Ahnasha was already starting to move closer to the door to wait for the others to start following. She wanted to find the boys as quickly as possible. "Everything on this side of the canal is just housing for wealthy nobles, right? i can't imagine it would be that interesting for anything except the fact that you grew up there."

Kaleeth quickly started to share Janius' look of concern. "Julan had a lot of questions about your parents before. He really wanted to meet them. You don't think...he'd do anything rash, do you?"

---

Julan gave a sigh. "Okay." He conceded, standing up with Rhazii and proceeded to follow Harald back to the front door. His mind was thoroughly occupied with any and every excuse he could possibly conceive of as for why they had left the castle. If they were lucky, their parents would not yet know they had left, but it had been long enough that he was not hopeful.

As he did have some practice coming up with small lies and excuses, his thought process started in a logical place with the dinner they were supposed to have been eating. His note had claimed that they had gone to the kitchen, so that would have to be a part of their story. But, how could going to the kitchen lead to leaving the entire castle? That was not something that would normally happen, so their story would have to contain something that did not normally happen to motivate them to leave. As he and Rhazii stepped out of the house, it was a faint, constant sound in the air that gave him inspiration. The canal was close by.

"Okay, so...we need to make it make sense that we left. They're going to be upset no matter what, unless someone forced us to leave. But...I don't think we could make them believe that. But maybe we can make it seem...less bad? Maybe we could get in the canal, for a bath? There isn't any water we could use in the castle, so that's the only place we could do it. We could say we got dirty somehow, maybe when we were eating? Maybe something got in your fur? I know the canal smelled pretty bad before, but I still think I saw some people in it when we were walking over the bridge. I think they were up at the part near the wall where it comes into the city. Maybe it's cleaner there? I don't think they'd get nearly as mad about a bath. Should we try it?" Julan asked.

Janius clenched his jaw and pressed his lips together. After an apprehensive moment of staring into space, he answered. "Maybe." He moved to follow Ahnasha. "Let's find them as soon as we can."

Fendros followed along as well. "They're old enough to not give us away, at least."

---

Rhazii took a look back through the door behind them before Harald gently shut the light away. They walked onto the street with less success than they had set out to attain.

While Rhazii was trying to think of excuses as well, he did not think out loud like Julan did. He looked up to the starry sky and pondered the bathing idea. "It's better than anything I can come up with. Even if there is water at the castle, we can say that we didn't know where to get it."

They turned and walked down the dark street in the direction of the canal. After a few seconds, Rhazii gave Julan a sympathetic look. "Sorry it didn't turn out exactly as planned, brother." He put an arm around Julan and squeezed him for a moment. He let go and continued. "I guess the next thing will be convincing uncle Janius to stay in the courtyard with us."

Rhazii breathed in to give a suggestion. He stopped in his tracks. "Wait, do you hear that?" Rhazii twisted to look over his shoulder, mouth slightly open and ears pert.

There were running footsteps coming towards them. Just one short set of legs by the sound of it.

Their source was revealed a second later. From around a corner came the moonlit silhouette of a short human girl in a nightgown. Her long, straight hair was flickering up with the speed she was going. Rhazii and Julan could hear her breathing heavily, but she still tried to call out. "Hey! Wait!" She raised a hand.

Rhazii turned around fully. A flash of recognition went over his eyes.

The girl closed the distance, slowing to a stop and bending her hands to her knees to catch her breath. She raised her blonde head and swallowed, revealing a set of brown eyes and a diminutive nose. She looked barely a few years older than him. "Hey, you said you know Janius, right? Can I meet him?"

Rhazii's eyebrow lifted and his ear angled to one side. "You're Aurana, aren't you?" he slowly hazarded. "I saw you watching from the stairs and...yeah, from the stairs."

The blonde girl grinned and nodded. "Yeah! I'm his sister. So, can I meet him? What are your names, by the way? It's nice to meet you two."

Julan was appreciative to Rhazii's sympathy, but he did not have much time to respond before they were interrupted by Aurana. Julan was confused at first, but once she drew close enough for him to recognize her face, he relaxed. She was older than either of them, so she was not a child, but Julan still doubted that her parents would be happy that she had followed them. In the short time Julan had been around them, he had the impression that they were...strict.

