[h3]Second Meeting[/h3]
[i]14th Midyear, 4E208[/i]

When Anifaire finally gained the energy to crawl out of her misshapen tent, her dried tears having left a tight feeling on her skin, the sky had darkened. The camp was lit by campfires and torchlight, a good number of people still awake, eating or talking. She huddled on the moss outside her tent, arms hugging her legs to her chest. She knew she should go eat, but lacked the appetite. Her body felt numb. She dunked a rag in the small bucket of water she’d collected and forgotten about, wiping dried tears, sweat, and dirt from her face and arms, hoping the action would improve her spirits. 

She dragged her boots off her feet, digging her toes into the cool moss but feeling none of the satisfaction she had expected at the action. She idly wondered how moss grew through such sandy dirt. It must be a different type of moss, she assumed, to grow in such hard climates. It was even a different shade from the moss she was used to. Like the fabric in her clothes, which was a different make from Alinor styles. Softer, even. She thought she might prefer it. [hr]This was a room full of strangers. The only ones here that liked him were the very ones that would hurt his goal of reintegrating if he talked to them. This wasn’t the time to keep to his little trio, and the process of getting back in Aries’ good graces had begun. When he heard the muffled sounds of crying, he cocked his brow, looking for its source. Not exactly to console it, but actively avoid it. He wasn’t good with that type of thing. But he hung back, the familiarity of it rooting his feet to his spot.

He thought he remembered…[hr][i]“Oh, come on Celsa,” the other Redguard stalled, the most sober of the group. “She didn’t take your husband, she’s not even a Dwemer.” 

“Shut up,” Celsa grumbled. “Altmer are just as bad.” 

She stepped over to Anifaire, stepping on her hand without even noticing. Anifaire grunted and shoved her leg with her free arm to force her to move, but Celsa’s size overwhelmed her. She kicked her in the gut, Anifaire descending into spluttered coughs. 

“You’re drunk, Celsa,” the other Redguard insisted, but Celsa and the others ignored her. Another man stepped up, walking over to join Celsa. He grabbed Anifaire by the arm and roughly pulled her to her feet. She stumbled, fighting the nausea in her stomach and how winded she was, but he held her upright.[/i][hr]Then he remembered the Altmer girl. Those sobs sounded the same. It felt like an instinct in him, almost. Hell, it felt like an instinct to him that night, long ago.. when the world seemed simpler for him. 

Him against all of it...[hr][i]“This isn’t your fight.” He muttered. “This is not your fight. You saw nothing.”

He turned to walk away but the high and cruel laughter of one of them stopped him in his tracks. He sighed, reaching for his badge but deciding to keep it where it was. He wasn’t going to do this in the name of the Dwemer. His slow and sure footsteps brought him to the scene. “Hello, friends.”[/i][hr]Even as the sobbing stopped, he was telling himself the same thing. That this wasn’t his responsibility. This wasn’t his fight. That he could step away and she wouldn’t have even known he was standing outside.

But he knew how that worked out last time…[hr][i]Sevari looked at the biggest of them, a woman almost as thick with muscle and blessed with height as he was. He knew who to start with. She opened her mouth and the words came pouring out like vomit, slurry and crack-voiced, but mocking all the same, “Who’re you?”

Sevari snorted something into his face and spat it off to the side, “The consequences.”

He lunged forward and chopped into her throat with a hard knife-hand.[/i][hr]“Damn it.” He muttered.

He went back to the stagecoach they’d all formed their alliance over and grabbed two metal cups. He walked to the Oasis, scooping up two cupfuls of the water before checking to see if Anifaire was still there. When she was, he sighed, gathering strength. Once he convinced himself nobody was going to stab him for coming near the little girl.

He found himself beside her, though she might not have noticed him yet. Even so, he offered the cup he’d filled for her, “It’s just water.” He said, “Do you remember me?”

The blank look on Anifaire’s face didn’t change. Her eyes were puffy and red, but now dried. She looked at her new companion for a few moments, recognition registering in her mind but her face slow to catch up. 

She nodded slowly a few times, recalling the night she’d gone to the cultural centre in Gilane and stayed too late into the night...[hr][i]“Where do you stay?” Sevari asked, lighting a cigar he’d produced from the inside of his coat pockets and a flame he willed to life on the tip of his finger, “I can walk you back, at least.” 

Anifaire was shocked by the encounter. She barely registered the time from when she was being attacked by the drunkards to when she stood there in front of the stranger who had saved her. The calm quiet enveloped the street, and though it was comforting and it took a few confused moments for her to find her tongue. 

