It’s no secret the chairs are soaked in ale. Wet and rotten and filled with bugs. Probably. That’s the theory, anyway. Degaine, for one, is a believer. That’s why he’s crawling on the stone, sniffing the chairs, inhaling their musk.  He finds one that’s damp. Sticky. He clings on to it for dear life. He licks its thorny stems.

Sometimes he’ll get too excited and bite into the wood.  It’s soft, splintery.  Degaine doesn’t chew. Not at first. He clumps them in the corner of his mouth like bales of hay. Then he presses them with his molars. Squeezes out that last bit of juice.

On this day though, his bite severs the chair’s artery. Sweet, golden barley pours out from the wound. Kleppr sighs. The innkeeper only sees a mess to clean. Luckily Degaine’s clothes are made of old rags. Frabbi, Kleppr’s wife, spears his back and uses the beggar to wipe the floor.

The Khajiit doesn’t find this behavior odd. Not after Ysolda told her of the tree. She has cradled it many times, tasted its purple nectar. The tree sleeps. The soul dreams.

A chorus of sneers fill the inn as Frabbi’s mop soaks up the last of the malted syrup. This mop, which once had a name, Dejohn or something or other, was said to be a liar. Perhaps this was so, the Khajiit thinks, but the drink changed him. In the end, the mop was true to his feelings.  It was the ale that made him honest.

When she’s alone with her thoughts, the Khajiit sometimes gets anxious. She wonders if the last time will be just that. Her body shudders. Her whiskers go limp. She tries to say goodbye, but her mouth can’t even form the words. Yet with each breath, all of her doubts are trapped in a chrysalis of smoky white. And when the cocoon tears so does time itself, transporting her far beyond, to a place where she too has lost her name.

In that vision, she finds herself laid out in front of an old hearth.  Her owner, a High Elf, ambles slowly across her pelt, his bare toes wading through her gentle fur. He falls into his velvet chair before falling asleep, counting the crackle of flames as they warm the curved stone. As his body grows still, his grip loosens. He drops the bottle in his hand. It barely makes a sound.

From the lip of the bottle, a milky substance drops onto the pelt. An old friend. And the Khajiit realizes, in this life and the next, that she has no need for parting words. She’ll never have to say them.