Author's Note: There are two things I always loved about TES that I felt never got enough attention: the Fighters Guild, and the Bosmer. What better way to take my first step into the fanfiction community than by remedying this?

Well, all right, so the Bosmer get attention enough and I just wanted a shameless excuse to write a few, but the Fighters Guild? Honestly, there are so many great personalities in the Guild, and their story is fantastic, but they somehow hardly get the attention they deserve. I was sad to find only a handful (albeit lovely lot) of stories about them. So step down, Dark Brotherhood, and move aside, Martin – it's time to let someone else into the spotlight. This is my first time writing a story and I'm not entirely sure how it will go, but hopefully you will enjoy it.

Happy reading!

Prologue

A Disagreeable Arrangement

It was no less miserable in Castle Bruma than it was outside. The lofty interior of the main hall did little to maintain the heat of a few measly fires, and the castle barracks were no better. Not only was it just as cold, but it was smoky inside from the room's fireplace, the thick gray cloud hanging just above the heads of the guards. They seemed blissfully ignorant of it, but not Brodras. Even though he was considerably shorter than all of them and thus spared from the worst of the smoke, his eyes stung something awful and he found himself blinking furiously. It at least distracted him from how cold he was, but as tears threatened to roll down his cheeks he decided he would much rather be shivering like an idiot than crying like one. Before he rounded the corner to face the voices on the other side, he brought his fingers to his eyes and rubbed the droplets away.

The room was full of gruff and dirty guards lingering between shifts, some sleeping in beds in the corner and a vast majority discussing the day over tankards of ale and mead. The Bosmer shuffled past them with only a polite nod, trying hard to keep his sore blue eyes on the yellow uniform of the man that led him through the scene. He knew the Imperials and Nords would only be all too eager to gawk stupidly at a Wood Elf in a near full suit of iron armor, and despite his knowing this it didn't make their stares any less irritating. Expecting the tree branch to break does not make it hurt less when you hit the ground, his grandfather always said. And he was right, of course. No one expected a Bosmer to be good at anything other than sneaking through the shadows and sniping over vast distances with painful accuracy, all of which Brodras could do – and quite well, he thought, but that was beside the point, which was that no one expected to see a Bosmer waltzing around in heavy armor, much less waltzing around with efficiency. When Brodras passed through the wooden door at long last it took all the strength he had to withhold the relieved sigh that rolled up into his lungs. The guard pointed wordlessly toward another, seated behind a table in the middle of the room, and closed the door behind him.

Brodras ran a hand over his oil slicked hair, straightened the belt through which his scabbard was looped, and lifted his stubble covered chin high. He approached the guard with proud steps and waited for him to raise his eyes from the book on the desk in front of him.

"Good evening, citizen," he said. "What can I do for you?"

The Bosmer nodded politely. "I'm here to visit a prisoner." He paused. "And possibly pay for their release."

The guard's face instantly transformed into an expression of utter displeasure. "Oh," he muttered dully. "I don't suppose you're here for that Wood Elf girl?" He leaned closer to Brodras with a cautious frown. "You family?"

Brodras, with only a second's worth of hesitation, let his lips turn with a frown of his own. "No," he said, truthfully. He left it at that and maintained his silence as the guard gave him a quick once over, responding only with a tight knotting at the corners of his square chin.

Whatever he was looking for Brodras didn't know, but the Imperial eased back in his chair and shifted his attention to opening a drawer in the desk. "Very well then." He stood, fumbling with a key ring as he made his way toward a door at the end of the room. With one long slender key in the doorknob, he turned to Brodras, who was standing with a blank expression a few steps behind. "I have to remind you not to get too close to the prisoners – " He coughed, muttering under his breath something that Brodras thought was Especially this one. " – and that prisoners cannot accept bribes or gifts."

"Understood," said Brodras.

"Very good. And make it quick, citizen."

The door swung open, and the Bosmer followed the guard down a long descent of steps. The room at the bottom was large, colder than the one upstairs, and reeked of mold and dampness and something that Brodras was not entirely sure he wanted to correctly identify. His stout pointed nose crinkled instantly. The guard turned to him with a curiously amused expression, likely because he was so pitifully used to the offending odors that he forgot just how horrible they were. He pointed toward a prison cell a few feet on the left and offered him a curt nod.

