L E A V E S - N O - W A K E & V E L Y N
The fire crackled and spat as they ate up the driftwood Velyn had gathered along the shoreline. In the predawn light the flames danced in multicoloured hues, the salt stained fuel turning the simple campfire into a riot of blues, greens and violets. The waves lapped against the white sands of the beach, flotsam from burning wrecks that still smouldered on the southern horizon washing in with the tide.
The old mer was half stripped of his armour, his faded tattoos on his torso bared as he tried to redo the bandaging around his right shoulder, a trickle of fresh blood leaking out the soiled wrappings. He had pulled the splinter that had lodged itself in there as the ship had exploded by hand, almost passing out from the pain as he did so, before washing the wound out with saltwater. His shoulder had already been tender from the lingering injury he had acquired before he took passage on the Arslan’s Fortune, but now it was a dull throbbing ache that troubled him each and every time he moved it, as if the joint was filled with broken glass.
He lined up his supplies in the sand beside the fire, a pair of healing draughts and a bottle of sour comberry brandy. He weighed up the value of using them, and reluctantly swigged from one of the potion vials. It would help for now, but he still needed to find a proper healer somewhere on this island. Drinking the brandy was an easier decision.
If this was Stros M’Kai, which he thought it was, there would be people on this island - nearby too, if the presence of the beacon he had seen was anything to go by. The sun would rise before too long, and people would be out this way to investigate the wrecks and its grim cargo it was depositing up and down the coast here. But for now, he was alone on the deserted beach.
He unstrapped the lute from the side of his pack and cradled it in his lap, tucking his sword to the side, and strummed experimentally. The waves had gotten at the instrument as he had waded his way through the breakers, and salt water was not good for the wood or the strings for that matter. By ear it did not sound like it had warped at all, but he wanted to make sure, so despite the pain he was in, Velyn retuned the instrument and began plucking the simple melody of a Netchman’s folk song, thinking of other shores, only accessible across the ocean called memory.
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Out in the shallows, the surf lifted Leaves in slow, deliberate swells. Only the top of his head broke the surface now and then, his nostrils and eyes briefly clearing the water before the next rise carried him under. Here, the sea had settled into a quieter rhythm, far from the sinking carcass of the ship now lost beyond sight. Through the dim grey of early light he noticed movement along the shore.
At this distance the figure was little more than a shape against the sand, a darker silhouette beside a low fire. Smoke drifted inland with the breeze. The Argonian remained still in the water for several moments, watching.
Too far to make clearly.
Not a fisherman. The posture was wrong for it. The shape bent and straightened, hands moving around something held close to the body. No nets. No lines cast toward the water.
Leaves-No-Wake let the swell carry him lower again, salt washing over his eyes before he surfaced once more. The sound of the surf dulled what little noise the figure might have made. Whatever they were doing, it was careful work. He waited a moment longer, studying the shoreline one final time before turning away.
Rather than approach directly, he angled down the coast and swam with steady strokes, letting the current carry him farther along the beach before moving in. The saltwater gnawed deeper at the skin between his scales, the constant brine a dull irritation after so long in it. The Marsh did not sting like this.
As his feet found sand in the shallows, Leaves rose from the water. The surf broke quietly around his legs as he stepped onto the beach, water streaming from his leather armour and dripping steadily from the bow still slung across his back. He paused only long enough to adjust the grip of the stave against his shoulder, ensuring the string remained protected where it rested against his side.
Starting forward, the fire became clearer as he approached, along with the figure beside it.
Dunmer.
The Marsh had long memories of their kind. The mer sat near the flames with armour partially removed, shoulders angled awkwardly as he worked at fresh bandaging. A dark stain spread slowly through the wrappings where blood had begun to seep again. A deep wound, by the look of it.
Shipwreck survivor?
Leaves-No-Wake slowed his approach but did not attempt concealment. At this distance the Dunmer would hear the quiet shift of sand beneath his feet soon enough, if he hadn’t already. Stopping a few steps from the fire he allowed the old mer to finish adjusting the instrument. Then he spoke, his voice low and even.
“You were on ship.”
Not a question. His gaze panned briefly toward the shoreline beyond the fire, scanning the unfamiliar coast.
“Where are we?”
The old Dunmer’s crimson eyes glanced up at the Argonian’s voice, but he made no move to get to his feet or grab ahold of the sword saying in the sand at his side. He just continued to fiddle with the tuning pegs on the head of the stringed instrument.
“Stros M’kai, if I am not mistaken. Perhaps one the isles of the Chain if we blew far enough off course.” His voice was the ash scarred rasp of a true Dunmer of Morrrowind, a tone acquired through growing up in the ash wastes, inflected with the lilt of a native speaker of Dunmeris.
