The little thatched-roof cabin smelled of herbs and wood smoke; the kettle burbled next to the fire. It was a beautiful, sunny day, light streaming in through the window, dust motes dancing about in its rays. Dardeh poured some of the hot water into the tea pot and waited for it to steep. He stoked the fire again, wiping the sweat off his brow in the stifling room. The rabbit stew in the cooking pot was beginning to smell wonderful. Needs some carrots, he thought. I’ll do that in a bit. He stopped for a moment and listened to the quiet wheezing of his mother, in her bed next to the window where he’d moved it some time ago. She loved to look out at the mountains and the sky. He sighed and strained a cup of hot tea into her favorite cup.
“Dar?”
“Yes, Ma?”
He walked to her bedside, carrying the cup. It was so hard, right now. She was shrinking before his eyes and there was nothing any of the healers had found to help her. Her hair had been more grey than blonde for many years, but now it was dull, lifeless, brittle. There were dark circles under her eyes the likes of which he’d never seen, and she was too weak to do much of anything but sleep. Even eating seemed like a chore for her these days. It was breaking his heart.
His mother was descended from the Nords who claimed the eastern half of Dragonstar back in the Third Era, though she herself had been born near Markarth, in Skyrim. She had raised Dardeh alone there, in a cluster of homes occupied by hardy souls who worked the silver mines. Once he had been old enough, and his body had changed from that of a little boy to the barrel-chested, muscled engine that she told him resembled her father’s, he’d gone to work in the mines, too, and had managed to support them well – or at least as well as one could on a miner’s wages. She was a good woman, Dardeh’s mother was, and had done everything she possibly could for him in spite of their meager circumstances, making sure he was fed and educated and loved. When she was gone he would be alone. He had always known that it would be that way some day, but he had assumed that day would come when she was very old. This was just too soon.
“Don’t you need to be out at the mines? I don’t want you to get in trouble.” She smiled at him, her bright honey-bronze eyes looking watery and bloodshot.
“No, Ma. I told them you weren’t feeling well and the boss told me ‘Dardeh, don’t you dare show your face here until she’s better.’ I’ll be fine.” That was a complete and utter lie, and Dardeh knew that she probably realized it, but he wasn’t about to tell her how unsympathetic the overseer had actually been. It would be fine, though. As big as he was, Dardeh could bring more ore out of the mountain in a day than the next two men together. He was sure his absence was being felt. He expected to be welcomed back with enthusiasm once he returned. In the meantime, he intended to take care of his mother.
She chuckled. “All right then. Can you help me with this blanket? I’m so chilly. Anyway, I need to tell you something before it’s too late and I can’t remember it anymore.”
“Ok, what is it?” He placed the tea on the small stand next to her bed and pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, tucking it in around her the way she liked it. No need for her to be cold, and she got chilled very easily right now in spite of her being a Nord, in spite of the roaring fire going constantly.
Then he sat down on the edge, gingerly; he was such a big man that he was afraid, at this stage, of crushing her if he missed his spot.
“Thank you, dear. That’s much better.” She smiled up at him. “You know that I’ve never told you very much about your da.”
“Yeah. Not much. He wasn’t your husband. That’s about all.”
“No he wasn’t. He was married to the most stunning Redguard girl.” She smiled. “What a surprise, yes? Two Redguards married to each other? But I chased after him anyway, silly thing that I was. He was a big handsome brute, just like his son.”
“Are you calling me a brute?” He raised one eyebrow and mocked a glare.
She laughed, then winced. Dardeh sighed to himself. Damned disease.
“Well I kept tabs on him over the years, with the help of some mutual friends. I just wanted to make sure he was all right. He went south, back to Hammerfell, and all the way to Stros M’Kai, and they settled there, as much as he ever settled anywhere. I’m sure she wanted to get him as far away from me as she could, and it was probably a good idea.” She sighed, but smiled again and winked at Dardeh. “In spite of everything I loved that big idiot and, well, people will be people, in the end. It wasn’t right, what we did, but you were the result and there’s never been a finer one ever.”
“Ma.”
“Dardeh.” She smiled again.
She was a happy person by nature, took life as it came to her with few complaints, and tried to make the best of everything. He’d often thought about it. How hard must it have been to have found herself pregnant by a man who wasn’t hers and wasn’t ever going to be hers, to always be looked down upon by the busybodies around her, to never have an extra set of hands helping with a baby, or the house, or anything at all. And yet, she had never spoken ill of him, had rarely complained, and had done everything she could to make sure Dardeh was happy and healthy. Lots of other children with both parents didn’t have that.