"Yeah, I'm Kaj-Julan. This is my brother, Rhazii. If you're my father's sister, then...that makes you my aunt. I'm glad to meet you too. I was really hoping to be able to meet my grandparents and the rest of my family. I guess I kinda have, at least for my father's family. My mother's family is still all in Black Marsh, and we don't go there very often." Julan said, though he quickly realized he had gone off on a tangent.

"Anyways, um...you said you want to meet my father? Janius? I, well, I guess you would want to meet your brother, just like I want to meet my grandparents." Julan reasoned, but after thinking about it for a few moments, he became worried. "Will you, um, be going to the courtyard with your parents tomorrow? That was where I was going to try and get my father to go, so he could meet his family again. He really didn't want to come visit you all earlier; I think he's afraid to, since it's been so long. He would be really mad at me if he knew we came and saw you all, and I, uh, don't want to get in too much trouble. And I don't want my brother's parents to get mad at him either. I want to take you to see him right now, but if we did that, then wouldn't he know that we went to your house? We were just about to go to the canal to see if we could find a clean place to swim so we could act like we went for a bath. Our parents probably wouldn't be as mad at that. If they know we left by now, then they'll probably even come to look for us."

Aurana's grin melted away as Julan spoke. She had caught her breath enough to stand up straight again, though her hair was messed up and she was still taking deep breaths. She sighed in disappointment.

"...Okay." She brushed her hair from her face. "I'm sorry, I just never get to hear about him. I didn't even know he was still alive." She looked over her shoulder and then back to Julan. She managed a smile. "Sorry. Just...excited. So, if you're his son, or..." Her eyes danced between Julan and Rhazii. "If both of you are his sons, brothers. I guess that means I am your aunt like you say, huh?" She breathed a laugh. "Divines, that makes me feel old. You look older than I am." She pointed to Rhazii.

Rhazii wasn't sure how to react. "Well, actually, we just grew up together, I'm not Janius' son." He placed a hand on his chest.

"Oh, I see, um..." Another small laugh. Aurana itched at the back of her head, her eyes blinking nervously. "Look, I don't even know if mother and father are even going to the castle tomorrow. I think they were just playing a trick on you to get rid of you." She lowered her eyes. "I heard what you said, though, so they might, but...either way, I don't think I'll get to come with them." Her voice began to fade in volume. "They don't really let me out of the house that much." She swallowed the last of her shortness of breath. "I had to sneak out to follow you." In a sudden resurgence, she turned up to Julan and spoke clearly again. "But I don't mind if I don't get to meet him, can you tell me more about Janius, at least? Or yourselves? I really want to know. I don't know if I'll get another chance. Please?" She begged.

Julan looked down at the ground, obviously feeling bad for Aurana. She essentially just wanted the same thing that he did. She asked him if he could just describe his father to her, but he wanted her to be able to meet him too. Not to mention, if she was right and her parents were lying to him about going to the courtyard the next day, then Julan would not have had much time at all to spend with them. He wanted to take the time to speak with Aurana too, but it did not seem like that was going to happen the next day. If he was going to talk to her, it would need to be right then and there.

"Um, well maybe..." Julan began, rubbing the back of his neck. "I want you to be able to meet him too. I just know father would love to meet you. He just, um...well he didn't want anyone here to know he's alive. Since he's with the Penitus Occulatus. I just don't want to get in too much trouble. Like I said, we were going to go act like we were swimming in the canal. Maybe...do you think we could say we found you already there? We could say we went out to swim and you were just already there swimming too. I know I saw people swimming earlier today, so there has to be some place clean. Do people swim at night here? I always love swimming at night; it makes the water feel warmer."

Julan started to look a bit more excited as, at least in his head, his plan was seeming to make some sense. "Maybe we don't even have to say that we knew you were my aunt? If we wait long enough, father will come looking for me eventually. I know it. He won't go to sleep with us gone. We could just wait in the canal for him to find us, then you can meet him there. If you introduce yourself, he'll know you're his sister. Maybe that could work?"