He started strumming another song, the tune a little faster than before, the notes coming fast and thick. A dancing song, one that had once played in Gnsis, for the Feast of St. Rilms, when the town would gather in the temple forecourt and stamp down the dust with bare feet. Though there were few living who would remember that now.
“I was on the ship.” He spoke as he played. “Didn’t see you though.”
The old mer glanced back up at the Argonian, a sly look in his eyes, taking stock of him. There was a tension about the both of them, one stood stock still above the waves, the other at feigned ease. Both of them, no doubt, ready to kill at a moment’s notice. The tension held as the mer strummed away at his instrument, not looking down once at the notes he was playing, his eyes reserved only for the Argonian.
And then the song was finished, and he looked away.
“You one of them? Pirate? I suppose it doesn’t really matter now, but I would advise you to refrain from attempting to rob and kill me, sera, for both our sakes. Come, take a seat, have a drink.” He gestured to the sand opposite him, and held up the bottle of Comberry Brandy in his good hand.
Leaves-No-Wake listened in silence as the Dunmer spoke.
Stros M’kai.
The name meant little to him, but the rest settled easily into place. The second vessel, the boarding, the pirates. His eyes drifted briefly toward the sea, where the last smoke of the wreck had long since thinned into the horizon. Fortunate that the old mer did not seem inclined to blame him for it.
When the Dunmer’s crimson eyes lifted again and fixed upon him, Leaves felt the familiar tightening beneath his scales. A faint prickle crawled along his arms, the quiet discomfort that always came with being watched too closely. He had spent most of his life avoiding the weight of another’s study. Standing in it now, exposed on open sand, set his muscles subtly on edge.
Though he did not shift away. Nor did he make any sudden movement when the accusation came.
Instead, his hand moved slowly to rest against the bow at his shoulder, fingers settling loosely along the wood. Not quite a threat. Not quite a reassurance either. Simply habit, the quiet instinct of someone accustomed to violence arriving without warning.
"No pirate,” he said evenly. “Pirate captive. Escaped now.”
The lie came easily enough. Whether the Dunmer believed it or not mattered little.
“Need to return to the Marsh.”
As the mer had raised his drink in invitation, Leaves’ head cocked to the side. The taste of the brandy lingered faintly on the wind, sharp and unfamiliar against the salt of the sea. Foreign swill. Nothing in it stirred any interest in him. Only the Hist carried a flavor worth seeking.
He was already preparing the refusal when something changed. Leaves lifted his head slightly, nostrils flaring as he tasted the air.
Salt. Smoke.
And beneath it, sweat, leather, metal.
It hung thick in the air, too much for one creature. His gaze slid inland toward the pale rise of dunes where the mounded sand gave way to thicker grasses. The wind grew again, bringing a smell with greater clarity, carried low and steady across the shore.
Movement.
Leaves’ eyes flicked once to the fire, once to the Dunmer and the instrument resting loosely in his hands.
Beacon.
Careless. He should have accounted for it sooner. Firelight burning against the dim shore. Music drifting across open sand. Enough to draw attention from far beyond the beach.
The Argonian’s focus returned briefly to the dunes as the wind carried the approaching scents, stronger again. Whoever was coming had not yet reached the sand, but they were close enough.
Too close.
The open beach offered little cover. Standing here much longer would leave him exposed to any eyes cresting the mounds. Without another word, he drew a thin thread of magicka inward and let it spread across his skin. The air around him bent and softened as the spell took hold, his outline fading into the shifting light and shadow cast by the fire. Then he moved.
Leaves slipped sideways from the fire and ran low across the sand toward the nearest rise of dunes. His feet barely disturbed the surface as he moved, each step light and controlled. Behind him his tail swept through the softer sand, brushing over the shallow impressions left by his passage.
A moment later he disappeared behind the crest of the dune.
As he did so, a patrol of guards emerged from the scrub beyond the beach, and made their way across the sands, armour glinting in the first light of the dawn. Seven men, redguard warriors all, dressed in chainmail and half-plate, part covered by traditional sashes, their pointed helmets wrapped in linens. Their round shields were painted with a symbol, crossed swords in crimson beneath a single ruby star.
They filed onto the beach in a half crouch, their curved swords drawn as they advanced on the guttering flames of the campfire. They were on alert, agitated, ready for a fight clearly. But as they surrounded the fire, one by one, they sheathed their swords.
For there was no one there to be seen.
The old Dunmer with his pack and his lute and his bottle of wine had disappeared somewhere too, vanishing with the coming of the dawn like some kind of strange spectre from the ghost stories that are told around fires like one he has just vacated.
