And here we are at last! It's taken quite a while to write, but here, finally, is the last installment of Melyna's story. It involves a little bit of tweaking of canon game events, but since the basic premise of this entire story sort of breaks the canon, I hope no one will mind.

Thank you all so much for reading. I hope you've enjoyed it so far, and that you'll enjoy this final chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT – END OF STORY (FOR NOW)

The lantern-glow flickered, making my shadow shimmer from black to grey and back again. My father's ghost stared at me, his spectral form still as frozen water, his eyes – what little I could see of them behind his mask – very, very wide.

Slowly, he lifted a hand and pushed down his hood and mask. And at last, I saw his face. It was softer than I'd imagined, more boyish, but the eyes that met mine were undeniably sharp. There was no colour in his features, of course, everything was washed out into ethereal blue, but I found my mind filling in the colour. He'd had the darkest eyes, my mother had told me, and brown hair like mine. He looked at me, and I was suddenly, bizarrely, reminded of an owl. Something soft-looking, but with eyes that pierced. A creature of the shadows, quiet and patient but with talons always ready.

And suddenly I was seeing myself in this semi-transparent face. I'd always been told that I was the mirror image of my mother, but when I called up a mental image of my own reflection, I could see the tiniest traces of this man's features in my own. Still, I knew that it was my mother I resembled most, and it occurred to me just how strange it must be for him. Seeing a stranger standing in front of him, a scruffier, crimson-eyed copy of the woman he'd loved. Feeling suddenly awkward, I coughed and looked away.

'Gods,' he breathed, and took a step towards me.

'Nocturnal, actually.' I rubbed the back of my neck. 'She said some… weirdness about pulling the strings of fortune to make sure I was born, or something, and I guess I'm rambling aren't I so I should stop. But, yeah. I'm… Karliah's daughter. Which you probably worked out, since everyone says I look exactly like her. And I'm your daughter. Like I said. Yeah.'

That was the least elegant speech you ever gave in your life, I told myself. Ten marks off in the style department, Melyna.

The spirit's voice – my father's voice – cracked slightly as he spoke. 'I had no idea. None at all.'

'Neither did my mother. Not until after… until after you were dead.'

This was incredibly surreal, I realised, speaking to a man about his own death. But then, practically everything that had happened over the last few days had been surreal in some shape or form. I'd met a missing mother, made a pact with Nocturnal herself and held a Daedric artefact in my hand. After all that, speaking with my father's ghost shouldn't even really have been too surprising.

He shook his head, his eyes still round (and more owl-like than ever.) 'If I'd known… If I'd had any idea that Karliah was –'

'Then you wouldn't have gone to the Sanctum. Yeah. But you didn't know, and you did go, and here we are.'

'That's true enough.' A frown crossed his face. 'I don't even know your name.'

I shrugged. 'There's no reason why you should, since you've known about my existence for all of about thirty seconds. But it's Melyna.'

'Melyna,' he repeated, slowly and carefully, as if my name were a fine wine to be sipped and savoured. 'That's… beautiful.'

'Glad you like it,' I said. 'I just wish you'd had a chance to help choose it.'

'As do I.'

We stood there for a few moments in silence, just looking at each other. The stunned disbelief was fading from his face, to be replaced by something I could only describe as wonder.

'How long has it been?' he asked.

'Twenty five years.'

He made a small hrmm sound. 'Well. That's not as long as I'd feared. Though still more than I'd like. By the Gods, I had a daughter for twenty five years without knowing.'

'Well, I guess we're even, then. Since I went twenty-five years without knowing who either of my parents were.'

'You didn't know?' The frown was back on his face. 'How? Surely Karliah –'

He snapped off the end of the sentence, fiddling restlessly with the hem of his cloak. 'What happened to her?'

Nothing good, I thought, and wondered how to explain. All the shared blood in the world couldn't help me to understand and know a man I'd only known for a minute. Everything I knew about him came from the words we'd just shared and the stories that the Guild and my mother had told me. And it wasn't enough – it definitely wasn't enough – to know how he'd respond to everything I had to say. Would he be angry at my mother, or disappointed, for leaving me with Ahkari? Would he understand? And then I had to somehow explain that the woman he'd loved had been forced to spend twenty five years on the run, framed for his own murder.

None of it was pleasant, and none of it would be easy for him.

I decided to start at the beginning. To start with what had happened directly after his death in the Sanctum, and to keep going until I reached this very moment. And so, haltingly, I told the story as best I could. The story of my mother's flight from the Guild, and of her lucky happening upon the Khajiit caravan (very lucky, now I considered it, almost as if Nocturnal had led her there), and of my years being raised by Ahkari and how I'd eventually found my way to the Guild, and how the Guild had been falling apart without him, without my father there to lead them and a traitor at their head. And how I'd uncovered the clues that had led me to my mother, how she'd saved my life, how we'd proved her innocence together and restored the Nightingales. How we'd ventured into Irkngthand and – I confess, I told this part with rather more flare and boastfulness than the rest of the tale – how I'd bested Mercer in that desperate duel. And how I'd been given charge of the Skeleton Key to return to the Sepulchre, and how here I was now, intending to do just that.

He was a quiet audience, listening with his eyes fixed on my face, interrupting only to ask an occasional question, or to let out a long, slow sigh. And when I was done, he closes his eyes and nodded.

'It's over, then,' he murmured. 'When I went to face Mercer, I truly believed I could find a way to stop him… to convince him to turn from the path he was following. If I had had the chance, I don't know if I would even have been able to kill him. I'm glad you were able to finish what I started.'

His voice was oddly… heavy. Regretful.

'You're not mourning the man who murdered you, are you?' I asked.

'I am,' he said simply. 'Mercer and I were both still very young when the Guild recruited us. We were friends for so long. I inducted him into the Nightingales because there was no one I trusted more, even though his temperament was not exactly… well, he was far less respectful than most Nightingales. Perhaps he was never suitable for the role. It was an injudicious choice, I suppose.'

I blinked. 'Injure-what?'

'Injudicious. Showing poor judgement or lack of thought.'

A grin tugged at the corner of my mouth. 'Mother was right about you, then. She said you were always using fancy words.'

