[sub]Featuring [@Gcold][/sub]

[b][center]Afternoon, Last Seed 16
Royal Garden, Evermore Castle[/center][/b]

[hr]

Upon seeing Gustav's anxiety flare upon talking to the two Nords, and noticing the duo's attention turned towards him, Sadri decided the only viable tactic right now would be to deflect the attention. “Go with the flow,” Sadri thought to himself as he relaxed his muscles to help with his game - that being, playing dumb. The glass of brandy in his hand began shaking, and his feet became dizzier with every step; by the time he was alongside Gustav and the dynamic duo, he might as well have been drunk, mentally impaired, or merely very dumb.

He put his iron hand on Gustav's shoulder as he began speaking. “Oh Gustav, friend,” he asked with a slurry monotone voice that reeked of brain damage, “who are these people?”

For all Gustav cared, Sadri might as well have brain damage for real. Gustav frowned; instead of trying to talk his way out, Sadri had chosen to play dumb. It was dumb, because there’s no way the Dunmer could be drunk after only one sip of brandy. Rather than turning the Swiftsong twins away, Sadri’s bout only drew more of their attention.

“Well, as you all know,” Gustav mused, trying to pull Sadri into standing straight, “I have many friends here.”

“You do?” Janne quipped.

“I do, thank you very much.” Gustav shot back.

“So, then-” Jens began.

“Then I think you should recognize each other.” Gustav looked to Sadri for help, but to no avail.

“We should?” Said Janne.

Gustav was about to sigh, but he caught his breath midway and turned it into an awkward chuckle. If the twins weren’t curious before, they certainly were now. They flanked Gustav like vultures, and with likewise fascination.

“Heh, you folks, heh.” Gustav chuckled again, nervously. He looked to Sadri one last time, and decided that if the Dunmer could fool him at Dawnstar, then there’s a decent chance he’d do it again here. “How could you two not recognize Madura Dalas here? And Madura, wow, remind me not to drink that, couldn’t even remember your old editors! Ha, forgot all those articles the Swiftsongs published for you for a cup of brandy!”

“Madura?” One of the twin stopped in confusion.

“Dalas?” The other one followed.

“Yes-” Gustav nodded.

“I swear you were a lot shorter,” Jens circled in front of Sadri and leaned in to examine, “and much smoother on the face.”

“And could hold your drinks a lot better.” Janne added. “You downed half a keg during the New Life festival back in 203, and barely batted an eye.”

“And, by Stendarr, what happened to your hand?” Jens pointed to the metal piece resting on Gustav’s shoulder. “Haven’t seen this year and-”

“Look, friends, Madura and I had a bit of,” Gustav searched for the best word, “adventures, this year. You know, the kind that-” That sounded absolutely not right.

“Why don’t you tell our old friends yourself, Madura?” Gustav clapped Sadri’s back so hard, that it was basically a slap. Then Gustav gave Sadri a stern look of [i]get your (bull)shit together[/i]. “Or should we take you to the lavatory?”

After almost falling face-down thanks to Gustav's encouraging pat on the back, Sadri shut his mouth with his hand as he looked over to the Swiftsong twins, before coming eye to eye with Gustav. For a moment one could've thought that he'd lost his cognitive abilities for real, but from there, he jutted his head back with sudden realization, and offered his iron hand for a handshake. “I apologize, friends,” he began speaking slowly, “it is not the drink but, as my friend here says, adventures. I, uh,” Sadri rubbed his chin, “had the misfortune of getting shot at…”

After shaking the Dunmer’s metal hand apprehensively, the duo seemed nonplussed, and Sadri himself realized that 'getting shot at' did not exactly cover the extent of the scarring he bore, so he played his trump card, which bore the virtue of being not exactly untrue.

