Chapter Text
"Er," she said, as the entire family stared at her, eyebrows raised. Even Britte, sitting on Eola's lap, was looking at her with a very serious expression. "Umm..."
"I don't want to leave," Britte blurted out into the ensuing silence.
"I'm not taking you away yet," she replied automatically. The group tensed even more, the dogs-not-dogs starting to growl, and she started inching for the front door. "I didn't mean, er... I didn't mean it like that," she stammered. "I meant that I don't think there's a need to take anyone away anywhere yet, and— I'm sorry, where is your bathroom?"
No one answered her, just glared in silence, and she started shaking even worse. Eola was licking her lips, one eye raking up and down Angelica's body again, and now that she knew that the look was one of hunger, not lust, she felt all the more queasy.
Then, slowly, two women and one girl turned as one to look at Torvar. He was still quite drunk, but closer to being sober at least, and it only took him a second to realize what they all were looking at him for. He cleared his throat, breaking the silence, and said, "Rayya, Eola, stay here with Britte for a second, will ya?" and got up from his chair. He went to the door leading back into the greenhouse, shot one last unreadable look at Angelica, threw it open and disappeared. The sound of heavy Falkreath lumber slamming against the frame echoed throughout the house. Angelica stood there, pressed against the wall next to the door, but could not hear a bit of what was happening within. Apparently the house had been soundproofed at some point — no wonder she'd thought no one had been home at first.
The women sat (and stood) there in silence for a moment, before Eola let Britte down to the floor and stood up. Rayya stood up too, scimitars on her hips shifting with the movement, and Angelica truly thought she was going to die then. She was disappointed when, though her world tilted, she remained conscious.
But the family just turned their backs and set about rearranging the chairs. The dogs-not-dogs got up from the floor too and wound around Angelica once, snarling and growling while she stood paralyzed, then went to a plush rug in the opposite corner and lay down side by side, watching her.
Angelica looked back to find that Rayya and Eola had arranged the chairs so that one sat alone, with four facing it in a way reminiscent of testimony before a council, or when she reported to her division superiors. She gulped: the association was not a positive one for her as she hated being the sole focus of anything, much less an interrogation like this seemed to be.
An interrogation run by a warrior woman, a cannibal, and a little girl who beat up her younger and smaller sister all the time. She realized, for the first time in her life, how pathetic and utterly defenseless she was. It was a miracle she had made the short walk to Lakeview without being eaten by a wolf. By Mara, it was a miracle she had lived as long as she had, with no weapons skills, no magical aptitude, and not even the ability to walk normally without tripping over her own feet.
"Sit!" barked Rayya, and Angelica was in the lone chair before she could think to resist. That was the danger of being Imperial City-born and part of the bureaucracy: she had occupied a specific place in the hierarchy since she was born, and had deference to authority drilled into her until it was a part of her.
Again, she wondered how she hadn't died yet. If a thief with a commanding voice just told her to hand it over on the street, he wouldn't even have to pull a weapon. Pathetic. She fidgeted in the chair, fingers drumming automatically on the underside of the seat while her knuckles turned white from her death-grip.
Rayya and Eola took their seats on the far ends of the slightly curved row of chairs facing hers, Britte hopping into the Redguard's lap this time. The girl was a bit too big to be sitting on anyone, but Rayya didn't seem to mind, playing with Britte's braids.
The greenhouse door opened and Torvar walked in, holding Sissel in his arms. Her cheeks were tear-stained and her eyes red and puffy, but she wasn't crying anymore. She ignored Angelica as Torvar walked past her and took the chair next to Rayya, and steadfastly refused to meet her eyes even when sitting on her Dad's lap facing the Imperial.
The chair next to Eola remained empty. Angelica wondered a moment who it was for, before it hit her — the Dragonborn. Oh Divines, had they somehow contacted him? Was he riding out now to protect his children? It would take a while to get from Solitude to the manor, but... but he had tamed a dragon, hadn't he? Could ride it around like a big flying horse? How fast could a dragon fly — fast enough to get here before Eola got too hungry and decided to eat her, Dragonborn or no Dragonborn? She wasn't sure which was worse, waiting however many hours before being judged by an angry father who was able to kill her with a word, or being eaten by a cannibal immediately. She started praying again, asking for the Divine's forgiveness and a quick death.
She was paralyzed, she wanted to run, she knew she wouldn't get two steps before Rayya cut her down or Eola... did what cannibals did.
While Britte and Sissel watched. Erk.
She didn't want to keep thinking about her own imminent death — would it hurt? would her disappearance be noted? would the truth ever come out if she just... was never seen again after leaving Falkreath? — but it was impossible for her to steer her thoughts away. Like that one time she had ridden past a farmstead that had been attacked by a dragon, and she just couldn't stop staring at the burnt-out husk of a home, imagining the horrible things that had taken place there.
"So, Torvar—" Eola started at last. "What do you think? What would Lothario do?"
"Lothy would be pissed," Torvar said flatly, making Angelica flinch. He seemed fully sober now. "But he's not here and he won't be for a while. I guess I'll have to deal with this myself."