“Thank you,” she replied first, straightening her clothes. “I’m, uh, staying at the Three Crowns.” [/i][hr]“Yes,” she replied. She took the cup and took a large gulp of the fresh water. It seemed to wake her up a little bit. “Thank you.” 

She stared down at the cup, swirling the clear liquid idly. She knew his name now, Sevari, though she hadn’t known when she first met him. Things had been simpler; she’d had few concerns, wandering Gilane as though the Dwemer weren’t a problem at all. 

She’d been so stupid...[hr][i]“Some people find any reason, no matter how brittle, to sate some type of aggression if the original perpetrator isn’t there. People are fickle bastards.” He said, “An author from High Rock, he once said ‘the world is a fine place and worth fighting for.’ I only agree with the second part. I’m sorry we had to meet like this, Miss Mirlinde.” 

“So am I,” Anifaire replied. In her mind, Alinor was a peaceful place, a haven, but it seemed people on the outside didn’t see it that way. She wondered if parts of Alinor looked like some of the things she had seen since leaving, with poverty, or refugees like Skingrad, or drunkards. It seemed like a Utopia, but she was no longer sure she remembered it accurately, and wondered what her perspective had changed. “But,” she paused, struggling to string her thoughts into a phrase that construed the meaning, “some things are wonderful, I mean, there are…” 

The world didn’t feel beautiful or wonderful at that moment, yet she remembered good people, like Nanine lending her clothes, or Calen giving her a place to sleep, or this stranger helping her get away. “There is kindness, at least.” [/i][hr]The words seemed hollow and far away from her now. After all, some of that kindness was taken from her, Alim imprisoned, and she was lost, unable to fight for it. 

Sevari nodded, keeping quiet for a bit. Should he tell her he heard her? He decided to cut a middle path and veil the fact he had heard her bawling, “You seem troubled, Miss Mirlinde.” He said, “What bothers you?”

“Oh,” she said. It took her a moment to realize how terrible she probably looked, puffy eyes and messy hair, her bun having come undone and her waist-length hair tumbling around her in knots. She’d need to find a brush. Unsure where to start, she looked down into the cup again. “Well. They captured Alim.” 

Sevari’s eyebrows went up at that. The others seemed distraught at their friends’ capture, but Anifaire seemed completely destitute and destroyed. He had to be important to her then. He knew how he felt when he heard Gregor almost took his brother from him, took his soul. He wanted to take Gregor’s head and dangle it by a fistful of hair in front of Raelynn as she screamed in horror, right before he split her skull.

But he couldn’t do that now. Latro wouldn’t like that. Nor would anybody here. And he doubted Anifaire held such malice and violence within her. Thankfully, for her. “I see,” he began, gesturing with his cup to Latro and Sora’s tent, “Sora, she’s back because none of us would let her capture stand. We snatched her from the grip of Rourken, right from the Palace. I don’t think they’ll be able to keep Alim and the others from us.”

He nodded to her tent, which he guessed she put up herself. As best she could. “If I wouldn’t be stepping on your fingers, Miss Mirlinde, I could help you fix your tent.”

Anifaire nodded. Surely they would find him if the others were doing it, she thought, but her own incompetence kept her in a pit of helplessness. She took another sip of water. 

“I… all right,” she agreed, turning to face the structure. She avoided touching it at each turn, worried it wouldn’t hold if she so much as moved some of the fabric. Embarrassment tinged her cheeks, knowing how obvious it was she had never set up a tent in her life. “Thank you.” 

Sevari nodded, giving the girl a heartfelt smile before setting down his cup and getting to work. Of course, he did say he would [i]help[/i] her, but helping really meant to step aside and let him do it while explaining. Come next time, they’d do it together, or she and Alim would. Speaking of learning, as he stepped back and grabbed up his cup again and appreciated the now tent-shaped tent, he turned to her.

“Miss Mirlinde,” he said, remembering the night in Gilane, “You’re living a rough life right now. You know what I’m willing to do to keep you safe, you know what these others are willing to do to protect one of their own.”

He frowned, trying to come up with a good case for himself to help her, “But say we run into the Ministry of Order again. Do you know Destruction magic? How to defend yourself, at least with your hands?”

“Fire,” she replied. “I can do flames.” That was the Destruction magic she knew, so she answered easily, even if the connotations of the question in this context were certainly different than a fellow student asking her knowledge in an area. She remembered the last and only time she had used them on a living being, toasting a Falmer next to Judena, and tried to imagine doing it to someone who didn’t appear monstrous. She couldn’t. She sighed. 