'Nothing wrong with having an erudite vocabulary,' he said primly.

'Well, there is, if no one can understand you.'

He folded his arms. 'Why, Melyna. Surely you're too old to be embarrassed by your father?'

I couldn't help but laugh at that, and I felt warmth stir inside me when he laughed too, laughed with a deep throaty chuckle. If it weren't for Mercer, I would have grown up hearing that sound every day. My father might mourn the traitor, but I knew that I never could.

'Anyway. My poor decisions are in the past now. As is Mercer Frey.' He sighed yet again, but carried on. 'You've done our Guild a great service. If they're the same as I remember, then I doubt they'll show it, but I'm certain they appreciate your sacrifices. Taking a pledge to Nocturnal is no small thing.'

I shrugged. 'I'd have ended up taking it anyway, though, wouldn't I? If you'd never died. You'd have raised me ready to take that Oath.'

'Perhaps. I would have wanted it to be your choice, and I wish it had been, rather than something forced upon you by circumstance. Though doubtless Karliah would have wanted it for you – she comes from a line of Nightingales, you know.'

I shook my head. 'No. I didn't.'

'Ask her about it. Her family have a fascinating story. You're a direct descendant of Queen Barenziah, incidentally.'

'I'm what?'

There was a definite spark of mischief in his eyes now, and suddenly I understood just why this man had become a thief.

'A descendant of Queen Barenziah – though one with no legitimate claim to royalty, I'm afraid.'

'Right. Look, I've had enough family-related revelations over the last few days to last me a lifetime, so let's leave it there, all right? Next thing I know, I'll be finding out I share blood with that legendary Dunmer guy, you know, the one in all their stories. You know, Nerevar.'

He tilted his head on one side, grinning. 'Well, actually – '

'Stop it!'

'Like I said, ask your mother about it.' His expression grew suddenly sober. 'I think of all the news you've given me, learning that she's alive is the thing it relieved me most to hear, far more than knowing that the Key is safe. I feared she'd fallen the same fate as I, ending up a victim of Mercer's betrayal. And I suppose she did, but… at least she lives. At least she didn't die for my mistakes.'

There was so much sudden bitterness in his voice that I found myself suddenly fumbling in my pocket for the Key. 'Then you should take the Key back. You're the one who got hurt most by all this. You've got more right than me to end it.'

'More right than the woman who lived twenty five years as an outcast, or the daughter who grew up without knowing her parents?' He shook his head. 'No. And even if I felt able to take that right from you… I'm afraid it's impossible. Melyna, know that I would stand at your side against all the dangers of this place if I could. But I cannot. Ever since I arrived here, I've felt myself… well… dying.'

'Again?'

He let out a quick, rueful laugh. 'I know, it's strange for a spirit to talk about his own death. But as you might have guessed, it comes back to the Key. The Sepulchre isn't merely a vault or a temple to house it. Within these walls is the Ebonmere – a conduit to Nocturnal's realm of Evergloam.'

I nodded. 'I know that much. And Nocturnal said something about… the Key being removed meaning that she couldn't influence Nirn much, or something.'

'Exactly. When Mercer stole the Key, that conduit closed, severely limiting our ties to Nocturnal. For the Thieves Guild, that means a drying up of the luck we enjoyed for years. You told me it was failing, dying – that was caused by the closing of the Ebonmere. And for me, it means that without any restoration of the power that's been keeping me here… I'm weakening. I can feel myself slipping away. It's why the other Nightingale sentinels have lost their memories of their identities and their purpose.'

'But I can stop that, right?' My heartbeat had quickened, and I reflected vaguely on how strange it was for me to feel so concerned for a man I barely knew, just because we shared blood. 'You're not going to die again. I take the Key back, and everything's fixed?'

'I believe so.'

I sucked in a breath. 'Right. Follow the path, give Nocturnal her Key back, save you and the Guild and every thief in existence. Got it.'

He nodded, and we stood looking at each other for some moments. It felt to me that there was more to be said. I doubted that many people ever got to come face-to-face with their dead parent. I had a chance that plenty of people would have killed to have, a chance to talk to him, to meet him as I'd never had a chance to. The only problem was that I didn't have a damn idea what to say to him.

So I was fortunate that he spoke first. 'Melyna… I don't think this is a situation many fathers have been in before. Well, I'm sure plenty of men learn that they have children they didn't know about, but not…' He coughed delicately. 'Not in this way, exactly.'

'True enough.'

'But… well, as surprises go, this was an extremely pleasant one. I wish that things could have been different. I wish that I could have lived to raise you.'

I swallowed; my throat was uncomfortably tight. 'Yeah. Me too.'

'If I have a right to be proud of a daughter I've only known for a few minutes, then I'm proud. Proud that you followed in my footsteps, and that you saved my Guild… our Guild. I'd give – well, anything, I think, to turn back time and have a chance at being a real father to you. But I can't. So… I'll just thank Nocturnal and every Divine that might be listening for giving us this chance to meet.'

'Same.' I breathed in deeply. 'Look, I'm not good with emotional cra… stuff. It just doesn't come to me, you know? But all my time with the Guild, people told me that you were a great leader, a good man, and all that. So when I found out you were my father, I was pretty damn pissed at Mercer for taking everything we could have had. And maybe all we get is five minutes in some creepy Daedric temple, but I'm glad to have had those five minutes. So… yeah.'

A smile spread across his face, and he nodded. 'This was certainly a fortuitous meeting.'

'Fortui-what now?'

'Fortuitous. Adjective, meaning loosely, 'happening by lucky chance.' A word someone in our line of business should really know.'

'Whatever. I'm glad I didn't inherit any pages from that dictionary you obviously swallowed at some point.' I rocked back and forth on my heels, knowing it was time for me to go, and not knowing how to leave. 'So… I'd best… get down to saving the Guild. It was nice, you know, talking.'

Another of those gentle chuckles. 'That it was, Melyna. I wonder, could you…'

He stopped, sighed, and tried again. 'Will you tell Karliah that… well.'

He broke off the sentence a second time, glancing away as if embarrassed. But I knew how that sentence would have ended, and so I nodded.

