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Loredas, 10th of Sun’s Height 3e 426
He was penniless. A nobody. He had to feed his little sister. No one else would. The Empire didn’t care to intervene. Not for him, not for anyone else.
He didn’t mean for it to....
He had looked into Falanu’s eyes and saw the hunger in them. Their father, gone, long ago. Their mother, a stranger to them now too. Thanks to moonsugar, she may as well have been dead to them.
He came up with a plan and went to the market. It was Merchants’ Festival. Shopkeepers usually kept their eyes on Dunmers perusing their wares. But there would be so many people out taking advantage of the lowered prices he was sure he could hide among them.
He found a bakery and it was as crowded as he’d hoped. He prayed to Azura for success and snatched the largest loaf of bread and wedge of cheese he could. He ran.
He heard a shout behind him. The thuds of some fetcher’s booted feet giving chase behind him. He turned his head to see a shopkeep, dagger drawn. Was the s’wit really going to attack him over some bread and cheese?
He tried to lose the shopkeep among the crowd and alleys, but couldn’t. He kept his own dagger on him at all times. The people that brought mother her moonsugar could be vicious. He drew it then. He was desperate and the shopkeep... was not as fast as he was.
It hadn’t gone unwitnessed. He knew he would likely hang. He was surprised that he managed to get back in time to pass the food to his sister. He had taken a small amount of coins off the shopkeep’s corpse. Looting the body like the criminal he was. He scrambled to prepare his sister for what was coming. He told her to get out. Get away. He gave Falanu the money and told her to hide it as the guard broke in the door. Keep it away from mother. She was a smart girl. Perhaps it would be enough.
He sat in prison for months, ignored.
A man came. An Imperial bureaucrat. His silk robe made the stone walls look that much rougher. The Imperial asked him questions: under what sign was he born? About his parents. He had no parents; not really. Not anymore. The bureaucrat left him in his cell and never came back.
For days he waited for something more to happen. Finally, it did. Guards came for him. Three of them. A male and a female Imperial and a Redguard man.
They packed him onto a carriage and ignored his questions. On the occasions he caught glimpses the sun, he was able to determine that they were taking him East.
They soon arrived at a dock. He was packed onto a prison ship along with another Dunmer by the name of Jiub. He hadn’t managed to tell Jiub his name. The guards had brought him food and after eating, he struggled to keep his eyes open. He thought that they must have put something in it.
He dreamed of his voyage and of the moon and the stars. Of a woman. He saw a dead, red landscape. She told him he was safe. She told him not be afraid and that she was watching. She said she had chosen him.
"Wake up, we are here. Why are you shaking? Are you okay? Wake up!"