Aurana's smile grew. She nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! That sounds good. I'll be able to get to know you two in the meantime!" She took another breath and suddenly looked less sure. "Just one thing..." She raised a finger. "I can't swim."

Rhazii's brow went up. He looked at Julan and back to Aurana. "Really? You don't know how to swim?"

"I've never gone swimming." Aurana shook her head and clasped her hands tightly. "Mother and father never let me."

Rhazii was speechless. He slowly rotated his eyes to Julan, his front teeth just visible between his wordless lips. "Let's start walking to the canal. Maybe we'll work it out when we get there."

Julan was equally as perplexed at Rhazii that Aurana, as old as she was, could not have learned to swim. He understood that anyone who was not Argonian would have to learn instead of knowing by instinct, but the notion of never learning seemed bizarre. Regardless, it was not the first strange thing about city dwellers that he had learned, so he just accepted it for now. "Okay...yeah, I'm sure we can make it work."

The trio continued on down the alley, then made their way carefully down to the edge of the canal. While the water did have something of a foul odor overall, the farther upstream they went, the cleaner it became. Once they reached the city wall, where the water flowed into the city, it seemed just about as clean as any other body of water. At the very least, it did not have any noticeable odor.

It was well after nightfall, and while Julan's lycanthropy gave him enhanced night vision, he still had a hard time seeing into the water from above. Rhazii could probably see more clearly, but he wanted to get a better look for himself. Julan held his hands just slightly apart in front of him and closed his eyes, concentrating. Julan was at the age where he was beginning several types of training, from hunting to basic combat. His father and all of his aunts were skilled with magic, so naturally, he had taken an interest as well. Granted, he was also quite new to the practice, but dedicated, just like with anything in which he could be competitive with Rhazii.

After a few moments, a small light flickered to life between Julan's hands, which he sent out over the water. While it was not the brightest of lights, it did give a good enough view as to the depth of the water. "It, um, looks like the water is kind of deep out in the middle of the canal, but you could probably just stand in the water over near the sides. You don't need to swim to do that. Does that sound good?" Julan asked.

Aurana looked down at the water below. "So, I just...climb in or...?"

Rhazii's undressed form jumped past them both. He splashed into the water feet first, spraying both Julan and Aurana with a spatter of freezing cold water. Aurana recoiled back a few steps.

When Rhazii broke the surface and wiped his eyes, his soaked fur flattened against his head and he opened his mouth wide to breathe. He spread his arms to keep himself above the surface and grinned at them both. "It's not so bad! Jump in!"

"I think I'll take my time," Aurana said with a nervous smile. She was less comfortable now that everyone was undressing. She kept her nightgown on. She sat down at the edge of the small wooden dock they were standing on and lowered her feet in. She winced at the cold, proceeding so slowly that she would not so much as submerge her ankles for another few minutes.

"Anyway," she said while paying attention to her feet. "Tell me, what does Janius do? What's this Penitus Oculatus thing? And...was he in Bravil all this time? Who's your mother as well?" Another wince gave pause to her sudden barrage of questions.

Julan followed suit with Rhazii, undressing and jumping in after him. As long as they were in the water when their parents inevitably found them, their story could still make sense, he reasoned. In the meantime, he would have a chance to get to know his aunt. He surfaced from underneath the water and swam up next to the dock that Aurana was sitting on.

"You don't know what the Penitus Oculatus is? I thought everyone in the Empire did? They're, um, well they're very important." Julan began. He had assumed that people in the city would be familiar with the Penitus Oculatus, since the guards in the castle seemed to defer to Marod almost completely, as if he were in charge of them. Julan himself did not actually know much about who they were or what they did. "I know Imperial soldiers listen to them. I don't know everything, but...I think they do a lot for the Empire. They're all pretty secret about everything. But, um, he hasn't been in Bravil, no. This is the first time he's been back in a very long time, I think. My mother's name is Kaleeth. He met her in Black Marsh. They, um, work together now."

"You're mother's from Black Marsh?!" Aurana's interest only grew. She leaned forward more. "What's it like there? I've read about it in books, it sounds dangerous, but wondrous!"

Rhazii chuckled. Julan's new aunt may have been strange, but she was hard to discourage.