'I'm pretty sure she knows,' I said quietly. 'But yeah. I'll tell her.'

'Thank you. And… may Nocturnal watch over you. We'll see each other again – if not here, then in the Evergloam, someday. All three of us.'

He smiled and stepped to the side, leaving the path forward open. 'Eyes open, Melyna. Walk with the shadows.'

It was almost anticlimactic, in the end. After the trials of the Pilgrim's Path, returning the Key was simple.

The Key's lock in the centre of the sealed Ebonmere conduit stood at the centre of a small, circular, dimly-lit room with walls carved out from grey rock. It was ringed with archways leading not to passages, but only to shallow alcoves in the walls. The only thing of note in the chamber was the series of engraved circles on the floor – and at their centre was a disc of something that was cool as stone to the touch, but which shimmered like metal. It was in this silver circle that I found the Key's lock, a simple slot smaller than a Septim coin.

I bent down and slid the Key inside, and, when nothing happened, I remembered what I was doing. Unlocking a door. So I twisted it, there was a faint clicking sound, the key shuddered in my hand, and sank down out of my grip and into its place.

I stepped back, wondering if that was all, and if so, how in the name of every Divine and Daedric Prince I was going to get out of the chamber. But it wasn't all. Because the moment I had stepped out of the carved circles, they seared with light and rose upwards, forming a tower like one of those children's toys where an infant's clumsy hands have to stack shapes on top of each other. And then they slid downwards and out of sight, and something rose up in their place. Something shadowy, something surrounded by a purple glow.

In the same instant, more blurs of purple flashed at the edges of my vision. I twisted my head around and saw that the archways I had thought to be merely decorative had filled with shimmering sheets of indigo light. And one of those sheets suddenly rippled, fluttering as if a bird were beating its wings against it, before parting down the middle. A figure emerged from the glow, a slender figure in armour that matched mine.

'I thought you weren't coming,' I said, though my words were almost drowned out by a sudden screeching noise. Glancing to my left, I saw birds – black things with flapping wings and taloned feet – spiralling upwards from the conduit I had opened, circling around the dark shape- a shape gradually growing clearer and clearer.

My mother hurried forwards to stand beside me. 'As soon as my wound was seen to, I went to Nightingale Hall to wait for the portals to the inner sanctum to re-open. I wanted to be here to see your success for myself.' She turned her head towards the centre of the room. 'But I think I'll be seeing rather more than I bargained for.'

'What do you –?' I began, then stopped. Because the answer had materialised in front of me. The dark shape had become a figure, the figure of a woman wearing a dark grey robe. Or almost wearing it. There wasn't really all that much robe to wear.

The purple glow and the screeching flock of shadow-formed birds died away. And Nocturnal hovered in front of us, her arms spread open, one bird resting on each wrist, her eyes drilling down into us. I heard my mother intake a sharp breath, and she took a half-step backwards. This - coming face to face with Nocturnal - was exactly what she'd intended to avoid.

I lifted my chin and stepped forward. If Nocturnal wanted to talk, she could talk to me, and leave my mother be.

'My, my. What do we have here?' Nocturnal's gaze swept over us almost lazily. 'It's been a number of years since I've set foot on your world. Or perhaps it's been moments. One tends to lose track.'

I shrugged. 'Well, it's good to know my heroics were impressive enough to merit a personal appearance.'

'Ah, yes. Your heroics. Once again, the Key has been stolen, and a champion returns it to the Ebonmere.' She drew out the word champion, and I knew she was mocking the term even as she used it. 'Now that the Ebonmere has been restored, you stand before me awaiting your accolades… a pat on your back, a kiss on your cheek.'

My expression remained stony. 'I'll pass on the kiss, thanks.'

'What you fail to realise,' she went on, as if I hadn't spoken, 'is that your actions were expected, and represent nothing more than the fulfilment of your agreement.'

'No, I get that,' I snapped, perhaps more hotly than was really safe. 'I know I'm a complete failure at being a Dunmer, but I do understand how the Daedra work. You set tasks, your servants complete them or are punished. It's simple. I know what you expected, and there you are, you've got your Key back. Expectations met.'

My mother inched closer to me. 'Melyna,' she said.

'What?'

She said nothing, only raised her eyebrows. She didn't really need to say anything; I knew what she was trying to tell me. Stop talking back to the Daedric Prince.

I rolled my eyes and nodded, but Nocturnal, again, barely seemed to realise that I'd said a word. 'Don't mistake my tone for displeasure. After all, you've obediently performed your duties to the letter. But we both know this has little do to with loyalty and oaths and honour. It's about the reward… the prize.'

'Rewards and prizes are nice.' I folded my arms. 'But actually, I was trying to help my mother. And avenge my father.'

Nocturnal's gaze flicked across to my mother. 'Indeed. Strange, that you should think that such a worthy goal.'

'To a Daedra, maybe. But we mortals have this thing called love. It's kind of important.'

A long sigh – a whispering, scornful sound – came from the tight-lipped mouth. 'Love. How determined that mortal feeling seems to be to destroy my works on Nirn. Do you deny it, Karliah? Do you deny that your foolish love was responsible for the theft of my Key?'

My mother's gaze dropped to the ground, and she mumbled something incoherent.

'I didn't hear that, Karliah,' Nocturnal said coolly. 'Perhaps you would like to rethink whether it is wise for me to hear it.'

A short silence; then my mother raised her head. 'I admit that the feelings that Gallus and I had for each other distracted us from our duties and lowered his guard. I regret that the Key was stolen. But I do not regret what we shared – or what it led to.'

She turned to me on the last sentence, and smiled. A real, full smile. And I returned it with pleasure.

Nocturnal remained floating in front of us, her face impassive, giving nothing away. But I knew from the simple fact that she hadn't responded to my mother's words that she was not impressed.

'Whatever the case,' she said, looking back at me, 'fear not. You'll have your trinkets, your desire for power, your hunger for wealth. I bid you to drink deeply from the Ebonmere, mortal, for this is where the Agent of Nocturnal is born. You shall be given a power that befits your role as a Nightingale, and you shall be blessed with my luck to aid your thievery until you die – or until you are released from your oath. But that will only happen should you fail me, and I'm sure you'll be wiser than your parents in that regard, no?'

