he felt almost guilty. "Just until we get to Whiterun?"

His mother's cheeks, painted pink in the cold winds, paled just slightly as he asked, though after a moment of stunned hesitation she managed to nod.

"You may," she said, and her voice was steady.

Kevin turned his eyes to Ri'yaan.

"Will it hurt?"

"It will," Ri'yaan said slowly, after a moment. "It hurts very much, though it is over quickly."

Hesitating briefly, his father came to crouch before him, looking him in the eye.

"Know that you do not have to, if you are afraid," Ri'yaan said softly, touching a hand to his cheek. "You were born to the form of a Khajiit, but that does not make this human face a lie."

Ri'yaan's hand dropped lower, and formed into a fist that he lay gently against the center of Kevin's chest, over his heart.

"However you look on the outside," Ri'yaan told him, "whatever you choose, in here you will always be your mother's son as well as Ri'yaan's, which is where it matters. Never forget."

And Kevin was afraid, but there were many lessons he had learned in his life, from both of his parents. Among them were these—that a Nord must never allow fear to become his master, nor a Khajiit allow fear to turn his curiosity aside. And though he answered his father's reassurances with a shallow nod, still—slowly—Kevin lifted the Ornament from where it hung around his neck.

Kevin could not see the transformation as it was happening, but he could feel every part of it. His flesh rose with goosebumps from the moment the chain of the amulet was lifted from his skin, and a tingle ran down his backbone making him shiver. Within the space of a breath the feeling intensified, and his skin began to itch. Suddenly the tingle turned into something both hot and sharp, and the pain flowed down his spine like molten metal, burning in deep. His eyes squeezed shut as that pain seemed to push its way into the back of his skull, and soon the whole of his face began to ache. For a moment it was difficult to breathe, and when he finally found the air to cry out with the sound he heard was nothing he could recognize. He tasted blood in his mouth, and then—

And then Kevin felt nothing, for he must have fainted.

The next he knew was waking in his father's arms, Ri'yaan carrying him as he and the others traveled. Kevin opened his mouth to speak, but the sound that came out was strangled and strange, like a chirp or a mew. Nonetheless, it stopped everyone in their tracks. Seeing that Kevin was awake, Ri'yaan looked him over carefully before slowly setting him on his feet.

He was unsteady at first, tottering a little on his feet in a way that had his mother drawing closer, eyes full of concern. It was difficult for him to balance his steps, and though it took him a moment it was with a jolt of surprise that he understood why. For when he tried to stand up straight he could feel it brushing the frozen earth of the road behind him. Of course, when he turned around to see it it wasn't there but behind him still...

Though that hardly stopped him from trying again.

It was on his third attempt to catch a glimpse of it that his efforts were interrupted by the sudden, bright sound of his mother's laughter. Kevin looked up at her, startled, and Sigun seemed startled as well. Her hands flew up over her mouth, and her face was turning red, her eyes tearing.

"Sorry, sorry," another laugh escaped her, apparently unwanted. "Oh, Kevin, I'm so sorry—"

Kevin could only answer with another odd, meaningless sound, but Marash let out a sharp laugh, patting her shoulder gently.

"You should not be," the Khajiit said. "If we cannot laugh at a cub chasing his own tail then there is nothing worth laughing at in this world."

Kevin's shoulders slumped a little. While he could not seem to speak, he still made his feelings known by sticking out his tongue—though that itself felt strange against the new sharpness of his teeth. Ri'yaan let out a chuckle, crouching beside him, and helped Kevin catch hold of his tail in his hands.

Kevin felt a little breathless first seeing it. Like the other Khajiit, his tail was light on the end, but unlike J'draash, Marash or his father, whose tails were darkly ringed, the markings of his own tail were barely visible, hardly showing amid the dark grey of his fur. This was more similar to Ma'shiija's, whose fur was also a solid color—tawny, like a sabrecat's. Very carefully, Kevin ran his fingers over it, trying to accustom himself to the odd sensation—the tickle as his touch disturbed the fur on a limb that was strange to him and yet at the same time his own. And even his hands were quite different. The soft flesh on the pads of his fingers was more sensitive than he would have imagined, and even without trying a gentle flex of his hand revealed the barest tips of his claws.

Kevin stared at them for a moment, amazed, and smiled.

Though slowly, as his amazement ebbed, he became aware of the others watching him. Ma'shiija was not there, for she was likely still engaged in scouting the road. Marash still wore an expression of great amusement, yet J'draash all but stared, as if still struggled to believe his own eyes. And Ri'yaan was smiling, more warmly and openly than Kevin thought he could remember seeing in his life.

Yet Kevin's mother watched him with a strange, almost solemn nervousness, her hands clasped together over her stomach in a vulnerable posture that Kevin had never seen.