The guards looked around the immediate vicinity of the fire, a few walked to the water’s edge and back to look down along the length of the beach, but none of them fanned out wide enough to begin searching all the hummocks and hollows of the surrounding dunes. After a while they satisfied themselves that there was no one here, just an abandoned campfire that someone had not extinguished fully before they had departed. The patrol regrouped, and marched off of the beach, back the way they came.
Watching from the crest of the dune, lying only feet away from the Argonian, the Dumer sipped at the bottle in his hand once more, and chuckled to himself.
“Prisoner eh? Must have been unlucky to get caught with moves like that, you’re sneakier than I am.”
Leaves remained still until the patrol had fully disappeared beyond the scrub. His eyes followed the last glint of steel through the grass, ensuring they did not circle back. Only when the taste of sweat and metal had faded did he allow the tension in his muscles to ease.
The Argonian turned his head slightly, studying the Dunmer lying only a few feet away with bottle still in hand. For a moment he simply watched the mer as he spoke. The old man had reached the dune without sound, avoiding stirring so much as a whisper of sand. Age had not slowed him as much as it first appeared. That, more than the words, held Leaves’ attention.
When the Dunmer finished speaking, the Argonian’s eyes lingered on him another moment before shifting on his stomach back toward the beach below. The patrol had come quickly, which meant more were across the island.
Leaves exhaled slowly through his nostrils and shook his head once.
“Many questions,” he said quietly as his gaze slid away from the Dunmer. “Wrong questions.”
He gestured faintly toward the open shoreline, where the sea stretched pale and empty in the growing light.
“Need focus. Find port.”
The Argonian shifted his weight in the sand and rose into a low crouch, eyes already moving across the dunes and the grasses beyond as he searched for the safest path inland.
“Ship,” he continued simply. “Marsh.”
Then he looked back at the Dunmer.
“Town. City. You seen any?”
The old mer rolled onto his back and kicked his feet up into the air, standing in one fluid move. He pulled open his pack to stow his brandy and began shrugging into a mossy coloured robe that would cover his bare torso. The bandages of his wounded shoulder, the scars and faded tattoos that told of whoever it was he used to be, disappeared from view once more. Though this time the sword stayed out, sheathed in its lacquered bonemold scabbard, hanging from the belt he clinched around his narrow waist.
“There’s a beacon to the Northeast,” he said, pointing with his free hand inland as he did so. “Saw it on my way into shore. Could be a port, or at least a village. I’ll come with you, sera, was planning on heading that way myself.”
The sun had risen by this point, the lapping waves of the wreckage strewn coast shimmered and sparkled in the morning light. A flock of gulls wheeled overhead, roused by the dawn, they let forth a chorus of shrieking calls. One landed, and began to pick at a pale bloated thing, emerging out of the retreating surf, a thing that had once bore the soul of a man.
“Might I at least get a name for my travelling companion? Or is that a wrong question too?”
Leaves watched as the Dunmer rose, his movements smooth despite the injury. There was no hesitation, no stiffness beyond what the wound demanded. Another demonstration. Whatever the old mer had once been, he had not yet lost it.
A beacon. Northeast.
The Argonian almost smiled. That gave direction, and direction was enough. He gave a small, single nod and turned inland, aligning the Dunmer’s gesture with the rising sun and the shape of the land.
When Velyn asked for his name, Leaves stilled, not outwardly, but in the quieter, internal way that came with translation. Names among his kind were not sounds shaped for other tongues, but meaning carried in thought and memory, drawn from a language that did not sit cleanly in the mouths of outsiders. What others used for him had always been approximations, close enough to suffice, never exact.
For a moment, his focus slipped. His hands tightened slightly at his sides, claws pressing faintly into his palms as he turned the meaning over, fitting it into something that could be spoken here.
“No. Acceptable. I Leaves…” A slight pause formed between the parts, its shape imperfect. “No-Wake.”
A faint tension lingered along his spine, a prickle beneath the scales at the back of his neck. Too much attention. Too direct. It settled there, not enough to move him, but enough to be felt. The name hung between them, thinner in this tongue, stripped of the depth it carried in its true form. Though, Leaves did not elaborate.
Instead, he returned his attention to the Dunmer, his tone steady once more.
“You saw beacon. You lead.”
“Very well,” the Dunmer assented, shifting his pack up onto his good shoulder. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Leaves-No-Wake, Serjo Redoran Velyn Virith, at your service.”
Characters featured in this post: Leaves-No-Wake & Velyn Virith
Written in collaboration between @Auz & @Kassarock
Written in collaboration between @Auz & @Kassarock
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