“I’m not good at any of it. I can’t help. Judena was teaching me before, how to use telekinesis against...” She trailed off, recalling how she had done just that in the palace attack, and how that Dwemer had died as a result. Or perhaps he would’ve died without her distraction too, she thought, and she shouldn’t feel guilty, but she couldn’t convince herself. 

He knelt down to her level, looking at the water they were near. He nodded when she explained herself and knew exactly what must have happened when she trailed off and refused to put that memory on the air. “Good.” He said, looking her in the eye, “That’s good, be glad. But you have to remember, Miss Mirlinde, that even if there is kindness in the world there are also people who are not so kind.”

He took a sip of his water and collected his thoughts, “I earned my skills to become strong. To make sure what happened to me never happens to anybody else.” It was partly a lie, but he clung to the parts of it that weren’t, “Sometimes, life and fate and whatever you believe in might shove you to stand against a challenge. Protect the ones you love, Miss Mirlinde, no matter how hard it is.”

He gave her a solemn smile, like a father to his learning child, “When you have fear, the best thing to do with it is make like you don’t have it.” He said, “That’s courage. To not let fear hold you still.”

That’s what she wanted to do, she thought: protect people she cared about. The world was different from her previous life of scholarly pursuit, and with new experiences had come a whole host of problems. 

She was afraid to kill anybody, but she wasn’t sure how to put it into words. If she was afraid to defend herself, she wouldn’t be able to help. But, it wasn’t always defense, she thought, after all, they were headed to attack a prison now. It wasn’t only self-defense… but, there was Alim. She frowned. 

“How?” she asked. “I’m afraid all the time.” 

Sevari smiled, chuckling a bit. He leaned in close, making a show of looking around to make sure nobody was listening, “Do you want to know a secret, Miss Mirlinde?” He asked, “I have been terrified completely for most of my life. I’ve been alone and scared and vulnerable, unsure of myself, insecure. Could you tell?”

“I… no? No.” She looked at him with doubt. Afraid was perhaps one of the last things she could imagine Sevari being, after all, she’d seen him scare off those Redguards who had accosted her without a second thought. 

Sevari looked into his cup, swirling the water with a sad smile, “I am. I was afraid when I lived in Elsweyr, I was afraid when the Bhaanu Sasra took me away from Zaveed and his sister.” He sighed, “I was afraid for the next 20 years after. Leading a bandit gang, being an assassin and bodyguard for skooma syndicates in Valenwood. Through all of that, I learned to just throw myself at problems.”

He nodded, taking a sip then, “I learned that fear can be traded. When you act like you have no fear, the other person starts to wonder why you have none, fear the reasons you seem not to. All of a sudden, your fear is now his.” He shrugged, “But, enough talk of that. Would you like me to teach you the easy parts of defending yourself? Only if you want.” 

She thought about it for a moment. Even if she was afraid to shoot fire at someone, imagining the burning, the scent, the disfigurement… defense couldn’t hurt. She wondered how the night they had met would’ve gone if she had been able of breaking out of the Redguard’s hold. That would be it, she thought, learning to defend, not how to… 

“Defend myself,” she repeated, and took another drink of water. She couldn’t rid herself of the dry feeling in her throat since she had been crying. “All right. How?” 

He got up to his feet, smoothing out his shirt as he spoke, “The easiest places to hit a person if you want them to leave you alone is their groin, neck, ears, nose and eyes. You stick with those and you’ll seldom find a person who won’t be given pause.”

Anifaire remained seated where she was, listening with growing attention. She nodded along. The Altmer thought the issue would be more complicated than aiming for the right place. She didn’t have the reflexes, for one, and had frozen when she was attacked in the past. 

“It sounds hard,” she said. She took one last drink of her water, finishing the glass and setting it aside before standing up. She stepped away from her tent, a sudden fear of toppling into it occuring to her. 

“It can be,” Sevari said, though he lent her a reassuring nod and smile, “It is, truth be told. But it’s better to just do something than live forever in the fear of doing it.”

“But, well, I’m not going to force you to learn.” He smiled, “But any time, you can come to me, Miss Mirlinde.” 

“Thank you,” Anifaire said. She fiddled with the hem of her clothes again, considering the offer. Imagining striking someone in the face, she had no idea if she would ever be capable. “I’ll remember.”