Brodras took a daring inhale and approached the door, stopping a few feet before it. The space inside was large and seemingly quite empty, but tucked away in the corner was the prisoner he had come all this way for. She was sitting cross legged atop a dirty bedroll, idly tracing patterns on the floor with a twig. A long strand of copper hair trailed from the nape of her neck to her elbows, and it gracefully reflected every ray of yellow light from the torch high above her head. The rest of her tiny frame was covered in grimy cloth clothes that he suspected had seen several bodies other than her own. Not that he wanted to think about that, so he forced the thought away. He waited only a few seconds before he rattled his knuckles against the bars.

She turned about with a curious and cautious raise of her dark eyebrows, but upon seeing who it was her lips turned with a sour pucker. "Oh, it's you," she hissed. "What are you doing here?"

Brodras remained sorely unamused. "Come now, sweetheart," he chided, "aren't you going to get up and welcome me?"

She scrambled to her feet, but not before chucking her twig toward the barred door. It was a throw made with passion instead of skill, and Brodras, with his hardened combat senses, didn't so much as flinch as it clattered harmlessly to the floor. The guard behind him stepped forward, but the Bosmer turned to him with a dismissing wave.

The Imperial stopped, but not without turning a stern glare to the girl. "You behave yourself, criminal scum, or we'll double your fine."

"Got what was coming to you, did you?" muttered Brodras to her.

The girl's green eyes flashed burning hate into his. She folded her arms tight across her chest. "Come all the way from Leyawiin to mock me, did you?" She tutted. "Typical, Brodras. Just go back to your disease ridden swamp."

He glared at her for a long moment before turning his body round to face the guard, who looked unprofessionally disgusted by the whole affair. "Exactly how much is her bounty?"

The guard barked an abrupt and agitated laugh. "You really want to set this monster free?" he dubiously asked.

Brodras' brow wrinkled in frustration.

The man shook his head. "Very well," he said, hooking his thumbs through his belt. "It's 750 septims."

The Bosmer's brown eyes nearly popped out of his head. He glanced over his shoulder at the girl, who responded by spitting out her tongue. "Seven hundred – by the Nine! What did you do?"

"Believe me, citizen, that's a modest number," muttered the guard. "For starters, she stole a horse from the Chestnut Handy Stables in the Imperial City. That mightn't have been so bad, except she escaped before the guard could catch up. Might have gotten away with it, too, but a sharp legionnaire spotted her on the road. He attempted to apprehend her, but then she stole his horse and rode away!"

Brodras turned toward the girl with a deep frown, but she merely continued pouting silently.

"Would you believe he chased her all the way to Bruma? Because he did, and only then did we manage to apprehend her and return the horse. And the story ought to stop there, but no – little monster had to put up a fight and bite one of the guardsmen!"

"Eight and one," muttered Brodras, who had since brought his hand to his face.

The guard snorted. "Were it up to me, I'd let her rot in here," he said distastefully. "But Captain Burd insisted otherwise."

Brodras sighed, rubbing his forehead in a vain attempt to prevent the headache he knew would soon plague him on the long ride back to Leyawiin. He ran his palm over his dark hair and wrapped it around the back of his neck. "How many days does she have left to serve?" he inquired.

The guard pursed his lips as he glanced thoughtfully into the distance. "I'd say about another week and three days." He paused patiently as the iron clad Bosmer made a frustrated noise. "Quite frankly I can't stand the sight of the beast, so what say you, then, citizen?"

Brodras shook his head and turned his back completely on the girl, wasting no time in his accession back up the stairs. "You'd best fetch her belongings, sir," he said.

The girl made a panicked noise. "I'm not going anywhere with him," she hissed. Her yells echoed off the walls in vain, because Brodras did not bother to look back. "I'd rather rot in this cell. Do you hear me? Rot!"

He waited near the desk as the guard gathered a small pile of clothes from a chest in the corner and disappeared back down the stairs with them. Several minutes later the female elf reappeared, dressed in a rough leather cuirass and boots, a pair of black pants, and one of the most hateful frowns Brodras had ever seen. The guard had not yet released her from her wrist irons, and did not until they were outside the castle. He and two others watched her with stern precaution as she grabbed a dagger from his hands and buckled it neatly at her side. Brodras, with his wallet significantly lighter than when he arrived, offered them a kind nod before ushering the girl through the gates and toward the stables.

