Day Fifty-nine: A rest for the weary

This morning it was just too hard to pursue my fate. Ahnassi's hospitality seems to stop the world around us. We both know that with the Dark Brotherhood hunting me I have to keep moving, and that we can't let it be known that she is dear to me. Tomorrow I will get back to my mission, and my fate. For today I picked flowers.

I did get a couple things done. Nelos and Maurrie, under the guise of a shopping excursion, delivered my notes to Caius in Balmora. They are such a happy couple. Nelos is still the rogue, charming the crowds who he plays for every night at the Halfway Tavern, but everyone knows at the end of the evening it is Maurrie on his arm as he wends his way home. Whenever I am confronted by the ugly tasks my fate might demand, I will think of the part it gave me to play in bringing those two together.

Another positive thing about my fate couldn't be ignored. When Ahnassi offered to share her life and her house she said I could take anything I need. She is comfortable, but far from wealthy. Typical of the Khajiit she has no real sense of property. Her curious nature leads her to places that are meant to be secure, through locked doors and guarded passages, but she usually will take nothing more than a trinket for a souvenir. She knew I had sold some Dwemer artifacts to Mebestian Ence, so she knew she wasn't taking in a complete pauper, but she had no idea the wealth my fate has dealt into my hands since I arrived penniless at Seyda Neen. I set my mark in her hallway and transported all my goods from my cave. She was stunned.

Complete sets of steel and bonemold plate, bits and pieces of imperial steel and Indoril bonemold, piles of swords and other weapons that I couldn't give up; the hallway is somewhat cluttered. The cost of the Indoril armor alone would feed us for the rest of our lives. I could open an armorer's shop and live well. Ahnassi was horrified. "How could my true friend have just left this all sitting in a cave?!" she cried.

"It's just armor, Ahnassi," I told her. "It could be replaced." She picked up an axe made of gleaming Dwemer metal. "That may be rare, but I sold one just like it to Mebestian. The really rare things I keep in Ald-ruhn. Not for their value; it's just things that would be hard to replace. I have some rare books in my library, and I've put a lot of effort into my enchanting lab."

"True enough," she said. "There is nothing here that could not be found." She waved a sleek paw over my armory. "There is a lot though. More than a Khajiit could use, certainly, so a Khajiit would not worry if it got lost, but a Breton, a Breton worries about property. Valuable property. How do you not worry?"

I opened my pouch. I keep a couple hundred gold septims in it. It weighs a couple pounds. Then I showed her the broad strap that it hangs from. In its multitude of compartments it holds the gems and Dwemer coins that make my accumulated wealth manageable. Were it all in gold it would be about fifteen thousand septims. Fate has made demands, but it has compensated me well.

She pressed the coda flower I had brought her to her nose, enjoying the fragrance. "I asked you for this. You gave it to me and said I was your queen."

I laughed. "You could have asked for a crown."