I clenched my fists and said nothing.

'The Oath has been made, the die has been cast, and your fate awaits you in the Evergloam.' Nocturnal raised her arms; the shrieking hurricane of birds rose around her again, and she began to sink back into the purple and black liquid that churned in the conduit at her feet. 'Farewell, Nightingale. See to it that the Key stays this time, won't you?'

For a second or two, I watched as she slipped away from view. Then a sudden burst of anger pulsed through me, and I took a step forward, toward the Ebonmere. We're not done.

'Get back here, you bloody Daedric bitch!' I snapped.

My mother's head spun around to face me, and there was pure disbelief in her eyes. 'Melyna!'

'No.' I folded my arms across my chest. 'I don't care if she's a Daedric Prince. I've got things that need to be said, and she needs to hear them. So she can sodding well drag herself back up here.'

I'm not sure if I really expected it to work. Perhaps the reason I was so brazenly rude was to sting her into responding out of pride – and maybe that's exactly what happened. But whatever the reason, no sooner had the waters of the Ebonmere closed over Nocturnal's head than she rose up from them again, the black birds still perched on her arms, and her expression expectant. 'Well, Nightingale?'

I swallowed, drew in a breath, and looked her in the eye. 'You've talked plenty about rewarding me. What about my parents?'

Impatience flashed across her face. 'Your mother is a Nightingale again, as you are, and she shall receive the same gifts given to you.'

'And that's it? No reward for staying loyal to you over twenty five years, even though she had pretty much no reason to?' My hands clenched into fists. 'You've gone on and on about how she failed and whatever. But after you cast her out, she had no reason to put any effort into trying to set things right. She could have gone off to the other side of Tamriel and lived her own life and tried to move on. And did she? No. She spent twenty-five years on her own without forgetting about the Nightingales, or the Key, or you – even though she'd lost everything when you threw her out just because she didn't stop something she knew literally nothing about.'

The cold, pale eyes had narrowed to slits. 'I cast her out because she allowed herself to become distracted –'

'Oh, piss off. How did her being in love with my father make the slightest bit of difference? She didn't know what Mercer was doing. She didn't. Bloody. Know. If she hadn't been with my father, she still wouldn't have known. And it's not like she didn't try, right? When he went off to Snow Veil Sanctum, she got suspicious and went after him and hell, maybe if she'd been a bit quicker she could have stopped it from happening. Guess that's bad luck, isn't it? That's what happens when the Skeleton Key gets stolen. But she didn't steal it.'

I paused only for breath before ploughing on. 'She's the reason I'm here. I mean, literally, she gave birth to me – but more than that, she's the reason I'm here, wearing this armour. When you cast her out just for one mistake, she could have decided you weren't worth it, and I wouldn't have blamed her, but instead she made a plan to trap Mercer, she worked with me, she brought her only family into the Nightingales and she helped me get to that bastard Frey. Does she get nothing for that? Just threats and scoldings for being distracted? You know that I'm in love with someone too, right? Didn't distract me from shoving a sword through Mercer's gut.'

Nocturnal opened her mouth, but I kept going. 'And what about my father? I met him, you know, at the start of the Pilgrim's Path. He's been guarding it for twenty-five years, completely on his own, because all the others went mad when Mercer took the Key. Does he get nothing for that? Nothing at all?'

Out of breath, I stopped, glaring up at the Prince defiantly. She looked back for a few moments, then glanced at my mother.

'You seem to have failed to teach your daughter any manners, Karliah,' she said.

My mother shrugged helplessly. 'Well, to be fair… she was raised by Khajiit.'

Nocturnal stared at us for a few seconds more – and laughed.

It was only a short, quick sound, and it rang in the air for only a heartbeat or two, but it was nonetheless a laugh. And it wasn't a sour, bitter laugh of the kind Mercer had made when I'd faced him in the Sanctum. It was real, genuine. Amused. I glanced at my mother, raising one eyebrow, but she simply shrugged again.

'What she lacks in respect, she makes up for in spirit,' Nocturnal said, a definite smile playing around her lips. 'If I hadn't wanted my agents to have fire and life in them, I would have turned to priests and knights to serve me, not thieves.'

She turned her gaze back to me. 'Well, Melyna. You believe I have not adequately rewarded your parents. What is it you would have me do?'

I quickly realised that this was a question I couldn't answer. 'I don't know. Just… anything. Something to show them that all that time my father spent guarding the Twilight Sepulchre even though there was nothing there to guard any more wasn't wasted. To show my mother that you actually care about how much she went through, putting everything right. To show both of them that you do actually realise how much they lost. How much all three of us lost.'

'Perhaps there is something, then, that can be done.' The amusement was still in Nocturnal's voice, just a trace of it. 'A reward for the three of you.'

She extended a hand towards one of the portals that lined the walls. It rippled in the centre, its surface shuddering, and a figure stumbled through, a translucent figure that glowed with a faint blue light.

My father pulled down his hood and his mask, and, seeing Nocturnal, bowed his head in respect. Then he glanced to the side – and his eyes fell on my mother.

'Oh, boy,' I murmured. And, grinning, I moved backwards to give them their space.

You know, Leo, I hear a lot about how kids get embarrassed when their parents act all tender in front of them. Apparently you don't want to see your parents show their feelings for each other. And honestly, I find that a little hard to wrap my head around. Maybe it's because I grew up without my parents around me, and without other children, too, to tell me what kids should and shouldn't be embarrassed by. I don't know. But in that moment, as I watched my mother and father breathe out each other's names and slowly, wonderingly cross the room to stand in front of each other, I didn't feel even the slightest trace of embarrassment. I wanted to see this. I wanted to see my parents together at last.

'I feared I would never see you again,' my mother whispered – her voice was thick was emotion, just as it had been when I'd first spoken to her outside the Sanctum. 'I was afraid that with the Key gone, you'd become…'

'Lost,' he finished for her. 'I would have met that fate, if it weren't for our daughter.'

They both turned to look at me, and my father gestured for me to come over and join them. And I did so, not making any attempt to bite back my grin.