Then Kevin remembered the words she had spoken to him over supper the night before, and the worry she had confessed to Frida even earlier, before any of the more alarming truths had come to light. He remembered her fears—that he would choose his father one day, that he would leave her—and understood quite suddenly that this was why she had held them. This was why his mother had so dreaded telling him the truth...

For she had thought that his learning that truth would mean losing him.

Kevin was closing the distance between them before he even thought about it, throwing his arms tightly around his mother's waist. She was greatly surprised by the move, but her arms wound around him as well, and though Kevin could not speak to reassure her as he so badly wanted to he did his best. And when he finally pulled away he made sure to look up at her with a smile he could only hope said what he needed it to say. Sigun returned it almost cautiously, slowly lifting her hand to touch his face. And if the sensitivity of his fingers and the feel of his fur had felt strange, neither held air beside the tickle of his whiskers against her palm. Smiling more strongly, Sigun bent down to kiss his forehead, and Kevin gave in to an impulse he didn't quite understand, nosing gently against her cheek.

"Is he well, Ri'yaan?" J'draash asked then, nervously. "Why does he not speak?"

Kevin and his mother both turned to see the displeasure that had written itself upon his father's face.

"It is because Clavicus Vile is a cruel and tricksome patron," Ri'yaan answered, looking upon Kevin with a sigh. "This one never suffered such difficulties with the Ornament, but it is easy to see why."

Sigun frowned, her hand falling to Kevin's shoulder protectively.

"Explain," she said.

"Ri'yaan's human guise was just that," his father said. "It was a deception meant to fool any to look upon it. And though a Man's tongue and teeth are quite different, Ri'yaan could speak—and was even voiced like a Man—for it would have been a poor disguise indeed were it otherwise."

And Ri'yaan hesitated briefly, managing only a silent gesture at Kevin at first before he spoke.

"Yet this shape is Kevin's for truth..." Ri'yaan said. "And by the Ornament's reckoning, his human face the disguise. What was true for Ri'yaan is therefore not true for him—he has known all his life only how to form his words as a Man does, and the reverse is nothing that Vile's charm would likely care nor seek to counter."

Kevin's heart felt heavy as he understood what his father was saying. But Marash let out a snort.

"Do not fret, cub," Marash said. "You simply need the chance to learn."

"And we will celebrate your sacrifice, Marash," Ma'shiija said, breaking free from the cover of trees that lined the road. "For surely if the cub is to find his voice, your own must fall silent to offer that chance."

Ri'yaan let out a brief laugh—as did J'draash, though his sounded more like a cough. But between the two of them the guards had successfully defused the tension haunting their conversation—whether that had been their actual intent or not.

"The giants have moved on from the camp we passed coming in," Ma'shiija said then. "Most likely this morning. So far only skeevers have shown to scavenge their leavings, but we should see ourselves farther south before it draws larger beasts."

Ri'yaan made a noise of agreement, followed by a gesture to the others to move out. Ma'shiija resumed her place on point, followed by Ri'yaan and J'draash who guided the horses carefully. Kevin traveled close to his mother—half-clinging to her at times as he slowly grew accustomed to his altered balance. Marash took up the rear close behind them, chatting idly with Kevin and his mother as they traveled to keep them at ease.

Though it would have been more accurate to say that his mother and Marash chatted. Kevin tried, though he had only moderate success in forming any intelligible words at all, and even that only through Marash's stubborn encouragement. Still, by the time the caravan stopped for their meal at midday, Kevin was far closer to making himself understood than he had been in the beginning. And by late afternoon, when they reached Fort Dunstad, Kevin found he could manage most simple words if he took the time to think them over, and to pronounce them very slowly.

The soldiers occupying the fort were wary of the Khajiit as the caravan approached, though nowhere near as hostile as their usual welcome in Dawnstar. While many of the Legionnaires stationed there were both Nord by blood and Skyrim born, many others hailed from other parts of the Empire. Though still rare, traders from Elsweyr were a more common sight in High Rock than they were in Skyrim. And in spite of strife stirred up by the war, there were still many Khajiit—like J'draash, who had been born in the Imperial City itself—whose families had called Cyrodiil their home for generations.

J'draash and Ma'shiija stayed with the caravan and with Kevin and his mother while his father and Marash spoke with the garrison's captain. According to Ri'yaan this was a different man than the one who had commanded the fort when the caravan had passed this way in spring, and in spite of their civil reception he would likely still require reassurance that the Khajiit were not intending any mischief.

Kevin watched the meeting anxiously—and listened.