“...by artillery. Still recovering, thanks to Gustav here. He paid for the arm, the healers... It only does so much, though. I'm sure you understand.” He lightly tapped one of the scars on his forehead, one earned years ago in the Abecean Sea. “Memory issues. It's, it's…” He rubbed his eyes as if he were holding tears back, pinching open the often-swollen vein that Mora helped empty for extra dramatic flare. To an unaware onlooker, he'd seem as if he were crying blood from his right eye.

[i]”Better get a raise for this,”[/i] Sadri thought as he wiped bloody tears away from his eye and put on his most hapless and sadness-inducing expression. “...It's horrible... I keep forgetting. My past, my writing... I could not recognize my very [i]brother[/i].”

“Indeed.” Gustav immediately followed up. “The battles were harrowing; Madura sacrificed his own limb to chronicle the heroism of our brave warriors. The rest of the world wouldn’t be able to comprehend the horror at Windhelm and Dawnstar if not for him risking his life on the frontlines. I used to admire my friend for his candidness, and now I admire his courage on top of that.”

“And it’s no exaggeration; the Kamals do have ironclad ships shooting giant ice spikes.” Gustav gestured with his arm. “We’ve ran into one of them, right after Madura encountered his brother leading a band of Ashlander warriors in the name of the Nerevarine.”

“After?” One of the Swiftsongs perked up.

“Uh, after Madura was hit initially, and after encountering the Ashlanders.” Gustav corrected, taking a gulp of his own brandy. “Heh, lots of ‘afters’.”

Being the journalists they were, the Swiftsongs were no less apprehensive than they were initially. However, their focus shifted to something other than “Madura’s” identity. Jens grabbed a cup of cocktail from a passing servant, sipping it while appraising the Dunmer’s story. Janne, on the other hand, began sketching in her notepad.

“Windhelm; what was it like?” Jens asked. “Did the city actually fall because of the Jarl’s son’s foolishness? Were there truly thousands of bodies being dumped into the sea?”

“Why do you think your brother decided to fight for the Nerevarine?” Janne didn’t even give Gustav and Sadri a moment to breath before her own questions came out. “You hardly spoke of him before.”

“Look, I think-” Gustav tried to excuse Sadri and himself.

“Did you see the Kamals riding eight-legged bears?”

“Were the Ashlanders wearing crab shells? Did they practice sanitation like you propostulated?” The questions flooded out.

“How about we give Madura a moment to answer, and breath, eh?” Gustav suggested. He urged the group to continue walking forward along the garden, and enter the main courtyard. At this point, nothing Sadri could cook up would be less suspicious than walking away. “He’s a bit slower than he used to be.”

“A moment, yes, yes…” Sadri muttered in agreement with Gustav as the group moved further into the courtyard. He took another sip of his brandy before spotting an empty bench aside a circular pool, in which he noticed two colorful carps with immensely long barbels, swimming in perfect circles. He feigned fixation with the pool and the fish, which allowed him to walk over to the bench and make himself comfortable in answering the questions. Sitting down, he rested his good arm on his thigh and began scratching his chin as he watched the fish, in an attempt to imitate fool's wisdom and come up with answers to the twins' questions.

After an awkward minute of silence in which Sadri played contemplative monk while the others immersed themselves in the absurdity of the scene, he raised his head up as if awoken from a trance and turned his head to face the twins.

“Hmm, good questions, good questions... I shall tell you what I can remember… Windhelm... I do not remember the fall, but the corpses, I do... Bloated, burst, floating away into the night sea…”

Sadri shook his head in horror. “...And yes, I remember, I remember the beasts... The demons atop them, hounding after us, constant…”

He reached out suddenly and grabbed Janne's arm. “You are writing all these down, yes? Write it all, before I forget. Before I…”

Janne jumped when Sadri grabbed her arm. “What in Oblivion!?” She pushed the metal hand away, dropping her notepad in the process.

Jens also jumped in surprise. Though he held on to his own pages and recovered Janne's pad. “You didn't give us anything to write about.” Jens shook his head, as he gave back Janne's notepad.

