Surely there had to be somewhere quiet and out of the way, right? Somewhere nobody would notice a scrawny little Khajiit ducking into the shadows to do her business.

Apparently not. Somehow, the Imperial City didn’t have very much in the way of out-of-sight alleys, only the huge ring defining a path around the entire city, and roads branching from it that were always far too open and visible, even with nobody there, for what Azhani needed to do.

And in her mind, saying she needed it was quite the understatement. It was always hard for her to find privacy, but today had been even worse than usual. Not only had she been exceptionally busy, and therefore unable to slip away from her work to find a place to relieve herself, but even when she wasn’t doing anything there still seemed to be far too many people around no matter where she went.

By now the sky was turning red as Magrus descended to the horizon, and for several hours Azhani had been truly miserable. Not in any pain, fortunately, but with her bladder full enough to consistently antagonize her, she had been focused entirely on the pressure and her desire to even be capable of relieving it.

If it were up to her, after all, she would have taken care of her need as soon as it started to become an annoyance; but she wasn’t really the one in control here, and she knew that all too well from that journey to this moonsforsaken abomination of a city, and all that had happened since. She needed somewhere quiet. Somewhere private. She needed to be alone.

Old habits kept enticing her with options on how to find such a place – Azhani kept scanning the buildings she walked past, hastily putting together plans on how to force her way in and get some privacy that way. The only reason she hadn’t acted on any of those plans was because the day was ending and she knew people were more likely to be home; there was no way she was going to risk breaking into an occupied home just so she could do something stupid like use a chamberpot. All that could ever come of that would be for her to get dragged off to the Bastion without so much as a single drop of relief for her aching bladder.

No, that was absolutely out of the question. She just had to keep walking, her tail lashing behind her in annoyance and discomfort as every step jostled her bladder and magnified the obscene pressure its own contents were already putting on it. She would get to go soon, she kept telling herself. Soon there would be a quiet place; a little park, or an obscure path, or maybe even some nook with a disregarded sewer entrance and a box or two of maintenance supplies. Azhani didn’t figure herself lucky enough to be able to find the latter twice in one lifetime, but she could still hope.

Or maybe it wasn’t the space around the entrance that would be important this time… Azhani stopped for a moment to shake her head and clear that thought from her mind. Sure, the sewers seemed like the obvious place to do what needed to be done, but with how important they were to the City, civilians such as herself weren’t technically allowed inside; especially not in light of the catastrophic result of some Merrunz-worshipping zealots sneaking into the sewers a little under two hundred years ago. Apparently some people had made their way in since then regardless, but following a recent blight of vagrancy and Legion action to resolve it, there was always a guard somewhere near the entrances to make sure nobody could get in. Azhani had simply been incredibly fortunate to find one unattended, even if it had been locked.

Seemed she had no such luck today, though. She was seeing plenty of Legion soldiers standing around in very inconvenient locations, but nothing useful. Nothing but a park up ahead, which at the very least would get Azhani off the streets, even if she wasn’t especially optimistic about being able to find anywhere there to go. It would be a step in the right direction, if nothing else.

Doing her best to maintain composure without drawing attention to herself, she directed herself towards the grassy tree-speckled area ahead with a stiff gait and her hands balled up at her sides. Even before she had stepped onto the grass she could tell it would be extremely difficult to find privacy here – there wasn’t much in the way of bushes, and people seemed to always be dangerously close to anything that might have been able to serve as cover.

But she still had to try to find a place; her bladder was full, heavy, and straining from the effort of containing so much sloshing fluid. It would only get worse if she didn’t take the chance, and at worst she’d just have to keep moving until she found somewhere acceptable.

So Azhani walked through the park as casually as she could, trying to focus more on appreciating the feeling of cool grass under her toes than on anything else, all the while keeping an eye out for potential hiding spots. She passed a few people that gave her odd looks, but she certainly didn’t care – she needed to pee, and if her attempts to suppress her urge to squirm were making her look silly, that would be fine as long as nobody paid too much attention to her.

Or, it would be fine provided she could find what she was looking for, anyways. It was a decently-sized park, so surely there had to be something. She had to try something. And so, as her walk took her to a less-populated area, Azhani looked around for anything that could conceal her and what she was planning on doing. She found only a handful of bushes scattered around, far too small for her needs, and a decoratively-carved stone bench with nobody currently seated there.