---

The parents had already investigated the area around Janius' old home with no sighting of Julan or Rhazii. All they found was a faint scent trail. A short distance following it and the trail was leading them towards the canal. They were all certain without saying it.

Janius was not happy. There was the worry that the boys had met his parents, but the last thing he wanted was to find them having crossed the canal during the night time. There were wider reasons for them to avoid it.

On the street near to the main bridge, the bare streets had added a feature that wasn't a pair of patrolling guards or a skittering rat. The group spied a young Khajiit woman in a black dress with a candlelight spell hovering over her head. She clutched a woollen shawl around her shoulders and had a desperate look on her face. She was much too clean and well-groomed to be a beggar, if the magic did not already give it away.

The young woman would have been inconsequential had she not approached the group. "Excuse me! Excuse me." She said with her Anequinan accent, waving them down.

"Are you alright, miss?" Fendros asked, curious.

"I am looking for a young lady named Aurana Aetius, an Imperial-" the woman gestured to herself while clutching the shawl in her other hand. "-long blonde hair, pale complexion, a little taller than myself. Have you seen her? Please, she has wandered from home tonight and I simply must find her."

Julan smiled at Aurana's enthusiasm, though he could not give her a direct answer. "Um, I haven't really been there before. Well, I have, but I was too young to really remember anything. I just know what my parents have told me about it. And my aunt Meesei. From what they told me, my mother used to live in a small village way out in the swamp. She was probably around your age, or a bit older, when my father visited her village." He guessed, not entirely knowing how old Aurana actually was. "They fell in love, so she joined him when he left. She was going to be a hunter in her village; she has all these really nice-looking red tattoos all over her body that look like vines. She says she got them in her village, but now she, um, works with my father."

"My father is a strong warrior and mage. He's taught me a lot, but I know it will be years before I can do what he can do. Your father became important in the Legion, right? I'd guess he'd be proud of my father for doing basically the same thing, just not in the Legion." Julan added.

---

Kaleeth showed some brief surprise when the Khajiit woman approached the group with her question. "Aetius? That's..." She started quietly, but she quickly cut herself off and tried to straighten up her expression. If this Khajiit was a part of the household of Janius' parents, she did not want to let on as to his identity. "No, I'm sorry, but we haven't seen her." Kaleeth answered, more loudly and clearly. "We haven't been out in the street all that long tonight."

Ahnasha too was caught off guard by the name the Khajiit gave for the person she was trying to find. Even without being a part of the conversation that Janius and Kaleeth had earlier with the children, Ahnasha could guess that Janius would not want to reveal who he was. Even if he did, it would be his choice as to how and when to do that. Ahnasha retained her composure and quickly thought of a polite response to give to the woman. "I'm sorry we can't be of that much help, but if we do happen to see her, we can come and tell you, or just send her to you. Where could we find you?" She asked. However, there was one detail that Ahnasha was not considering, not at all related to her question itself. Ahnasha bore a strong familial resemblance to her son, and since the woman was Khajiit, she could potentially recognize it.

Aurana shrugged. "Well, father is more prominent in the Fighters Guild, really." She switched back to full enthusiasm. "But Janius and your mother sound amazing! I can't wait to meet them." She sighed and leaned her chin on her hand. "Work for the empire, warriorhood, magery, it's all so exciting! I mean, I get to practice some magic when mother and father don't find out, but anything else I can only read in books." She looked down. She spoke almost solemnly. "What about you, Kaj-Julan? What are you going to do as you grow up? Do what Janius does?"

---

The Khajiit youth's eyes darted for a moment at the initial reaction to her naming Aurana. However, the verbal responses simply had her nodding understandingly.

"I am going to be searching through the main streets and a few places where she may have sneaked away to." She pointed up the street in the direction that the parents had come from. "But if you do find her, please bring her to the Aetius residence up the road. It is the one with the tall tree right next to the building. Tell the butler that Jatinha had you help her, but try to keep this issue from Aurana's parents. They would swiftly involve the guard when this is something she does of her own accord. They are ever-so protective of the girl and..." Jatinha hesitated and took breath. Her voiced hushed. "...No, I should say no more of it. But please, if you would be sensitive about it..."