Gustav didn't jump, though he finally cracked a genuinely amused smile. “Oh, his stories are more than just words.” Gustav changed to a serious facade. “It's in the eyes; the words won't be clear unless you gaze deep, and bare your soul to the pits.”

“That makes absolutely no sense!” Janne did look into the Dunmer's eyes, but she found only a blood-fouled mess in one of them. Throwing up her arms in frustration, Janne tucked her notepad securely away, and herself well beyond Sadri’s reach.

“His mind is beyond repair.” Jens pointed out for his twin. He looked at the fish pond, then back to the Dunmer sitting by it, as if drawing similarities. “Madura, we told you this ‘embedded journalism’ was reckless; now the Gazette lost one of its finest journalists because of it!”

“Now, now, friends,” Gustav stepped in without thinking, “Sadri expected to be thanked for his service, not this slandering.”

“Sadri?” 

“Oh shit!” Gustav muttered under his breath. He immediately switched to self-righteousness in attempt to recover. “That's right, bet you don’t know that word; it's Dunmeris for ‘selfless hero’, bestowed upon the few comparable to Madura Dalas.”

“Yes, yes, hearty hero, selfless… it’s in… Ashlander? I used to remember…” Sadri rubbed his chin. “It’s all in my journals, you see, my journals… What happened to them?” He asked, looking at Gustav with a quite convincing, inquisitive expression on his face.

“I heard Sadri was the name of a whaler.” Jens narrowed his eyes.

“Indeed, our associates in Morrowind ran a story on that a couple of years back.” Janne quipped.

Seeing the situation going absolutely nowhere, Gustav balled his fists and decided to do something drastic in order to end it here. “That's fake news, just like the entire Gazette nowadays. Deception, misinformation, dishonoring heroes; I'm withdrawing my sponsorship, and my subscription!”

“How dare you!?” Janne began raising her voice.

“Forget it.” Jens suggested, pushing gently nudging Janne away. He wrote a few lines with hard and sharp strokes, no doubt condescending comments. “You'll find your name in the editorials, instead of advertisements.”

“Good night, sir.” The Swiftsongs said in unison, and one pair of dirty looks later, they're gone.

Gustav sucked in a deep breath, only to choke and cough. He drank from the liquor cup next, only to find the brandy suddenly poor tasting, and quickly pour the remaining sip into the pond. He looked around the garden, the only movement greeting him was a peacock displaying its plumage and chirping like it's mocking him. Finally, Gustav sat down beside Sadri, a humorless snort escaped from his mouth.

“Wasn't as bad as I expected.” Gustav stared straight ahead. He stretched his legs and looked at Sadri appraisingly. “Though definitely could be a lot better. Anyone ever said anything about your penchant for acting? Well, you should sign up for drama courses at the Bards College.”

“Well, boss,” Sadri began his reply with a somewhat wary but candid tone, “I’ve had some experiences in that line of work, now that you’ve mentioned… But I’m not exactly sure if now’s the time for such stories. Could be a lot better, like you said, but it got the job done… I think. Who knows, maybe if I survive all this and have the money, I may take up on your advice, give it a shot.”

Sadri himself turned to take a look at the impressively smug peacock and spent a moment in silence, as if its vividly colored plumage was a gateway to a higher degree of contemplation. [i]“Haven’t had many moments to appreciate such things in life lately,”[/i] he thought to himself; [i]“fine brandy, fine clothes, fine scenery…”[/i] He let out a quiet sigh and turned his attention back to Gustav.

“It couldn’t be much worse than this line of work, could it?” He asked, with a hint of a chuckle. 

“Well, if you live the finer life long enough, you’ll start craving adventures again.” Gustav replied, scratching his cheek and watching the peacock stroll away. “But I suppose there’s hardly ever a rest for us wicked people, and I can certainly think of worse places to be right now.”

“Not much worse than where we were a few days back,” Sadri shot back. “As for the future, It doesn’t look all that good to me…”

He paused for a few seconds.

“I guess the only thing left is to enjoy the moment.”