And that gave her a probably-terrible idea…

As quickly as she could with her thighs refusing to part more than just a little bit, she approached the bench and took a seat, crossing her legs and sitting as casually as she could while subtly wiggling. She wasn’t sure if what she had in mind would work – she was wearing tattered pants, not a skirt, so she wouldn’t be able to be quite as covert as she would have liked.

But she still had to try anyways, so for a few minutes Azhani waited, bouncing impatiently as people passed by with no more than an acknowledgement of her existence. When at last a moment came where she seemed to be alone, she looked around to check the location of the nearest other living things before slightly lifting herself up and tugging on her pants from the back to try and discreetly get them out of the way. She couldn’t work the old rags properly to expose what needed to be exposed without also having it visible, at least a little bit, from the front, so she leaned slightly forward and casually rested a hand in her lap as she shifted back to hang her rear end over the side of the bench.

Then Azhani tried to focus, looking around again to make sure nobody would see what she was doing. With a deep breath, she tried to relax and convince her bladder to do the same, only to feel little more than a spike in pressure that made her shudder as her urine came right to the edge of release without actually going anywhere. Azhani groaned and tried to force herself to let go, only for another surge of need to run through her while her body refused to do anything about it.

Why did she have to be like this? She very badly needed to relieve herself, and though she was fully prepared to do so, she simply couldn’t. Her pulsing bladder burned within her as the full day of boiling liquid within it strained against its walls, stretching it out and creating a visible mound in her abdomen; something that she was all too familiar with. Azhani recalled the time her bladder had even been full enough to extend past her breasts (unremarkable though such a feat may have been, it was still notable in her mind) and the incomprehensible relief she had felt at the end of that torturous day of holding far too much for far too long – hopefully the memory would inspire her body to try to recreate the event, but she groaned again when no such thing happened.

She would just have to find somewhere else, it seemed, so Azhani pulled her pants up again as stealthily as she had brought them down, then stood up and kept on walking and trying to act like nothing was wrong. All she really needed was just one good bush, or some isolated spot behind a neglected tree, and her search would be over. Again she looked carefully at everything around her, hands positioned in front of her body to hopefully look casual while she kneaded at herself between her legs.

This wasn’t the worst she’d ever needed to go, but it was definitely getting into what she would have defined as an emergency. She was actively trying to relieve herself, to have an accident while she walked, but something within her kept denying it and would continue to do so until she could take care of herself entirely unobserved – and she needed urgently to find a suitable place before anything bad started happening.

A thick tree now caught her attention as a candidate for such a place, though it was certainly not ideal. The tree was in a corner, near where two buildings met at the edge of the park, but consequently would be easily visible from those buildings, and to make matters worse someone was resting on a bench nearby and would likely hear anything Azhani were to do.

But it could work, so she needed to try it. As nonchalantly as she could while hunched over with her hands hovering in front of her groin and thighs staying close to each other, she made her way over to the tree, reaching out with one hand to lean against it for a moment while she took stock of the situation.

There was definitely someone within ten yards of her, and probably others on the other side of those windows. But at the same time, her bladder was eager to burst and this may have been the inspiration it needed to do so.

Taking a deep breath, Azhani snuck around to the far side of the tree, thankful that she was small enough for it to easily be wider than her, and immediately tugged her pants down to her knees as she dropped into a squat with her back to the tree.

Again she tried to relax and let her waters flow, but again her body thought that she could be observed and refused to allow the release it so sorely craved. Once again her bladder fought against its own interests, practically screaming at her that it needed to be emptied, but outright denying her the chance to fulfill the very need it was complaining about.

With a whine, Azhani looked down at her toes, muttering to herself while she bounced up and down as if the gentle shaking would finally convince her pent-up urine to break free. When, as expected, several seconds of that failed to produce any results, Azhani moaned quietly, lamenting this terrible curse the gods had seen fit to burden her with – perhaps it was rather tame compared to some of the other cruel jokes they were playing on her, but without a doubt it was the one that had caused her the most strife.

Still just a little bit optimistic, though, Azhani brought a hand over to her abdomen, feeling for the firm dome she had interacted with far too often, and pressed down hard. She succeeded in making herself growl through her teeth and bend over, and after a few seconds of maintaining the pressure she did indeed feel something promising, moving her hand away as she felt her liquid gold work its way down, pressing up against the exit and miraculously seeping through as a few pitiful drops falling to the grass.