'Quite a surprise, learning I'd had a child for the past twenty-five years,' my father said, smiling. 'A pleasant one, though. And for that child to be the one who returned the Key… well, I could hardly be more proud. I think we did all right with this one, Karliah.'

My mother let out a breathless, slightly tearful laugh. 'We didn't really play much part in raising her.'

'Still, I think you've inherited the best of both of us, Melyna. You were lucky enough to come away with your mother's good looks, for sure.' He frowned. 'Except the eyes, maybe.'

'Not entirely,' I said. 'If you look closely, there's a little sort of ring of purple around the pupils. According to my boyfriend, anyway.'

They both squinted at me for a moment, then nodded. 'A phenomenon called central heterochromia,' my father said appreciatively. 'Quite striking to look at. Though… did you say boyfriend?'

I shrugged. 'Another surprise for you, I guess. Not only do you have a daughter, she's also got a love life. His name's Marcurio, if you're interested. Imperial, like you. Dark, handsome, bit of a smart-arse.'

'Ah. I see.' A grin flickered across his face. 'It would appear the women of your family run true to type, Karliah.'

She laughed again, rolled her eyes, and pretended to hit him – a rather amusing thing to watch, since her hand passed right through him. And warmth flooded through me as I saw it, because never before had I seen her like this. Playful wasn't a word I ever thought I'd associate with her. And yet just thirty seconds of being in my father's presence seemed to have lifted the weight of a world of sorrow from her back.

Gods' blood, but she must have loved him. She must still.

'Gallus.' Nocturnal's smooth voice broke in on my thoughts, and all three of us whipped around to face her – I could tell that my parents had forgotten that she was there, just as I had. 'Your daughter has made a request of me. She believes that you and Karliah deserve to be rewarded for your loyalty to me over the past years – even after Mercer's treachery.'

My father glanced at me, and then back at Nocturnal. 'All I did was my duty. As my Oath demanded.'

'Bullshit,' I muttered – very, very softly.

'Whatever the case, I have a proposition to make to you,' Nocturnal went on. 'Tell me, Gallus – how would you feel about serving me a while longer?'

He frowned. 'You mean… guarding the Sepulchre? I believed that you were calling me to the Evergloam.'

'Should you desire to pass to my realm now, you would be welcomed,' Nocturnal said. 'But should you wish it, I could allow you to remain here in the mortal world. You would be in this form, of course; even a Daedric Prince cannot reverse death. But a sentinel spirit such as yourself can still fight. And perhaps your skills could aid your daughter.'

She raised her arms, the birds on her wrists ruffling their wings. 'Melyna claims that I should acknowledge the time that the three of you lost. Perhaps this is a suitable way. I shall bind you to Melyna, and she shall be given the ability to summon you from the Evergloam to Nirn.'

My mother was staring in undisguised shock. 'Is that possible?'

'It's not unheard of,' my father remarked. 'I've read about how certain members of the Dark Brotherhood have the ability to summon the ghosts of their dead brothers and sisters to defend them in battle. And as for myself… I certainly won't down an opportunity to get to know my daughter. Though what the Guild will say when their former leader walks through the door of the Cistern in spirit form, I can't begin to guess.'

'Then it is decided,' Nocturnal said simply, and held out one hand. There was a flash of something that was either light or smoke or both at once, something that sparked into being in the air between myself and my father and wove between us, linking us together. I felt an odd sort of tug at my insides, as if someone had tied a thread around them and given it a pull to make sure it was secure. And then the smoke-light faded, and my father looked… perhaps a little less transparent, just a touch less ghostly than he had before.

Nocturnal lowered her arms. 'It is done.'

'Thank you, my lady.' My father bowed his head in her direction. 'On behalf of all three of us.'

The black-winged swarm of birds surged up again from the Ebonmere, and Nocturnal began to sink out of sight a second time. This time, I made no attempt to hold her back. And in a second, she was gone, with only her parting words hanging in the air.

'Fair fortune, Nightingales. Eyes open. Walk with the shadows.'

The hiss of the end of the final word reverberated around the chamber before finally fading away. We stood in silence and stillness for a moment; then my mother reached out a tentative hand towards my father's arm. And this time, when she touched him, her hand did not pass through.

'How remarkable,' he murmured, his eyes fixed on the place where her fingers rested on his armour. 'It would appear that the binding spell anchored me a little more firmly into the physical world. That's rather propitious.'

I grinned. 'I might regret asking Nocturnal to do this if you keep up with the big words.'

'Allow me a little celebration, Melyna. This means I can turn pages and read books again.' He smiled broadly. 'And more importantly…'

He raised one hand, pressed it against the side of my mother's face, and kissed her. Not fiercely and desperately, like I'd kissed Marcurio in the Bee and Barb the day before, but with a soft tenderness, as if this kiss contained all the soothing words he'd need to comfort her after her twenty-five years of grieving for him.

Then he turned to me and held out his hand. And I didn't hesitate before running to them both, letting them each throw one arm around me. I held tightly to both of them, screwing my eyes shut and biting my lip because never, never had I truly believed this could happen, that I could ever be held by both my parents, that I would ever feel the comfort of just being close to the people I shared blood with. When I'd learned of my father's identity, I'd been convinced it would never happen, that it never could.

But I'd been wrong. His touch was strange, somehow, a little colder than it should have been, perhaps. It was easy to tell that he was something not completely of this world. And yet he was still there.

Mercer, I thought, smirking. You tried to tear us apart. You killed my father and forced my mother to run, forced her to give me up. Then you tried to kill me. You tried so hard to take everything from us – and instead, you gave us everything. By trying to tear us apart, you only brought us back together. How about that, Mercer gods-damn Frey? Looks like we won.

I felt a shudder run through my mother's body. 'I would never have expected…'

'For the Lady to show kindness?' My father shook his head. 'That's Nocturnal's way. Mystery is part of her nature; she acts as she chooses, and we mortals can never know what her motives really are. Those who serve her and defend her must accept that. And right now… I find it very easy to accept.'

'So what now?' I asked.

My mother drew in a long, steady breath.

'Now,' she said, 'we go home.'

And we did.