Neither spoke on the journey through the streets of Bruma. They did not so much as look at the other as they made the journey side by side, she with one hand firmly on her blade's hilt. Eventually she must have realized that her leather armor was no match for his iron set, nor would her dagger be any use against his sword, and she instead let her hands ball into tight fists at her side. The night was utterly oblivious to the animosity that might have very well melted everything in their wake; it passed on calm and peaceful around them, a perfect winter night, with fat snowflakes falling from the sky to stick stubbornly to their eyelashes.

It was not until they were a safe distance from the guard outside the gate that Brodras noticed the tensing in her legs. Before she could react he reached forward and grasped her forearm with force much stronger than he intended. "No you don't," he hissed.

Her green eyes met his brown, and they stared with all the intensity of a raging fire as she struggled against his hold. "Let me go," she ordered.

"No," he replied, pulling her toward him. "Listen to me, Faralen – "

She wasn't interested, he gathered, because before he could finish her palm landed smartly against his cheek with a hideous smack that echoed on the Bruma foothills. Despite himself he let his face turn with the force, his fingers loosening as his skin burned hot. Brodras turned his attention back to her just as she yanked back her arm and took two steps backward in the snow.

He brought his fingertips to his cheek. "That was uncalled for," he snapped.

Faralen scoffed. "You know what's uncalled for, Brodras? You pulling me out of that dungeon."

"You're right," Brodras chided with a snarl. "Forgive me for rescuing your ungrateful hide from something that you brought solely upon yourself. What are you doing, Faralen? I had thought everything about you was a lie, but this – "

Her cheeks turned a furious shade of red as she shook her fists in frustration. "This doesn't involve you!"

Brodras rolled his eyes. "Yes, it does. You're angry, though why I don't know. I'll have you know I wouldn't marry you if there were no other women on Nirn...Orcs included." She looked deeply insulted, and he savored that fact in a secret and dark corner of his heart. "But there are better ways to rebel against your father than thieving."

Faralen snorted, placing her hands on her hips. "Oh, yes," she muttered. "Like adorning yourself in the most ridiculous set of armor you can find and running away with the Fighters Guild to get yourself killed, no?"

It was Brodras' turn to fume. He did so silently, forcing the anger to stay hidden within the maddening pulse of his veins.

Faralen, however, was relentless. She brushed away a wayward strand of copper hair and pointed a finger at him. "You don't care if I rot," she yelled. "The only reason you came to get me was so Baenlin didn't find out and go squabbling to my father to make you look bad. Can't have your fiance on the wrong side of the law, can we?"

"That's not – "

She threw her hands up in exasperation. "Oooh! Shut up, would you?"

He obliged, watching as she turned her back to him and glanced toward the Jerall Mountains, the tops of which disappeared into the snowy horizon. For a long moment the two Bosmer stood there in silence. Brodras studied her long trail of hair and thought briefly of strangling her with it, folding and unfolding his hands into tense fists. Eventually he looked away, resting one hand on the hilt of his sword.

"I'm not going to tell anyone what happened here this evening," he finally said. "I managed to get here quickly, so your father should never hear about this."

Faralen did not move.

Brodras shifted his frown from one cheek to the other. "I don't want to go through with this anymore than you do," he continued sternly. "Which is why I came to you with a plan."

She looked at him from over her shoulder, looking slightly more curious than agitated – but only slightly.

Brodras rolled his eyes, lifting his palm in dismissal. "Look. I don't care how you decide to avoid your father, but for your own sake, do it in a manner that won't completely ruin the life you have ahead of you. We may have different ideas about happiness, but I assure you that you won't find yours in a dark, stinking prison cell."

She did not move. He wasn't even sure if she had heard, but he didn't care. The cold had snuck under his armor and was clinging tightly to his bones; his temples pounded with frustration. He thought of giving up and returning to Leyawiin without much more thought, but at long last Faralen turned about, her arms folded tightly across her chest, and regarded him with her fierce green eyes.

"I'm listening," she said cautiously.

"Good," replied Brodras, and with a deep sigh he explained what had to be done.