Unable to produce any more than that, she stood up again with a strained groan, reluctantly dragging her pants back into place and stepping away from the tree. Azhani pressed a hand between her legs and stood with her thighs rubbing against each other as she looked around for something more concealing. Of course she found nothing, and forced herself to shuffle onwards to continue her quest. She made her way out of the park, through a different exit than where she had entered, and to an almost-quieter side street that fed into the main avenue circling the whole city.

Heading away from the most populated and open areas, she took an unusual route down even smaller roads in the hopes of finding something in a residential area. Maybe someone would have a little garden, or something. She needed something.

But by the time she reached the road running alongside the City’s inner ring-wall, she had found nothing, and to make matters worse she was standing right next to a canal. There was very little cover around, and to one side she had a clear view of the road leading to the palace district gates.

At least Azhani was lucky enough to be alone otherwise, with nobody else walking the same road. It was a little bit of privacy, at least, and she took the opportunity to squeeze herself as she stared jealously at the water just a few feet below.

Come to think of it, she couldn’t actually see very much of the water unless she was standing right at the edge of the canal itself, and even then it was still hard to see anything at water-level along that edge in either direction. Conveniently, there was a little set of stone steps leading down to a platform just a little above the top of the water, and there just happened to be a handful of barrels and crates stashed on the one just below her…

That seemed to be the best Azhani was going to be able to find. With her body furiously wiggling, she looked around one last time for signs of someone watching her, and when she saw that the nearest guard seemed to be occupied with something else, she hurried over to the steps leading down to that little platform.

And once she was down at water level, she found a little bit of comfort in the fact that she was significantly shorter than the drop from the road above, and couldn’t see anything from her lower position. With one hand eagerly grasping her waistband, she approached the piled-up containers and gave them a quick inspection to see if there was any easy way for her to hide behind them, marching in place with her thighs stuck together as her overfilled bladder complained about the unnecessary delay.

Whimpering, she felt a hot jet burst out and soak the crotch of her pants and the fur beneath while she was still bent over looking for a good place to hide. The effort of clenching her muscles to stop that one big leak from becoming a flood proved to be too much for her to handle, and all the straining was by now insufficient to hold back the surge that demanded immediate release.

Azhani barely even had time to register the feeling of so much liquid pressing up against her last line of defense in an attempt to force its way through what she only had the energy to keep sealed for but a moment. In that brief moment, she took action without thinking about it, all at once spreading her legs, yanking her pants down just far enough to be out of the way, and bending at the knees to stick out her rear end.

Her mind caught up and became aware of her body’s actions when Azhani’s eyes rolled back and she let out a loud, rolling groan, somehow both purring and exclaiming simultaneously as she was overwhelmed by bliss. The surge from her loins seemed to be even louder, spraying out with a great hiss and crashing violently against the stone behind and beneath her.

Soon Azhani’s groans became heavy panting, and with one hand on her trembling knee she used the other to rub at her eyes before digging into her thigh. She let her head hang limp as she sighed, subsequently slowing her breathing down, but still taking deep breaths through her mouth.

When she picked her head up again, she shuffled around a little bit to take a look behind herself, at the flood she was causing in this far-too-public place. With such an excessive volume of liquid to remove, and the immense pressure forcing it out, she wasn’t seeing the thick and powerful stream she was used to seeing when things got particularly bad; this time, it was more of a chaotic spray, still mostly shooting out behind her as expected, but with a significant amount not quite following the exact same trajectory.

Not that it really mattered – the puddle was no concern of hers right now, and wouldn’t be as long as she could finish up and leave before anyone came by. This was a particularly-precarious situation to be in as far as escaping unseen went, much more publicly-accessible than she would have liked, but given the severity of her now-resolved crisis, she couldn’t afford to be too picky with where her emergency relief would take place.

Though she did have a little bit of control over her present setting… Still hunched over and still fiercely gushing onto the stone ground, Azhani waddled a little bit forwards before turning around and dropping into an unstable squat, pulling a nearby box over to provide at least a little bit of modesty. Then she sighed and idly set about inspecting the containers around her, opening whatever wasn’t sealed and checking for anything that might be of future use to her.

Naturally, just like all of her other searching throughout the day, her rummaging didn’t turn up anything of practical value, and she stopped looking when her torrent faded away. For a moment she stayed in position, letting a final few bursts of pee out before running dry entirely and giving her rear a good shake to remove any errant drops.

Then, with her bladder finally empty, she quickly pulled her pants up again and tried to ignore the discomfort of the cold wet spot as she hurried away from the site of her flood before anyone could blame it on her.