It was surprising, really, how quickly the Guild got used to the change. Losing their leader. Having the false traitor welcomed back as a trusted member. Having their dead former Guildmaster turn up again, blue and glowing. Brynjolf stared blankly for about twenty seconds solid, stammered out a greeting, then told us to explain later. Vex was suspicious until the moment my father chuckled and said that she was, 'still as contumelious as ever,' at which point she snorted, said that 'only Gallus used words like that,' and raised no further objections. Delvin glanced up at my father's greeting, muttered something about being so used to weird crap that he wasn't even surprised anymore, and turned his attention back to his mead.

The other Guild members soon got fairly used to having a ghost hanging around the Cistern. Brynjolf, perhaps, was the most grateful for his presence. After a brief discussion, it was agreed that I would be groomed to take on the Guild's leadership. It would take years of training and practice, but the senior members were in unanimous agreement – whether because they thought I deserved it, because they were grateful to me for stopping Mercer or because they thought I might have inherited my father's knack for leadership, I can't say. For some years, Brynjolf acted as an unofficial Guildmaster, despite his distaste for the role – and that was where having my father around to shoulder a share of the work came in handy.

We rebuilt, all of us together. We sold the Eyes of the Falmer, my father dredged up old contacts and shared his tips, and slowly but surely, we refilled the vault that Mercer had emptied, made the Thieves Guild a name to be feared and respected once again. By the time Tonilia had to knock together a set of the Guildmaster's leathers for me, all of Skyrim knew that nothing was beyond the reach of the band of brothers and sisters who dwelt beneath Riften.

As for my more immediate family… Nothing could get us back the twenty five years we'd lost to Mercer's treachery. But we had been given new time, and that we enough. There was time for me to sit at a table in the Flagon with both of them, telling them the tales of my life with the Khajiit caravan and my travels in Elsweyr and Morrowind and Cyrodiil. There was time for my mother and I to stand together at the archery targets, exchanging the tricks we'd learned over the years. There was time for my father to show me some of the books he'd studied and most enjoyed back when he was alive, and for me to find that they weren't as boring as I'd expected.

There was time for me to come to know my parents and for them to come to know their daughter. And there'll be plenty more time in the future. My father may come to this world for as long as I'm living in it, and I've no intention of kicking the bucket any time soon. My mother and I are Dunmer – barring accidents, we each have a few centuries in us yet. We'll make the most of that time. Pockets will be picked, safeboxes will be cracked open, and battles will be fought (and won, obviously.)

As for me and Marcurio… well, he met with parental approval. Some members of the Guild made bets that we wouldn't last more than a month. They're still grumbling about their lost money three years later. Wasn't too long before Marcurio got drunk enough to propose to me. And then you turned up on the scene, Leonardo. I won't deny that you were an accident. But you were one hell of a happy accident.

So that's it. That's the big story. Our crazy, messed up family of dark, handsome, smartass Imperials (one of them a ghost) and Dunmer women with odd-coloured eyes who can shoot a dragonfly on the wing. And you, of course, the newest little half-blood. We slapped an Imperial name on your just because we liked it, but you look like a Dunmer, mostly. Just a few traces of the human blood in you, as sometimes happens. You have your father's eyes. And you're going to break a few hearts when you're older, I'll bet good coin on that.

And Ahkari is still my family, of course. That'll never change. I introduced her to my blood parents, and they thanked her for raising me so well for so long, and she of course went and shared all kinds of embarrassing stories of my childhood with them. Ahkari will always be my mother , just as much as my birth mother. It's strange, having two people who are both my mothers, but since my father's a ghost and I'm technically a dragon, I don't think strangeness is really alien to this family.

Ah, yes. The dragon thing. That's the one part of the story left to tell. Possibly the craziest, maddest part of the whole damn tale.

My inkwell's almost running dry, kiddo, but there's just enough left for me to give you the final piece.

'This is your own fault, you know.'

I pounded through the golden plains grass, my mother's bow snug in my hand, my Guildmaster's leathers warm and comfortable, the stiff leather having long since moulded to my shape. I hurdled a rock in a single bound and twisted my head around to glare at my father, who ran alongside me with the kind of effortless, untiring lope that only a ghost can really manage.

'This is your fault, and you know it,' I snapped. 'Some father you are, letting the guards get the jump on me.'

'And some thief you are to not be keeping a better eye out! If you forget the most basic safety rules of being a thief, I'll let you get caught by the guards. Next time, you'll know better.'

I huffed loudly. 'I wasn't keeping watch because I thought you were doing it for me. How did you know that Balgruuf wasn't going to decide to have me executed?'

'If that had happened, I'd have helped you escape. But it didn't. In fact, he was rather generous, offering you a pardon in exchange for a service.'

'Two services, dad,' I said shortly. 'Delving into that Bleak Falls Barrow place – I was fine with that. Dungeon crawls have never bothered me, and I'd pick that over a jail sentence any day. But this? One task, the Jarl said. One task for Whiterun, and I'll waive your prison sentence and you'll be free to go. And then suddenly some guard comes running, spinning stories about how there's a sodding great dragon at the watchtower, and I get roped into helping fight it.'

He grinned. 'It's rather exciting, don't you think?'

'Screw exciting! I didn't finish the heist, which was the whole reason we were in Whiterun in the first place, and I'm going to be late home to Riften – if I don't get myself scorched to a crisp first, of course. You are explaining things to Marcurio if I get killed, you realise?'

'Look on the bright side,' my father said lightly. 'You've more experience with fighting dragons than anyone else here.'

'I did not fight that dragon at Helen. I ran away from it, flailing like a headless chicken. Several times. With my clothes on fire.'

We had almost reached the Western Watchtower, where it stood ten minutes' journey away from Whiterun – or used to. As we approached, it became clear that vast sections of the structure had been torn away, the rocks and bricks strewn across the ground. Smoke was still rising from the rubble. With a shudder, I thought of the destruction that the dragon had unleashed at Helgen, and of how an entire town had been razed to the ground in only a few minutes. What chance did a small troupe of guards, one housecarl, a thief and a sentinel spirit have?

