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JASH
Whiterun but not Whiterun. The scents and scenery were all too familiar to me. It was the first city in Skyrim that had ever been ours to call home. While not the biggest or most extravagant city in the province, it had a charm that could not be ignored.
But something was very wrong here.
I couldn’t help but feel a shiver run down my spine. No matter how this place calmed me, Scratch wouldn’t be showing me this for any noble purpose. And there was only one memory here that had any chance of letting him have control over me.
“Jash!” A child from better times cried out in joy.
I turned and couldn’t help but smile as Lucia ran up to me. She must have stayed at Breezehome recently as she looked well. Lydia took care of her whenever I was gone. Though it was entirely possible my housecarl had seen the orphan begging in the streets and dragged her to a bath.
“Is something wrong?” Lucia asked.
I nearly fell down in tears at hearing her voice again. It had been so long ago that life had ever been simple. But there were fates that could not be ignored. No matter how far and fast you swam.
“You should visit more often.” Lucia said before I could reply. “I don’t like when you’re gone. It doesn’t feel…safe.”
“It is ours not to have an excuse but one.” I replied.
“The war.”
“I came to Skyrim to be a bard. It would have been a simple life but I could be here more often.”
“Would you even have to leave?”
“Not if I was good enough.”
“After the war can you just be a bard?”
If only I could stay in one place and rejoice in the joys of music. I would still want to travel from time to time, but at least I could be more stable. If I didn’t need to travel all the time then Scouts-Many-Marshes would have never tried to kill himself.
“Are you going to leave before lunch?” Lucia asked with the innocence of her age in her eyes.
I had barely begun to nod before Lucia took my hand and nearly dragged me across the city. Until I opened the door to Breezehome, the hatchling didn’t let go of my hand.
“Welcome home, my thane.” Lydia said as I entered.
She returned to cooking tomato soup after greeting me. As I shut the door I smiled sadly at this memory. It wasn’t the real one but there was enough for me to recognize. The house was small, one of the cheapest of my properties, which forced the kitchen to be in front of two chairs.
There had been many nights when I had stumbled into Breezehome and singed my scales.
Lydia wouldn’t be making tomato soup for lunch unless we had known each other better. At the start she had made sure to always cook something with potatoes in it for me. But in this memory, when Lucia still lived, she was making me tomato soup.
Scratch could be subtle with his torments, it seemed.
“You need to adopt her already.” Lydia said. “Everyone in Whiterun considers her your daughter.”
I gave Lucia a handful of Septims and she proceeded to race to the table. I laughed as she counted the coins once she had sat down.
“I’ve tracked the aunt and uncle that dared abandon her.” I said and allowed myself a frown once Lucia wasn’t looking at me. “I will give them the chance to undo their mistake.”
“If I can speak, thane.” Lydia said.
“I always appreciate your advice.”
“Those people kicked an innocent girl out. They told her she had no use. And you want to give them a chance?”
“It is ours to be kind. Though I wish my lot was different at times.”
I walked over to Lucia and took a moment to merely look at the girl. She was innocent. Why was I permitted to live and become a Daedric Prince when corpses of the innocent littered Nirn?
With my senses I looked for signs of battle. The sounds and smells were things that could never be forgotten. Why was I waiting for the sounds of battle as if Scratch wouldn’t just throw me into a fight?
Scratch was just as much of a prisoner as I was. He was also the one in charge of my torment. He couldn’t get out for now but he could use me as a plaything. He wanted me to panic so that he could more easily manipulate me. All of us had our limits. Could I break to the point I willingly allowed him to possess me?
Lucia screamed and I dropped my blood soaked sword that had pierced her heart. But my gaze did not remain there long as the scenery had changed.
I was in front of the Temple of Kynareth and all around the Battle for Whiterun raged. There were fires that used houses as mere kindling with the cries of commoners filling the city. Most had been able to find the safety of shelter before the battle had started. But there were those that hadn’t been able to run and their cries were never far from my mind.
I looked back at Lucia’s corpse. The innocent hatchling had run to me out of fear and I had rewarded her with death. She hadn’t been able to handle the violence around her and so sought the man she considered her father.
With great effort I closed my eyes tightly and reminded myself that this was just a memory. What had been done could not be undone.
I opened my eyes and looked at the sky as if Scratch was hiding there.
“The Battle for Whiterun was my first battle.” I began. “I had experienced fights before. As a hatchling I had grown too used to violence. But a battle is a different beast altogether. In my somehow innocent mind, I had thought that a battle would not be too different from the fights that had littered my life.”
I sat beside Lucia while still looking at the smoke filled sky.
“When Lucia came to me my instincts took over.” I said through gritted teeth. “I didn’t realize she wasn’t a Stormcloak until my sword was embedded in her flesh. That is no excuse as an innocent hatchling died. But I grew from it. Over the course of the civil war I only killed those who had signed up for death. Never again did I kill another innocent.”
“Is that so, Jash?” Scratch said in a voice that came from everywhere all at once. “You grew? And how many children have you raised, lizard?”
“You ask why I did not endanger more hatchlings? Because, abomination, I never repeat my mistakes.”
And I had raised Sissel into a mage that was quickly surpassing her peers. She had never called me father, never lived on one of my properties, and I didn’t consider a daughter in even the loosest sense of the word.
But I had helped pave her way to greatness.
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