Turdas, Hearthfire 3, 4E201
5:54am
Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, Falkreath Hold

"Here, Pup."

Amara looked up from her bowl of porridge, squinting groggily at the small blade Arnbjorn was holding in front of her face. It gleamed in the light of the fireplace, all sharp edges and polished silver steel.

"Unh?" she grunted articulately.

"Your training blade," Arnbjorn elaborated. "Take it. Here's the sheath."

Unthinking, Amara reached out to grab the naked blade with her bare hand.

Arnbjorn yanked it back before her fingers could brush the metal. "No! Do you want to slice your hands open?" he snarled, expression thunderous. When she merely blinked at him tiredly, his eyes narrowed. "Did you sleep last night?"

"Uh." She thought of the hours she had spent tossing and turning in bed, viciously suppressing the urge to cry, trying to think about anything except the fact that she was here in a den of assassins because Alar hadn't cared enough to either stay or take her with him. Without Cicero to distract her, she hadn't succeeded. "Yeah?"

His expression softened a hair. "Liar," he said flatly.

"Yeah," she agreed, returning her gaze to her lukewarm porridge.

Arnbjorn scoffed and left the kitchen, taking the blade with him. Amara tried not to flinch at his disdain.

"He certainly has a way with children," Gabriella observed dryly from over her tea.

Amara spooned a lump of porridge into her mouth as she considered the statement. "Don't think trained killers are usually good with kids," she said around the mouthful. She slumped against the table, bracing her head on her arm as she chewed.

Gabriella snorted. "No, I suppose not. There doesn't tend to be many around." She took a long sip from her cup as Amara swallowed. "You'd best go get dressed, Liste—excuse me, Amara. Astrid will be by for you soon."

The spoon dropped from her hand into the bowl with a thick plop; her heart made a similar plunge. "What? Why?" she asked, alarmed, straightening from her slump. "Did I do something wrong?"

Gabriella put down her tea and gave Amara a long, searching look. "No," she said, her voice softening even further from its usual velvety drawl. "Why would you think that?"

Amara looked away from the Dunmer's piercing eyes, hunching into herself. "Dunno," she mumbled. "Just didn't think she liked me much." Yesterday's game had been encouraging, but surely it couldn't be that easy to win her over.

It was never that easy to appease adults.

Gabriella sighed. "She has no quarrel with you, Amara, believe me. No matter how sudden certain...changes have been, she wouldn't take it out on you. You're just a child."

Amara's gut twisted unpleasantly. "Right," she said, and it sounded hollow even to her own ears. As if my age ever stopped anyone. "I'll go get dressed." Gabriella didn't stop her as she fled back to her room, but she could feel the weight of the assassin's considering gaze as she went.

Her hunting clothes, now repurposed as training clothes, were still laid out from yesterday. She pulled them on reluctantly, thinking about how Cicero would have to find her more if they wanted her to practice her swordsmanship every day. The only other clothes she had were dresses.

She had just finished lacing up her boots when a soft knock came from the door.

"Amara?" said Astrid.

Amara felt her throat tighten. "Um, come in?"

The door opened, but Astrid didn't come into the room. She leaned against the doorjamb, crossing her arms over her chest, and narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. "You wore those yesterday," she observed. "What else did you bring with you?"

Amara looked down, face burning. Her parents were farmers, not Thanes. Did Astrid expect her to have a wardrobe befitting a princess because she was the Listener? "Just my dresses," she said, barely above a whisper.

"Well, that won't do." Amara's shoulders drew up further. "We'll have to get you more clothes that are suited to training. I'd say you could borrow some of Babette's, but… well, she prefers to take her targets by surprise and dresses accordingly. I don't think she even owns pants." When Amara remained silent, Astrid stood straight and beckoned. "Come on then, we have work to do."

An hour later found Amara laying flat on her back, gasping for breath, with Astrid standing over her like the embodiment of every disapproving Nord that had ever scolded Amara for her magical proclivities.

"I've seen enough," the assassin said disapprovingly, lips pressed into a thin line. She didn't seem to have a single hair out of place, despite beating Amara hither and yon across the sparring ring. "You don't know where your body is. You spend too much time in your Magicka and not enough in your own skin."

Amara felt her eyes start to water at the criticism. Of course she spent so much time with her magicka! It was all she had to defend herself! She wasn't like Alar, who had started to grow into their father's stature and build, who could already rend apart a man's limbs with a single heavy stroke of his sword. She was small and weak and—

Astrid's hand appeared in front of her nose. She tried not to flinch but failed badly. "Come on," the older woman said in a much softer voice. "Up. You did well. This is nothing that can't be fixed."

