Cyrodiil/Tattoo

he icy fingers of Morning Star wind whipped around the ragged feet of the elderly beggar, threatening to pull the last of his meagre possessions off of his own back. Hobbling from alleyway to alleyway, his old bones looked sure to bend and break in the gale - but his eyes were bright and quick, and snapped to shelter wherever it could be found. The great stone palaces of the   would provide little cover here though, and the Dunmer forced himself on, trying to lose the cold in his own thoughts.

Veleth turned his mind back to his younger days, to the manors in Kragenmoor and  , of fine wine and good food; of the beautiful Tolmi. Of all that he had lost since the Red Year, her loss was still the worst pain to bear. And now all he had to remember her by was...

A Khajiit, needle in hand, waved him over towards a table. The figure already lying there had a few rough marking and lines drawn upon his back; simple tribal markings. The hands Veleth shooed the Cat off with were burned and scarred beyond all recognition. Those hands that had made dragons roar on the back of men, that had created murals so beautiful as to serve as windows through the Waters of Oblivion themselves! A pox on the Cat, and anyone else who would dare call themselves a tattooist.

The beggar stopped with a thud. He had stumbled through the Elven Gardens, only to be rudely shocked with a familiar name, painted in ten foot high letters above a gallery. So, the blighter had done well for himself after all! Perhaps he'd take pity upon an old friend on hard times?

He had met the boy on the streets of Cheydinhal with his wife - a sullen and pouty child, natural talent, but unwilling to work. He had been selling a few handpainted postcards on the streetside, jumping for half septims in the mud like a common scribbler. When Veleth had asked the boy why he would waste his talent on travellers and their change, the boy had retorted that he had no other skill, and no way of making more money from it. And so the Dunmer had taken him in, apprenticed him and trained him, that the boy may one day create a work of art for his master - that he would immortalise the Dunmers' wife upon the back.

As the years passed, the boy reached the limits of natural talent and pushed beyond, while Veleth found his fall from grace swift and unrelenting. From the opulent front rooms of wealthy Imperials chasing the latest fad to begging for scraps at their doors, the beggar could now only hope that the young man would recognise him - and maybe help him.

The gallery was packed with the high society of the capital. Rich, plummy voices mingled with the smell of dark wood and oil. Within seconds of his unannounced arrival, eyes began to turn on the beggar disapprovingly, first a few, then a great many. A pale Breton waddled over, the fat on his chin trembling with indignation. The curator, it would seem.

"Excuse me! Excuse... me! You'll have to leave! This is a private exhibition!"

The Dunmer said nothing as he stepped towards the nearest painting, and began to examine. It was the same man. The lopsided technique was unmistakeable. Lythandas had truly matured as an artist!

The Breton continued to ramble on in his incessant, reedy voice. The Dunmer ignored him until he felt a large, meaty hand wrap around his shoulder. Twisting out of the Bretons grip, he backed away into the corner, drawing his tattered clothes around him.

"Where is Lythandas!? I must see him! He will help me!"

The fat, trembling face twisted into a sneer. "He isn't here, fool. How could he be?"

"Where is Rythe? I have his work with me now! I helped him! Where is he?"

A short silence descended upon the patrons, before being replaced by derisive laughter.

"You? You have an original Lythandas? And where did you hide it, beggar? Between the folds of sagging flesh I see between your rags?"

"I do! I do have a work by him! I do!" He turned, and shrugged off his cloak before he could be stopped. Silence descended upon the room in an instant. Upon the elderly elf's back, wrinkled and furrowed, but unmistakeable in its beauty, was a masterpiece, an exquisite tattoo of beautiful Dunmer girl. A few noblemen approached, softly, reverently, to inspect.

"It's stunning, it could be..."

"It is! He's left his signature! Right here!"

"One of his earlier works, perhaps, but it could be worth..."

"Hundreds!"

"Thousands!"

"I'll pay anything you want!"

Veleth felt himself pulled, this way and that. Purses thrust in his face, offers and counter offers howled and screamed at him. Only one question remained, but it was insurmountable...

"But how? How should I get this infernal painting off me when it is as a part of me as the skin upon my back?"

It took just seconds for the clamouring, grasping fiends to begin anew.

"I shall pay for a transplant! A graft!"

"The greatest magical copy the world has yet seen..."

"Excuse me."

Another hand on his shoulder, this one gentler than the rest. The other voices died away, apparently cowed by the Altmer that now whispered into his ear.

"There are many here that would see great harm to you to add to their own little collections. I assure you this will not happen." He leaned back, allowing Veleth to take a better look at him. His radiant golden skin and warm, soft eyes. "I own the Ayrenn Hotel, in Senchal. I cannot ask you to part with your masterpiece, so instead I would ask you to live as my guest. All you would have to do is relax in the sun, enjoy my food and drink, surround yourself with the men and women of high society, and I would pay you for it."

"But... why?"

The Altmer's mouth twitched into a small smile. "So that I may say, look who goes there - the man with the Million Septim picture on his back, and he is mine! You would live a life of luxury that kings could only dream of, so long as you live it with me!"

The Dunmer considered - the entire gallery was fixed upon him, eyes bulging and mouths agape. He felt the chill breeze over his bare back, and he was sick of the cold. He turned to the Altmer and nodded.

"Excellent. If you would just follow me in private, and we may discuss the terms..." A long arm was wrapped around Veleths' neck, cheerful and affectionate, and he began to relax.

Of course, when a new Lythandas, printed on a leathery old piece of tan surfaced on the black markets of Elsweyr some months later, the patrons of that Imperial gallery would not breathe a word. After all, the Dunmer may well be fine and healthy! And even if the Ayrenn Hotel of Senchal does not exist, what is one less beggar to the world, to the discovery of such a masterpiece...?