"Alright." Fendros pursed his lips and nodded. "We shall keep an eye out."

"Thank you, kind strangers, thank you. I must continue, excuse me." Jatinha hastily curtsied and scurried off past them.

Fendros watched Jatinha go. She was not quite out of earshot when she suddenly spun around. Her brow was lowered and her mouth open, looking at Ahnasha. She slowly raised a finger. Letting it go, she closed her eyes, shook her head, and breathed out, before turning to continue her hasty search.

When she was finally out of sight, Janius turned back around to face the group. He had been casually looking the other way when the Aetius name was spoken, pretending to be disinterested. "She pointed out my old home. That must have been a maid, though not one I know of. Neither for this 'Aurana' either."

"Well, she sounded like the girl she was describing was young," Fendros mentioned. "Perhaps its a visiting relative? A new one?"

Janius was quiet.

Julan shrugged his shoulders. His long term plans for his life was not something he often thought about, nor had he come up with a lie about his plans to tell his grandparents if they had asked. "I don't know, really, I guess so. Most of the things I'm being taught would be for that kind of thing, I guess."

Julan leaned back to float on the surface of the water, his arms outstretched and his tail keeping him from floating away. "We do a lot of exciting things. Our parents can't always bring us along, but when they do, we travel all over. I've been to, let's see...Cyrodiil, Skyrim, Elsweyr, High Rock, uh...oh, we visited Valenwood last month. I'd like to be able to go to Black Marsh. I think it would be weird to have so many Argonians like me around. Though, I did see that there are more Argonians around here in Bravil than where we come from."

Turning his head towards Aurana, Julan showed some curiosity about her. "What do you want to do when, well...I guess you are already kind of grown up. You are grown up, aren't you? You look like you're older than us, I think. It's sometimes hard to tell with Humans. Can't you just do the things you want to do now?"

---

Kaleeth stood with her arms crossed, staring off in the direction that the Khajiit had walked. "You did say earlier that your parents might want another heir." She commented to Janius. "If you don't recognize the name, then they might have had another child. Or, well, I guess it could also be a cousin. Did you have any aunts or uncles?" Kaleeth asked, though ultimately, she did not want to keep pressing her questions for too long. She could already tell that Janius was uncomfortable talking about his family.

Ahnasha gave a sigh, then spoke somewhat softly on the off-chance that anyone might have been listening to their conversation. "So, our children sneak out of the castle on the same night that someone from your family just happens to also sneak out? Something tells me that may not be a coincidence. Do you think that the boys could have encountered Aurana at some point during your tour of the city earlier, without you knowing?" Ahnasha asked.

Aurana smiled and looked away. "It's hard to tell, really. I'm fifteen, so I should at least be able to go out sometimes. Mother and father disagree, though. They keep saying that I can be independent when I'm married and settled. I'm only allowed to go out with them when it's to court. And it takes an era to get dressed for something like that."

"You really can't go out on your own?" Rhazii's confusion was reaching outright incredulity. "How do you spend time with friends?"

"Jatinha's my only friend. She lives in the house, so I don't have to go out." Aurana brushed her hair from her eye. "She's nice. She kind of watches over me, though. I don't get to talk much to other people my age, like you guys."

---

"Yes," Janius answered Kaleeth's question immediately. "In Anvil. They don't visit."

Ahnasha's question made Janius' tone calm again. "They did not meet anyone of that description when we were out today, no. I kept a close eye on them." His eyes lifted to them all. "If they had met her, it was either back at the keep or if Julan and Rhazii entered my family's home first. It could have been either. We'll soon find out." He began walking to follow the rest of the trail.

"Oh, I thought you were older." Julan commented, though it did not completely rid him of his confusion about how Aurana's parents treated her. It seemed like they did not allow her to do anything, as if she was always being punished for something.

Julan cocked his head to the side as he looked up at Aurana. "How are you going to marry anyone if you don't know anyone? Do they want you to marry Jatinha? It doesn't make sense." Julan repositioned himself to be upright, then swam up closer to the dock she was sitting on. "I'd hate to be stuck inside a house all the time. That's what our parents make us do when they punish us. You should be able to go out and do more things. What kind of things do you want to do? Maybe...we could try to teach you to swim?" He suggested.