She took the offered hand, if for no other reason than it would be rude not to, but her mind was struggling to keep up. Fixed? She wondered. What does that mean? How? She was still a mage, fundamentally. She'd never be like Alar, even if Astrid thrashed her across the training ring every single day until she was old and gray.

Seeing Amara's lost expression, Astrid elaborated: "we're going to train, Amara. Sparring, every day, not always with me but with someone. You need to be at home in your body if we're ever going to take you out on contracts."

Oh. Contracts. Assassinations. For a moment, she had forgotten.

"Right," she said, a little faintly. So thrashing her across the training ring every day was exactly what Astrid intended to do. Her back was throbbing. Her head was throbbing. She wanted to crawl back into bed—no, actually she wanted to crawl into her papa's arms and never leave.

Her whirlwind of rising panic was interrupted by a scoff. "Sparring," said Festus, emerging from the corridor that led to the potion's room. "All well and good, Amara, but you and me, we're built for better things." His hands burst theatrically into flames, painting his grinning face in red light. "Magic."

Astrid rolled her eyes.

"Now, come show me what you can do!"

Festus manhandled Amara in front of a training dummy as Astrid vanished back to the front room. Bewildered but unwilling to argue, she followed his directions, striking the dummy with fire, ice, and lightning. He seemed pleased and proceeded to put her through her paces, asking for a demonstration of every single spell she had ever cast, then every spell she had seen before and thought she might be able to replicate. Slowly, she calmed, relaxing into the familiar rhythm of spellcasting.

Festus was exacting but not unkind. Every criticism was directed at her technique and accompanied by clear instructions on how to fix her error. He tilted her wrists, bent her elbows to the correct angle, traced runes into her palms to help her feel the magic she was trying to call. By the end, she was smiling and laughing. The dummy had been reduced to a charred lump covered in spikes of melting ice.

"Good girl!" Festus said, clapping her shoulder. "You've got the makings of a great mage. Tomorrow we'll work on making that lightning of yours more precise. More deadly that way."

Tomorrow? Amara wondered, but Festus vanished before she could find her voice.

"Amara, come over here," called Gabriella, waving her toward the kitchen.

She went, feeling a bit like a hot potato that the assassins were tossing between each other. Lunch for two was on the table, composed of smoked venison, stew, and bread. Her stomach growled loudly at the sight. She hadn't the slightest idea what time it was, given the lack of sunlight underground, but it must have been near noon. She was so hungry she almost missed the books, wax tablet, and abacus that were also on the table.

Almost.

Gabriella sat adjacent to her, motioning that she should eat before digging into her own plate. The silence between them was a relief, but Amara was too distracted by the books and supplies to fully relax. Surely they weren't for Gabriella. Maybe they were part of Babette's costumes. She hastily pushed the thought out of her head, unwilling to examine the implications.

Gabriella spoke when she had finished eating. "Amara, what has your education been like so far?"

She blinked. "Here?"

"No, sweetling, before you came here." There was an amused glint in the assassin's red eyes.

"Oh. Uhm, ma—er, mother taught me my numbers so I could run the farm. Pa—father taught me how to read, so I'm really good at that. Alar and I both learned how to hunt with bows, and I know some swordplay but I'm still too little to be good at it. I didn't like it anyways. Uhm, father taught me magic and I went to the College in Winterhold for a little bit with him once." She looked down, eyes stinging. "I was supposed to enroll there once I reached my majority. I, um, I can ride really well. I learned history and geography in Whiterun until…" she swallowed hard and forced herself to continue past the lump in her throat. "And, uhm, and my auntie and uncle taught me a lot about politics while I was in the capital."

Gabriella was nice enough to ignore her suspiciously shiny eyes. "Well, it sounds like you've had quite a well-rounded education so far, Amara," she praised, seemingly pleased with what the girl had reported. "It's important to be well-educated in our line of work. There are many situations that will be made less dangerous with the right knowledge. Even something as simple as geometry could save your life one day."

Our line of work, she'd said. Amara felt cold, but she nodded anyway.

"Let's start with mathematics." Gabriella handed her the wax tablet and its stylus. "Can you write out the ninth multiplication table?"