Lothario. Angelica had almost forgotten the given name of the Dragonborn. He was just titles now. Lothario Nicchi was no more.
"So, Angelica Laguardia," Torvar said, his brusque Nord tongue bumping up against the smooth Imperial syllables awkwardly. "I hear you've been frightening my children, making them think we're horrible people. Abusers. Deviants. That my husband is some kind of loveless monster who sacrifices children to the Daedra..." his eyes flicked pointedly to the mace on a plaque near the hearth, the artifact that radiated the most evil influence of them all.
"I don't— I don't think it's like that, and I never said so!" Angelica protested. "You obviously love your children, and they love you. And their Da. They're not saying it just to say it either — they're smart kids. They genuinely like it here."
"But?" Torvar said with a raised eyebrow, face dangerously grim still.
"But— but— but I can't just let you leave all these Daedric things lying around!" she half-screamed, prising her own hands off the chair's edge and gesturing wildly. "They're dangerous! I can overlook the dogs — which are very obviously not dogs, I'm not stupid! — and the constant absence of one parent and the drunkenness and the fighting and— and maybe, maybe even I can overlook the cannibalism." She hissed the word, staring at Eola, who seemed startled but not the least bit ashamed. "As long as it's not random upstanding citizens anymore, for Mara's sake!"
"He came to the front door!" the Reachwoman screeched. "How could I deny such a gift from Lady Namira?!"
"Enough, Eola," Torvar said, one hand going up to massage his temples. "There are plenty of bandits in Falkreath Hold; eat them. The world will be a better place."
"And the necromancers?"
"And the necromancers," Torvar replied wearily. "And the Silver Hand, what's left of them."
The werewolf hunters? What did they ever do to anyone— Oh. Someone here must be a werewolf. Of-fucking-course. She didn't have any surprise left, it seemed.
Eola sat back, mollified for the moment, and Torvar turned back to Angelica. "So, if you think this, what do you plan to say in your report? Speak carefully, now."
"I... I think I would say that Sissel and Britte are doing well, considering their rough start in life," she said honestly. "I would say that the home is full of adults who love them, and that, despite being in the phase when everything becomes a fight of some kind, Sissel and Britte are still sisters, and sisters should stick together."
"That's nice. And the artifacts Lothario has been bringing home because there's no safer place in the world to keep them out of ill-meant hands?"
"I, um. Well, I don't have to say exactly what they are, do I? I can just write, umm... 'Parents are warriors and sometimes leave their weapons lying about where the children can get at them. Tips provided to buy warded locking cabinet.' Or something."
Torvar tilted his head, seeming to... yes, he was sniffing her. The drunk was the werewolf. Great. After a moment, he said slowly to Rayya and Eola, "Not deceitful."
"Really?!" Angelica blurted out as the other women relaxed. The whole thing was a lie — she was talking about and giving an example of a lie!
"Not malevolently," Torvar amended.
Whatever that means, she thought. Not that she wasn't happy that she seemed to be out of the fire for the moment. "Er, okay. That's good. I just need to do a quick tour, make sure the house isn't about to fall down on top of you, then I guess I'll be off. You'll get a copy of my report by next week."
Eola smiled grimly. "Torvar's got your scent now..." she said ominously.
Oh, fuck. Now she really wasn't going to do anything stupid.
"Eola! Stop that." Torvar snapped, then let Sissel off his lap.
Britte hopped down too, and the girls approached Angelica cautiously. "So we're not going away?"
For children who apparently hate each other they sure do say the exact same thing at the exact same time a lot. "Not if I can help it. I can't say the same for the next visit, but that shouldn't be for another three to five years given that I'm going to put 'no action needed' in my report."
"Good. Upstairs first, then? Coming back down for a sweep through the trophy room and kitchen, of course." Torvar said, shooing the girls outside.
He took Angelica on a brief tour, showing her the alchemy table with all manner of ingredients arranged neatly on a high shelf, and though there was deathbell, nightshade and what looked suspiciously like the jarrin root she'd seen in an illustration once, the toxic reagents were far out of reach of children and she dismissed it as a minor issue. Then the enchanting table — not a black soul gem in sight, good — and the bedrooms. While the living space was in chaos, things thrown everywhere and the beds unmade, Angelica ignored it as much as she could, looking instead for actual hazards. Finding none, she had Torvar take her back downstairs.
They went through the kitchen next, and if there were bags of some unidentifiable lumpy substance shoved to overflowing into the cabinet bottoms, she resisted the urge to look. She left as quickly as possible, a chorus of eww, eww, eww chanting in her head.
Then, the last room in the house. She walked through the door ahead of Torvar, intending to just poke her head into the space and back out again. Just a glimpse would do—
But her glimpse was of gray, leathery skin stretched taut around the unnatural glowing blue eyes of a trophy draugr.
She screamed all the way back to Falkreath. But no matter how much the town guards pressed her, she insisted it had only been a close encounter with a troll, that everything was fine at the house of the Dragonborn — no, don't go looking for the troll! — everything was fine, it was just she'd never seen one that big before.