During their journey, Ri'yaan had seen fit to clarify many things he had come to understand about the Ornament's power. Vile's artifact changed only what was needed in order to disguise the wearer's true nature—no more, and no less—and for the most part, these changes appeared only on the surface. Likely if a Nord were to use it to appear as a Breton—or even as an elf—though outwardly changed, in themselves they would likely feel little difference at all. Yet a Khajiit was measurably different from either a Man or an elf, and the needed changes were greater. Ri'yaan was born a Khajiit, and even as Ian Peltienne—lacking his tail and his claws and his large, mobile ears—in every other way, he had been a Khajiit still. Yet without his claws he could not fight as he once might have, and without his tail to help him balance his inborn nimbleness had suffered. And without the eyes of a Khajiit or the ears of a Khajiit, the change had left him night blind and half deaf by their reckoning.

Kevin had noticed early on in their travels on how much sharper both his sense of smell and his hearing had become. Both of those senses had always been very strong—a talent that Ma'shiija had long appreciated and sought to hone, even when she had thought he was human—yet now it seemed their sharpness was even greater. His hearing, in particular, seemed to have heightened, especially if he pointed his ears just...so toward whatever it was he was listening to.

"...may search our wares if you must," Ri'yaan was saying to the captain, "but if you will ask some of your men, I know at least a few of them must remember—"

The captain—a tall, dark-haired Imperial—lifted a hand, interrupting him.

"I see no need," he said, though he cast a brief glance toward the caravan with a frown. "Though I would like the chance to speak with your...friend, just to put my own mind at ease."

Kevin realized the man was speaking about his mother. And he didn't understand what concerns the captain had that might require easing, but somehow the implication still inspired a vague, sick feeling in his gut. Ri'yaan might have seemed entirely unfazed by the words, with only a brief and easily missed twitch of the tail betraying the affront he had taken.

"Of course," Ri'yaan agreed, bowing his head respectfully.

He then returned with Marash to the caravan.

"The captain wishes to have a word with you before he will deal with us further," Ri'yaan told Sigun quietly.

"He wishes to make sure you are not our captive," Marash said, followed by a disgusted hiss. "Nor our merchandise. He all but names us jekosiit to our faces, and in the same breath paints us fools enough to go about it openly enough to be caught. Marash does not know which should insult him more."

Ma'shiija bared her teeth slightly at Marash's words—it was not a smile.

Among the stories Ri'yaan had told him relating the history of his people were tales of ages long past when Khajiit still feared capture by Dunmer to be sold in Morrowind for labor. Yet even more vile than the practice of slavery itself had been the existence of Khajiit who had chosen to take advantage, some even selling their own clan mates for profit. In Elsweyr there were fewer things a person could be that were lower and more reprehensible than a jekosiit—a slaver—and even though slavery had been outlawed for nearly two-hundred years it was still one of the most grievous charges one Khajiit could make toward another.

"He may simply have questions he does not wish to ask us directly," J'draash reasoned nervously, "or which he doubts we will honestly answer."

"Either way," Ri'yaan said, making a faint noise. Then he turned to Sigun. "You do not have to speak with him if you do not wish to."

But Sigun shook her head.

"No," she said, though somewhat wearily. "I'll talk to him."

And giving Kevin's shoulder a light squeeze, she left to do just that.

Kevin watched as his mother approached the fort and followed the captain inside, out of sight. All of them waited anxiously, though Kevin was unaware of the mounting tension until it was over. When she returned several minutes later, their relief—and Ri'yaan's especially—was palpable.

"He is a fool, but a well-intentioned one," Sigun said, seeming lightly amused.

Ri'yaan frowned, taking no comfort in her amusement.

"What did he say?" Ri'yaan asked.

"Captain Minarus has agreed to let us camp within the courtyard," Sigun said, "provided that we don't enter the fort itself. And he won't search your wares, but he warned that any attempts to sell proscribed items to his soldiers would be punished harshly."

Sigun smiled and Ri'yaan waited.

"Is that all?" he asked her, frowning warily.

Sigun bit her lip.

"He asked why I was with you and where I was going," she said slowly. "He...was interested in me."

"Ah...of course," Ri'yaan said, just as slowly.

"But," Sigun said, "he was also a gentleman once I told him I had a husband waiting for me."

Ri'yaan looked away, ears tight against his skull.

"Sigun..." he said. "Ri'yaan has told you that if there was another you desired that he would not—"

Whatever it was he had told her, Sigun stopped the words with a finger on his lips.

"And I have said many times that I am grateful of the offer," Sigun told him, "but it has never been necessary."

Which she followed by planting a kiss on his nose.

Ri'yaan's ears flicked in faint surprise—an emotion, it seemed, that was shared equally by his caravan mates, and by Kevin himself. For as long as he had known Ri'yaan, his mother had never shown the Khajiit that sort of affection—at least not where he or anyone else could see. Though of course, with their secrets laid bare to both himself and Ri'yaan's companions, Kevin realized that in present company his parents had little else left to hide. And unlike many of the revelations and changes that had so recently rocked his life, this one left Kevin feeling quite warm inside.