Up ahead of us, Irileth – housecarl to the Jarl of Whiterun, a Dunmer like myself, and the leader of the motley band of dragon-fighters that Jarl Balgruuf had assembled – raised one hand, signalling for the rest of us to stop. It took me a while to draw level with her; I had dropped to the back of the party while we ran, so as to talk with my father without arousing suspicion. One ability that Nocturnal had bestowed upon him was that he could render himself invisible and inaudible to any he didn't wish to see him, so my companions had no idea that there was a spectre in their company. But all the ghostly abilities in the world wouldn't fail to arouse suspicion if I was heard talking with someone who simply wasn't there.

Even an invisible sword, though, would damage a dragon's scales. Frustrated as I might be with my father, I was glad he was there with me.

'No sign of our dragon, but it sure looks like he's been here.' Irileth crouched behind a rock, poking only half her face over the rim. 'I know it looks bad, but we've got to figure out what happened. And if that dragon is still skulking around somewhere.'

'I'd have thought dragons would be too big to skulk,' I remarked.

Irileth shot me a venomous glance, then waved her hand towards her guards. 'Spread out and look for survivors. We need to know what we're dealing with. You, thief – you stay where I can see you.'

She pulled her blade free and marched forwards toward the tower. Muttering a few Ta'agra curses, I followed, keeping at her heels with my bow loaded and my eyes trained on the sky.

'There is absolutely nothing keeping me from turning around and strolling right out of here,' I muttered to my father under my breath.

'I'd stop you if you tried, actually,' he said. 'These people need your help.'

'Stop lying to me, dad. I know you really just want to see a dragon.'

'Guilty as charged. But honestly, Melyna, these creatures have barely been seen in centuries! The chance to study one up close –'

'We're killing it, not stopping to take notes on it.'

He shook his head, sighting theatrically. 'How you wound me, Melyna. I am truly disconsolate.'

'Dad, please shove your fancy words up a mammoth's backside.'

'If you say so. Incidentally, the dragon is now approaching from the east.'

I spun around, drawing back my bowstring and lifting my weapon towards the sky. And indeed, there was the dragon, the vast wings spread, the spiny neck extended, the mouth already open and glinting with flame.

'Irileth!' I roared.

The housecarl turned, followed my line of sight, and spat out a soft oath. 'Gods preserve us. Men, eyes on the eastern sky! Find cover, and make every arrow count.'

I turned on the spot, seeking a defensible position, and my eyes fell on the smoking watchtower. Between it and me was a short dash across open ground, and the dragon was fast approaching – but I could make it. I would make it.

As I sprinted towards the tower entrance, the thumping of wingbeats grew from faint to loud to deafening, and a sudden wind pushed against my back. A shadow sprawled across the grass around me, the shape of a horned head and wings outstretched. I leaped the last few metres, skidding inside the tower entrance and throwing myself to the side and against the wall. A jet of flame followed me in, missing me by inches, and I felt the bare skin on my face and neck smart in the heat.

'You're planning to get to high ground, I take it.' My father had drawn his sword, a ghostly mirror image of the blade I carried at my own hip. 'I think I'll be of more use down here; I'm the only one that fire can't hurt.'

I nodded quickly. 'Sounds like a plan. I'll try sniping from the top of the tower, see if I can get the eyes or the mouth.'

'Good.' He hesitated, then stretched out a hand and rested it on my arm. 'Be careful, Melyna.'

I snorted. 'Careful's boring, but I'll try my best.'

A roar ripped through the air, a sound so fierce and so simply loud that the ground beneath my feet trembled ever so slightly. A gasp escaped me as pain lanced through my ears. This beast, I thought grimly, had to die before it deafened me.

So I spun around and raced up the tower steps two at a time, and my father marched back out into the open. There were a great many advantages to having him on my side, but perhaps the greatest was that I didn't need to worry about him getting killed. I, however, had only my leathers, my skills and the blessings of Nocturnal to protect me, so when I reached the top of the tower, I quickly threw myself against the wall, ducking out of sight.

Though my ears were still ringing, it was easy to tell where the dragon had gone. The sound of wingbeats had been replaced by a low rumbling growl, the clash of metal against scales and the swift swish and snap of vast toothed jaws. The beast was on the ground, a short distance from the foot of the tower, making life miserable for the guards facing it.

I readied my bow and slowly raised my head above the parapet. My poor beleaguered ears had been right – there was the dragon, snapping at a trio of guards who had been brave enough or mad enough to stroll right up to it and try to hack at its nose. As I watched, it lashed out with one wing, sending a guard sprawling onto his back, and drew back its head to strike a likely lethal blow – but then there was a flash of blue and the dragon was drawing back, screeching, blood dripping from a wound along its nose that had opened as if from nowhere.

'Nice one, dad,' I muttered, and pulled my bowstring back a little further. If the dragon just turned its head a little more, I might have a clear shot. If you're in doubt about a creature's weak point, my mother had once told me, always go for the eye. Obvious advice, but damn good all the same.

So when the dragon tilted its head, and one small slitted eye came into view, I sucked in a breath, gauged the distance and the wind, and sent a silent prayer in the general direction of Evergloam. Nocturnal, if you're watching, then don't you dare let me mess this one up.

I released the arrow. It snapped across the distance between me and the dragon –

And hit it, for the Gods' sakes, about one inch to the right of its eye. One measly inch.

The horned head snapped up as the arrow bounced off the thick coating of scales. The eye I had come close to shooting out of existence locked onto me, and the lips curled back, revealing the rows of teeth.

'Thanks, Nocturnal,' I growled.

The dragon threw out its wings and pumped them down, sending the guards flying from the sudden burst of wind. Something that huge should not be able to fly, but fly it did, covering the distance between the ground and the tower in three heavy pounds of the bat-like wings. I stumbled back, dropping my bow – it would be useless at close range – and reaching for my sword, my father's sword, the sword I'd killed Mercer with.

The dragon's back feet thumped down on the parapet with enough force to make the structure shake, the clawed wings sweeping forward to hold the beast in place. It arched its neck, gazing down at me, and I realised with shock that I understood what was on its face. Scorn, contempt, amusement – the things you see on the face of someone who knows he's won the battle he's fighting.