Amara's brain felt like it had been scoured with steel when Gabriella had finally finished with her. They had gone over everything Amara had ever learned—math, geography, economics, politics, strategy, etiquette, literature, magical theory, languages, history, science. The only nice thing about the extended testing was that Gabriella was so gentle that Amara had never felt humiliated by her lack of knowledge in a particular area. The assassin had merely nodded, made a note on her paper, and moved on.

Still, Amara felt her ears begin to burn when she realized just how much text was packed onto that paper by the time they were done.

"I think that's enough for today," Gabriella said, smiling. "Thank you for being so patient, Amara. I know that wasn't easy."

Amara opened her mouth then shut it and offered a silent nod.

"Are you done? Finally!"

Babette was suddenly leaning over Amara's chair, her face so close that Amara could feel breath on her hair. "My turn!" she said with a grin that the little Nord could feel but not see. "Come on, kid, you're with me now."

"What?" she asked, bewildered, as Babette dragged her up out of the chair and away from the kitchen. Frustration bubbled unpleasantly in her gut as she was towed into the potions room. "I don't understand! Why do you all keep passing me around like a baby?"

Babette seemed to understand immediately. She paused, hands still latched onto Amara's arms, and her red-orange eyes searched the girl's face. "Cicero didn't tell you?"

Her eyes were stinging again. She willed them to stop. "I haven't seen Cicero since yesterday," she said, only the slightest wobble in her voice.

"Oh," said Babette. "Oh Amara, I'm sorry. We all thought he'd told you. We're setting up a training schedule for you. Depending on who's in the sanctuary, you'll be learning from us every day. We each have a different skill to teach you, and Gabriella is in charge of your general education. It's my turn to teach you potions."

"Oh," said Amara. She suddenly felt quite stupid. In hindsight, it was very obvious that Astrid, Festus, and Gabriella had been assessing her skills to determine where to begin teaching her. Hadn't Astrid even said something to that effect?

"Hey, it's alright, no need to look like that," Babette said softly. "You didn't know what to expect and Cicero didn't tell you. How could you have known?"

Amara looked down. "It..seems obvious now," she said.

"In hindsight, most things are," Babette laughed, patting her arm. "Now, come on, I promise this is going to be fun, okay?"

It was fun, as it turned out. Babette made a game out of mixing ingredients. Amara would pick three random ingredients and Babette would be able to tell her exactly what potions she could make with them. The little Nord picked crazier and crazier combinations until Babette finally looked baffled and faintly disgusted by what she presented. "That… would explode and make the worst smell you've ever smelled, I think." Amara laughed but quickly put the ingredients down.

When Cicero finally came back, Babette was coaching Amara through the steps to make a very basic healing potion. The little Nord glanced up to see him leaning against the wall as she was pouring the finished potion into a little bottle. A wave of relief swept over her, so profound that her knees nearly buckled. "Cicero!" she squeaked, hastily putting the bottle down.

"Little Listener!" he responded in kind, seizing her under the arms and tossing her up with an alarming amount of strength. She gasped, terrified for a split second until he safely caught her.

"Not near my potions!" Babette shrieked.

"Let us go see Mother, Little Listener," he decided cheerfully, sitting her on one of his shoulders.

Even if she was willing to argue with Cicero, that was one suggestion she would never refuse. "Bye Babette, thank you!" she said, waving as she ducked to avoid hitting her head on the stone ceiling. She held onto Cicero's jester hat, keeping her balance until they came to the chapel and he set her down in front of Mother's sarcophagus.

Mother was silent, but Amara told her everything that had happened that day anyways. Cicero took a seat beside her and listened. He was even nice enough to apologize once she finished telling Mother about how confused she was when everyone kept passing her around and making her do things.

Alar would never have apologized for that, she thought. It was a...confusing thought, so she pushed it aside for another time.

"Cicero, what are you going to teach me?" she ventured when they had both been silent for a while.

He hummed, spinning his Ebony blade idly in one hand. "Tradition," he said. "The Tenets. And other skills too, but Cicero will wait to see what the others teach dear little Amara before he decides."

Amara was tempted to ask what a tenet was, but she had spent all day being quizzed and lectured at. She didn't really feel like sitting through another, even from Cicero. "And this is going to be...every day?"

He laughed. "Yes, every day, though Cicero is certain that there will be plenty of time for a Little Listener to play and rest. It will not be as bad as you seem to think, Little Listener."

She scowled, but Cicero met her displeasure with an arched eyebrow. "We'll see," she grumbled.