Of course the momentary silence that had accompanied the gesture was soon interrupted by a cough—from J'draash, surprisingly.

"Well if everything is settled, then," the young Khajiit suggested anxiously, "maybe we can get inside and have our tents put out before it starts to get dark?"

Ri'yaan let out a soft, annoyed hiss at J'draash, who shrank away. Marash let out a roaring laugh and slapped the younger Khajiit on the back. Ri'yaan gave the order to move out—rather sullenly—and together they made their way into Fort Dunstad.

The soldiers ushered them in carefully, directing them to an open space where they were being allowed to make their camp. Kevin's mother helped J'draash to secure the horses while Ma'shiija built the fire. Kevin chose to help Marash and his father in setting up the tents.

With the new-sharpened sensitivity of his ears and nose, it was perhaps unsurprising when Kevin grew aware of the fact that he was being spied upon. Turning around, Kevin saw that one of the soldiers overseeing their preparations was watching him with a very odd expression. Kevin felt the fur on his spine lift nervously, and he soon found himself retreating as closely to Ri'yaan as he could manage without stepping on his feet. His father looked up and followed Kevin's eyes to those of the watching soldier.

He was a narrow-framed and dark-haired Breton, clad in a shirt of leathern armor over the red tunic of the Legion—in archer, judging by the quiver of arrows at his back. He was also quite young, Kevin thought—perhaps no older than eighteen, though it was hard to know, for due to their distant elven heritage Bretons were supposed to live longer lives than most Men. But his skin was almost as light as a Nord's, and Kevin could easily see his blush—for more than anything else the man seemed embarrassed at being caught.

"I didn't mean to stare," the man told Ri'yaan apologetically. "I've just never seen a child of your race before... Is the cub yours?"

Ri'yaan opened his mouth to answer yet he hesitated strangely, finally giving a nod. The soldier smiled, his eyes lit with curiosity.

"Is the child male or female?" he asked.

Kevin felt his ears flattening in irritation, but his reaction was stilled when Ri'yaan's hand fell lightly on his shoulder.

"This is Ri'yaan's son," his father said. "His name is Khavi."

And in spite of the young soldier's obliviously ignorant question there was such warmth in Ri'yaan 's voice as his father introduced him that Kevin couldn't find the energy to feel sullen about it. He found it in himself to offer an awkward nod.

"Hllo," Kevin attempted carefully in greeting.

And when Ri'yaan's arm brought him close against his side, Kevin managed to smile.

When night fell, Sigun was invited to dine in the mess with the soldiers. Their camp had been completed by then, however, and so she elected to stay. Some of the herbs Ri'yaan had brought north for Frida had dried out and lost their virtue by the time they arrived in Dawnstar, but were still good for cooking, and these he traded to the kitchen master in return for a pair of well-hung pheasants and a fresh loaf of bread. And the Khajiit and his mother also opened a bottle of good wine—which Ri'yaan had brought as a gift to the Jarl in the now futile hope of securing Skald's continued good graces—to share.

The night was cool and breezy, but the strong walls of the fort were more than enough to blunt its bite and keep their fire sheltered and strong. Both the stress of their departure and their travels—to which Kevin and his mother were both unaccustomed—had left them all tired, and they chose to retire early that night. J'draash and the two guards shared one tent just as they had outside of Dawnstar, while Kevin and his parents took the other. When Kevin bedded down it was nestled warmly between both of his parents, and for the first time he could remember he slept wearing the skin to which he had been born.

And though when the next morning came they would set out over dangerous roads, headed for a new start, when he drifted off that night Kevin felt safer than he ever had in his life.

Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four

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Author's Note:I normally consider disclaiming fanfiction posted as fanfiction redundant and unnecessary (if it were all mine, I wouldn't call it fanfiction). But that is because usually those distinctions are obvious, and in this story there are a few instances here where more clarification might be appropriate.

This fic paraphrases some in-game literature, and I feel it's fair to give credit for them specifically. The story about the Moons is based on The Words of Clan Mother Ahnissi, and the story about the sabrecats is based on The Legend of Dro'Zira. The Khajiit martial art Two-Moons-Dance is mentioned in the book Master Zoaraym's Tale.

Except for Kevin and his mother, all of Dawnstar's residents are actual (or implied) characters or NPCs. Jarl Skald is mentioned as having an unnamed son in some of Thoring and Frida's dialog, who I have given the name "Hjalfi". All of the Khajiit are OCs except for Marash (aka, Dro'marash, who at the time of this story is not yet old enough to have earned an affix that means "grandfather"). Captain Minarus and the Breton archer are also OCs.