---

As Rhazii and Julan were not experienced enough to hide their trail, or had not attempted to do so at all, the group had little trouble following their scent through the city. Fortunately, Janius' fear that the boys had crossed the canal into the rest of the city did not end up becoming reality, but that did not mean there was not still cause for some concern.

The group had come out of an alleyway to a spot overlooking the canal, and had been moving quietly enough so as not to be easily detected. They no longer needed to follow any scents, as there was a weak candlelight spell illuminating part of the canal just upstream, which made it quite easy to see the boys swimming in the water near a girl about their age who they did not recognize. Ahnasha stepped forward slightly, with footsteps that were barely audible even at close range. She peered around the corner of a building to get a good look down into the canal, then looked back and whispered to the others.

"It's them. It looks like they're swimming in the water, but there's also someone else with them. A girl; she matches the description of the girl the Khajiit woman mentioned. How do you think we should approach this? I doubt she'll recognize you, Janius, since she's never met you." Ahnasha reasoned.

Aurana laughed. "I think they would be shocked if I married Jatinha. No, they want to find a nobleman and arrange a marriage when I turn eighteen." Her grin lowered. "I don't get to choose, but I don't really care. They promised I could be independent then, and that means I could just leave if I don't like him."

Julan's question made Aurana straighten and swallow. "I've always wanted to learn how to swim. It looks like fun, but..." She held her opposite upper arms, crossing her arms over her chest and breaking eye contact. "This nightgown sort of...clings when it gets wet."

"Oh. Do you have a scar you do not want to show?" Rhazii asked with oblivious care.

"No, just..." Aurana huffed. "I'm embarrassed, that's all."

---

"Let's just go and take them home," Janius answered quickly. "We can drop the girl off on the way. We're probably not going to leave tomorrow, not until we're ready to move with our High Elf quarry, so I say we should keep them confined to the barracks for the day as punishment." He tapped one foot and kept peering around. "Let's get this over with."

Fendros angled his head. He spoke cautiously. "That sounds like a fair course of action, but what if the boys have told her about you?"

Janius pushed an exasperated sigh through his nose. "We can work that out as it develops. Can we just pick them up now? I am getting tired of this."

Ahnasha crossed her arms. "Depending on what they did, we might have to do more than that, but I guess we'll just have to see. Let's just go down there and get them."

Julan had been sufficiently perplexed by Aurana's description of her life so far that he was not as surprised as he could have been when she said her parents were going to choose who she married. Her life seemed to be just so different from his own, and not in a way that he thought he would like. Regardless, he wanted to do something for her now, if he could. "Embarrassed of what?' Julan asked, equally as clueless as Rhazii. "You don't need to be embarrassed that you can't swim, I don't think."

The trio did not have much time to continue their conversation before their parents started to descend down the embankment towards the edge of the canal. They caught their scent in the air before they heard their footsteps, so there was little question as to who was approaching.

Kaleeth did not begin with an angry tone, but she was certainly not pleased with the trouble their children had put them through so far, particularly Janius. "Kaj-Julan, what is going on here?" She asked firmly.

Fortunately for Julan, he had already been thinking about what he would say when their parents found them, so he did not hesitate too much. "Oh...I didn't think it had been too long. We came out to take a bath. We couldn't find any water in the castle that we could use." He began, looking to Aurana before motioning towards his parents. "These are my parents, Kaleeth and Janius."

"It's not that! I just don't want to walk through the street when everyone can see...huh?" Aurana stopped when she noticed Rhazii and Julan's expressions change. They sniffed at the air, realisation coming to their faces. Julan was hard to read, but Rhazii's ears flattened in anticipation. They were looking past her.

Aurana turned her upper body and jolted with such surprise that she lost her balance over the edge of the dock. She let out a small scream before a splash silenced her. Rhazii and Julan's parents all stepped up onto the dock.