And yes, a single burst of flame would scorch the life from me. Yes, those fangs could punch right through my leathers and into my heart. But Mercer Frey had thought he'd won, too, and he'd been wrong.

As the dragon opened its mouth, I reached. Not with my body, but with whatever part of me it was that was bound to Nocturnal. I reached for the power, found it, and unleashed it.

And the dragon screamed.

Hearing a monster like that scream, literally scream, is the most bloodcurdling and most satisfying thing. I'm no hero, Leo, you should know that by now, so it won't surprise you that I relished hearing it, hearing this force of destruction brought low by me, by what I could do. Because what I was doing was sending a tendril of pure Daedric energy into the very core of the dragon's soul, and sucking the life from it. The blood quickened in my veins, my head felt clearer, my limbs stronger, and the dragon was floundering like a bird in a net, trying to pull away but unable to move.

The ability of the Nightingale Agent of Strife is a damn powerful one.

And as the dragon struggled and howled, I rushed forwards, blade bared and ready. I ducked under the flailing jaws, lunged upwards, and plunged the sword as far as I could into the depths of that screeching mouth. Blood splattered onto my wrists, hot and wet enough to be felt through my leathers, but I didn't withdraw my blade. I pushed harder. And harder still, until the hilt of the sword was pressed against the roof of the creature's mouth and I knew for certain that the blade had gone right up into the creature's brain.

Then I tugged it free and leaped back, just in time to see the dragon topple backwards and fall away from the tower, leaving a trail of blood droplets in the air for a moment, before they too dropped out of sight.

I stood there for a moment, shaking my arms in an attempt to clear some of the dragon blood from them, and taking long, deep gulps of air. Then I sheathed my sword and set off down the tower steps.

The guards were waiting at the bottom of course, some cheering and clapping, others sitting on the boulders and torn stone, either nursing their wounds or just staring dead ahead in apparent sheer disbelief that it was over. In a flash of blue, my father was at my side, grasping my arm, and I quickly shook my head. 'It's all right, dad. It's not my blood.'

He released me, with a heavy huff of relief. 'That was magnificent, Melyna.'

I couldn't stop myself from grinning. 'I'm pretty awesome, aren't I?'

'On your good days.' My father sheathed his sword and rubbed his hands together. 'Now, I'm going to take a look at that dragon. Do you think we could take some samples of the blood and the scales?'

He hurried off in the direction of the corpse, and, rolling my eyes, I followed. I wonder how different things might have been if I'd told him there was no time and taken my leave there and then, but it's not much use wondering, because I didn't. I was flushed with my success, and suddenly in a very good mood. This was going to make a fine story to share with the Guild over drinks, and my annoyance had pretty much faded.

So I approached the dragon's limp brown form. And as I neared it, it began to burn.

My father reeled back with a sharp cry, throwing out an arm to stop me from coming any nearer. For a few seconds, the shimmering blue of his outline was shot through with gold as every scale, every spike, every inch of skin on the dragon's form was consumed by fire. Pieces of flesh rose into the air, glittering with flame for a few instants before vanishing.

And then from the depths of the fire came light, strands of it, glistening white tendrils. They floated upwards from the bare skeleton that was all that was left of the dragon's body, wove around each other – and then coursed in my direction.

I yelped and leaped away, but they simply turned and kept flowing towards me. And then the light struck me, and surrounded me, and the world vanished in a blur of whiteness and suddenly my blood was burning. There was a roaring in my ears and a sudden fury fogging every corner of my mind, and I felt that if my body didn't feel completely frozen I would use it to rip the entire world apart with my bare hands –

And then, a name. It wasn't a voice in my mind. It was just suddenly something I knew, a piece of knowledge that demanded I listen to it.

Mirmulnir.

It was the dragon's name. That, too, I knew without knowing how.

And then it was gone. The rage was gone, the pain in my bones was gone, the light was gone, and I was staggering backwards, sucking in deep, desperate gulps of air. I became aware of two things: firstly, that Irileth and the guards were standing around me in an arc, staring, and secondly, that my father had his hand on my arm again, and was repeatedly whispering my name.

'I'm fine,' I told him, and then repeated it more loudly, so that none of the guards thought I was talking to myself. 'Though I would like to know what the heck just happened.'

'You're Dragonborn.'

It was one of the guards who said it, his voice blank with shock.

I blinked a few times, running this statement through my mind, and thinking of my father's books of ancient legends, and the songs I'd heard the bards singing in the taverns.

'Well,' I said. 'Shit.'

So there it is. There's the final secret, the last piece of the puzzle that's me. For some reason, Akatosh thought I'd be good at world-saving, and gave me a dragon's soul. I can't say I don't question his judgement.

I'm not going into the details of the whole quest, Leo. Someday, I'll tell you everything. You'll hear it a hundred times from the minstrels, anyway, and this was never meant to be the Dragonborn's story. It was meant to be my story, the story of my family, not the story of my great and inescapable destiny. The woman the world knows as Dragonborn marched through her quest with a scowl on her face, muttering to anyone who'd listen that she was the worst possible choice. I'm sure there were a lot of strapping Nord warriors who could have taken on the role. But for whatever reason, the Divines chose me for it… and maybe it was because they knew I wouldn't quit. Stubborn thing that I am, I was too proud to let Alduin beat me. And in the end, he didn't beat me.

Maybe Akatosh wanted someone who wouldn't bask in the glory, or try to use their fame. And Maker knows I didn't. The moment it was finished, I vanished back into the sewers. A dragon's soul I may have, but I also have a family, and I belong with them.

I am the Dragonborn, but that's only one part of me. I am a thief of the Guild. I am Guildmaster. I am a Nightingale of Nocturnal. I am a Dunmer with Imperial blood, raised by Khajiit. I am the daughter of Karliah and Gallus. I am Marcurio's wife.

And most important of all, I am your mother.

Look at you. You've woken up and you're screaming your head off like the end of the world is coming. Well, the story's over, so I'm on my way. Let me just finish this last little bit and set down my quill, though I'll have to write fast, because I can never leave you to cry for long.

I am your mother, Leonardo. And I might screw up, and I might let you down and I will definitely drive you crazy, but I will always, always be there for you.

That's a promise.

END