He gasped in pain as he let his body fall onto its knees, sinking into the soft white that blanketed the first completely flat rock he had climbed to. With one hand on the wound that leaked blood down his side and the other propping him up, he was beginning to come to terms that this would be a job he wouldn't return from. The guards were far off his trail, but Riften was even farther. He hadn't even made it out of the Pale before running out of draughts - they hadn't healed the gash in his side, but they had at least given him the adrenaline to escape the ambush.
Of course, he should have noticed that something had been terribly wrong when the guards that he had watched enter and exit the establishment for several days were nowhere to be found. After several weeks of constant hits a haze of exhaustion had slowly crept onto him and through it he had assumed the emptied halls were just a stroke of good luck - Nocturnal looking down on him for once. Instead, upon exiting through a back window he was greeted by a circle of well armed guards and though he would have preferred to attempt to try and talk his way out of the situation, one of the guards had made the first move. He had been able to disarm several of them (after taking an expertly sharpened dagger to the cheek) and breached the circle. Even so, his infamous swiftness couldn't escape the well-aimed arrow.
So here he was. Dying in the silence of winter, the ground beneath him speckled with blood.
"You've really gone and done it this time, laddie," Brynjolf whispered down to the sparkling snow, a steely blue in the clouded moonlight.
Perhaps now would be a great time to turn to religion? Talos save him, or something along those lines. The pain was throbbing and it took steady breathing to not irritate the arrow head that was lodged inside of him. His body had resisted the attempt to dislodge it, as he wasn't able to get a good angle to properly perform the procedure. Carefully he lowed himself down onto his uninjured side, staring out across the cold rock through the strands of blood-coated hairs that were plastered across his face. If he closed his eyes he could see the autumnal landscape of his home, and he tried to imagine himself engulfed in the warmth of afternoon along the rocky beach of Honrich. During the summer he would escape the grime of Riften and the bleak halls of the Flagon, stripping down and letting the chilly waters of the lake wash over him. He loved his guild, loved his friends, but everyone needs an escape some times.
Should he beg for help from Akatosh? That wouldn't feel right either. The worst part about the whole thing was that the Dawnstar contract hadn't even been worth it - just some shopkeeper that had wronged an affluent customer. A run of the mill job. The coin purse still hung at his side and he grimaced as the weight of the damn thing caused his belt to sag in front of him. At least let someone who needs it loot my body.
When he was younger he had hoped to be a great warrior, to follow his ancestors to Sovngard, but as he grew older and found that a life of larceny was more up his alley than a sword and shield the whole idea loss its appeal. "I hope the Evergloam isn't too terrible."
He was soaking wet and the shivers that wracked his body caused the throbbing pain to shoot through his body. To add insult to injury, a heavy snow began to fall - his body would be buried under a layer of white and he wouldn't be found until the spring thaw, as long as the animals didn't get to him first. The silence that had surrounded him was displaced by the gentle sound of the wind swirling through the crevices of the rocky mountainside. At least his last moments were to be peaceful and calm, and he began to drift off, too exhausted to even continue the pondering of a dying man. As he fell into a twilight sleep he could just barely make out the sound of crunching snow. An animal? A person? Maybe a frost troll. The living didn't concern him any longer.
Maybe he hadn't ended up in the realm of Nocturnal after all, because he couldn't imagine it being so warm and cozy. There was the crackling of a small fire and the feeling of heavy furs soft against his bare skin. He even picked up the scent of something roasting, and opening his eyes he was looking up into a stone ceiling, instead of the freezing sky he would have expected. Was he dreaming or had his death been a dream? He hadn't experienced such comfort since before his paid crime spree and were the situation not so jarring from the cold that he that he had died in, he wouldn't have bothered questioning the respite.
"Good to see you're finally awake."
Brynjolf's eyes snapped open wide.
He sat up and noticed that the pain that had dropped him to the snow was now gone, and that the only thing keeping him still on the ground was the pure exhaustion. Near him, sitting with a book upon his lap, was a Dunmer in warm colored robes. Red eyes were barely visible beneath the shadow of a yellow hood, but Brynjolf could tell that they were staring at him calmly. Brynjolf's own eyes felt heavy and it took all his effort to not let them close until he got to the middle of the situation he found himself in.
"Who are you? Where am I?" He looked around cautiously - the room was dark where the light of the fire didn't reach, but he could make out a shrine to Mara near by.
"My name is Erandur, Brynjolf."
The Nord quirked an eyebrow at him. "And how is it you know my name?"
Erandur shook his head. "Ah, I should has guessed that you weren't completely lucid when I found you. You're quite talkative when feverish and dying."
Brynjolf grimaced. "By Talos, what else did I tell you?"
"No worries my son, you spoke of nothing else. I had asked nothing else than your name."
"Hmm. That's fine and all, lad, but you still haven't let me in on where you've taken m-" he was interrupted by the return of a pounding behind his eyes. Erandur came to his side, his lithe form practically gliding across the stone floor. He put both light-emitting hands on Brynjolf's temples, and the swirling light of the healing magic enveloped by brunette's head; the pain subsided, the sensation like that of a great weight lifting off of him.
"My apologies; I had focused more on the external wounds," said the elf as he rested beside Brynjolf, tucking his legs beneath him and resting his hands on his lap. "But to answer your question: we're in an old temple overlooking Dawnstar. I found you near by and couldn't bare the thought of leaving you to die, although you were quite close."
"That's all fine and dandy, lad, but I'm sure that seeing my uniform of choice would make it pretty obvious what kind of life I lead; why would a priest want to tend to criminal scum such as myself? And please don't tell me it's some attempt to convert a dying man."
"I do believe we have an agreement with the Guild, and I couldn't let the most honorable of your clan pass on."
Brynjolf furrowed his brow, before slowly nodding his head in recognition. "Aye, we do try to keep the temple of yours afloat; we can't have our little entrance discovered."
The elf raised a hand in front of him and shook his head. "Please do not play coy with me. You can only play up the scoundrel routine for so long."
"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"
Erandur rolled his eyes. "We are well aware that it is you alone that funnels money into our charity box. Mara speaks to us, shares her knowledge of love and those who love. We don't quite understand your motives, but it is not our place to question the reasonings behind charitable intentions. Assuming nothing has changed since I worshiped there, the Temple has never been a target."
Brynjolf looked at the elf incredulously. "That's fine and all, but don't get to thinking it's because I believe in your divine." He paused for a moment and then shrugged. "I guess I like the idea of keeping at least a little good in Riften, so I never allow us to take that kind of job."
It was strange hearing himself reveal so much about himself. Perhaps it was the exhaustion, but he found that the priest was easy to talk to, easy to open up to. Everything was true; despite being second-in-command of a group whose closest competition for the title of 'worst collection of scum' was a group of assassins, he truly did care for the Temple that allowed the Guild members easy and secret access to their headquarters. To his fellow thieves in arms he was able to justify it as money spent to keep the priests quiet, which it did accomplish, but when he could he made sure to take side jobs to give a little extra that neither the priests nor the Guild didn't know about - he couldn't think he was getting soft on them.
When he saw that the elf was silently staring at him, he shifted his eyes away and then back towards the dark face, beginning to feel awkward under the scrutiny. Erandur smiled kindly at him. "I shouldn't keep you awake any longer. Sleep, my child, and I can help you out of the hold when darkness falls once more."
He had, for a little bit, forgotten how heavy his eyelids felt and so he let himself rest back on the soft pallet that the elf had made for him. As soon as his eyes closed he fell into the serenity of a comfortable sleep.