In his mind, that made his mother a stronger person than most.
“I never told you this because you didn’t have a father anyway and, well… He’s been gone for a long time now, Dar. Since you were just a boy.”
“You mean gone as in dead?”
She nodded. “He and his wife were killed in a bandit raid, quite a while ago now.”
Dardeh didn’t know what he was supposed to feel.
It wasn’t as though his father had ever been a part of his life, done anything for him, come to visit, or had any influence on his rearing. All Dardeh knew of him was those swords. That’s your heritage, she had told him so many times. Those are Redguard swords. Only Redguard men should be carrying those. I’m a Nord, Ma, just like you, he’d told her time and again, but she’d insisted, and that was what he knew of his father – a faceless Redguard who left behind a set of swords and a son he never bothered with. He supposed that he felt bad for anyone who was killed before their time, but…
He looked at her thin face, wrapped as it was in a brilliant smile, and his heart ached for her that she’d been alone all those years, raising him.
“So why are you telling me this now, ma?”
“Because,” she said, trying to raise herself up off the pillow a bit and failing, “they had a little girl, just a couple of years after you were born. What I am made to understand is that the girl survived. She was just a wee thing at the time, and they never found a body after the attack.”
“If that girl is alive, Dar, she’s your sister. Or half-sister, anyway.”
Dardeh’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”
A sister? An actual, blood sibling?
“Yes.”
“Ma, why did you never tell me this before?”
“I don’t know,” she said, sighing and closing her eyes, her brows furrowing as another wave of pain rolled through her. Damn it, Dardeh thought. I’d give anything to at least make her comfortable. She’s trying so hard to hide it from me.
“It didn’t seem as though telling you would accomplish a thing. And I wasn’t even sure she was alive.”
“But now you are?”
“No, I’m not. But the friends who were keeping an eye on your father for me have said several times over the years that there was a girl there in Port Hunding who looks a lot like him. They got in touch with me a while ago. It seems that she left, and she probably took the boat to Daggerfall. Who knows where she might have gone from there; it would be a real long shot to find her, but it might be possible. They told me she got into a bit of a pickle some years back and has a scar on her face. Both your da and her ma had green eyes and black hair. That might help you find her if you go looking.”
“I don’t understand. Why tell me this now, Ma?”
She patted his hand. “Because, my sweet boy, I’m dying. I won’t be around much longer. You know that. You may yet have some family in this world and I wanted you to know about it, in case you want to go looking. If you don’t, not a soul alive will mind; but if you didn’t know you’d never have the chance to decide for yourself.”
Dardeh helped lift her forward and plumped her pillows. He covered her in her favorite blankets. He finished the rabbit stew and tried to feed her some of it, but all she managed was a few spoonfuls of the broth. It was something, at least, he thought, wracking his brain for something else that would be easy for her to eat, that he could make in the morning.
He pulled a chair next to her bed and sat with her, talking and laughing, until the wee hours. He fell asleep in the chair, for a while.
The sun was peeking into the room when he woke up. He stood and stretched; walked, yawning, over to the fireplace and began stoking it up. He stepped outside to draw some water for the teapot, then came in and set it to heat.
“What kind of tea do you want this morning, Ma?”
He started rummaging around in the food stores. Maybe some oatmeal would be good. Maybe.
“Can you think of anything that might taste good to you today?”
There was no answer.
He turned toward the bed, realizing that he hadn’t heard her wheezing since he’d opened his eyes.
“Ma?”
He walked to her bedside and looked down at her. She was still smiling, but she was gone.
“Oh Ma,” he said, a few fat tears dropping from his eyes and running down the side of his nose. Just like her. “I’m dying” had meant “I’m dying right now,” not a general statement of things to come. She’d always been like that, no unnecessary fanfare about anything. Leave it to her to keep things lighthearted until the very end.
“I love you, Ma. I’m glad it doesn’t hurt anymore. Talos guide you.” He smiled at her, wiping his eyes, tucking her in one last time so that she wouldn’t be cold while he went to make arrangements for her interment in Markarth. He looked down at her again, then his gaze shifted to the table near her.
She never had drunk the tea.