While Julan was speaking in their defence, Rhazii looked at the struggling shape of Aurana under the surface. He dived under, becoming a dark shape swimming underneath her. They broke the surface together, Rhazii propping her up. She clung onto a pillar of the dock and caught her breath, mouthing a thanks to Rhazii and keeping her head above water. However, both of them had most of their attention directed up to the not-so-happy Kaleeth, Janius, Fendros, and Ahnasha.

"...You're Janius and Kaleeth?" Aurana was too bug-eyed to be embarrassed at what she had just done. "Um..." she laughed nervously. "You're...I'm..."

"You're Aurana, aren't you?" Fendros lowered onto one knee. "We'll take you home. Rhazii, Kaj-Julan, out of the water. Now."

Rhazii gulped and grabbed onto the edge of the dock. He pulled himself up, letting a shower of droplets make noise where they fell from his fur.

Janius was silent, avoiding eye contact with Aurana. Aurana gave inverse attention. "It is you, isn't it? Janius, I'm your sister." She tried to mimic Rhazii's motion to pull out of the water. She bared her teeth as her thin arms put in as much effort as they could. She slowly raised her shoulders over the threshold and threw her elbows onto the dock, stopping. "Uh, I don't mean to be a problem, but."

After biting his lip and peering around at the stars, Janius abruptly turned, reached down, and took Aurana by her arms, pulling her out of the water and standing onto the dock. She was just as dripping wet. Her nightgown was soaked. She immediately covered herself and began to shiver. "I've h-heard a lot about you, big brother."

Janius closed his eyes and breathed out. "Yes, it's me." He opened his eyes. "I see you met my son."

"Y-y-yes. They came l-looking for me." Her shaking was intensifying. "I w-w-w-wanted to m-meet you as-s s-s-oon as I h-heard Julan mention-n you."

Janius listed his head over to look at Julan. He was, surprisingly, not angry. He sounded defeated. "Son, lend her your cloak, please. She is freezing."

Julan was just about to start getting dressed when Janius asked him to give Aurana her cloak. It has been surprisingly easy for Julan to avoid laughing when Aurana had fallen into the water, as the presence of his parents made any of the natural comedy of the situation seem much less important. He was also nervous about what Aurana had said so far. It was not the story that Julan had wanted to tell, but there was no going back at this point. He offered his cloak to Aurana, then just ended up standing around somewhat awkwardly and nervously. He was cold as well, but since his scales were waterproof, he was not as cold as any of the others. Rhazii would certainly need to start trying to dry off, since his fur would hold in the water.

"Yes, um, she really wants to meet you and talk to you. She never gets to do anything since her parents don't let her. I've already told her how you're here in Bravil with the Penitus Oculatus, and how you ended up with them all that time ago after the cave with the spiders." Julan explained as a not-so-subtle way of informing him of the cover story he had made up for why he had not come back home. He hoped his father would be happy of the fact that he had come up with a good story for him.

Kaleeth had some concern in her eyes as she looked at Aurana, which made her somewhat conflicted as to what she wanted to do next. "It seemed like that Khajiit woman wanted to bring back Aurana without anyone noticing she was gone, but now she's soaked. Maybe we should try to dry her off first? Does anyone have any magic that could help?" She suggested.

Without hesitation, Aurana took the cloak and wrapped it around herself. Her jaw stopped quivering quite as perceptibly after only a few moments, but the water was still making her cold.

"Not me, sorry," Fendros said to Kaleeth. He was using Rhazii's tunic to help towel off his fur while he dressed himself. "Probably best to get to a fireplace unless Janius or Ahnasha knows a trick." He held the tunic over the canal and wringed out a stream of the water.

Janius shook his head. "Anything that precise is Sabine or Meesei's purview." His eyes returned to Aurana and Kaj-Julan. "Let's head up to the keep. If we see that Jatinha woman on the way back, we can tell her we found her girl, but we have to talk, I think. We all have to talk." He glanced pointedly at Julan.

Aurana's eyes danced, noticing. "I should make it clear, they did not come looking for me, specifically. I sort of went looking for them, actually. I'm...I should explain-"

"Leave it for now, please." Janius raised a hand as he interrupted. His mood was still hard to read beyond sounding exhausted. "Boys, dress up and let's go. Julan, how much...exactly have you told Aurana about us?"