Ch1. Chance Meetings & Daring Escapes

13th of Sun's Dawn, 4E183

The heat from the burning sun shone down on the city of Whiterun, showering its inhabitants with the pleasant warmth of Sun's Height. It was just an hour past midday and the market was crowded as was the usual for this time of day. The crowds were loud, people yelling simply to be heard by the person next to them while vendors hollered into the crowed speaking of their wares.

It was the perfect environment for him to practice his newly found hobby. Lucius wove in and out of the crowd, his small six year old frame easily gliding in between the bodies of the local patrons. Nobody would ever notice the little black haired Imperial as he robbed them of their coin, and even if they did, he'd pull the sad puppy dog eye trick. Nobody could say no to his little green eyes.

As he looked around for unsuspecting victims a certain jingle caught his ear. It was the unmistakeable sound of septims in an overflowing coin purse.

He carefully followed the gentle sound until he was right next to his target. It was an unsuspecting Dunmer in light armor, though they didn't have any weapon on them. She was next to the Bannered Mare, and it seemed she was looking for some one, which meant she was distracted.

Lucius took his chance and popped out of the crowd in what seemed like a hurry. bumping into the woman and snagging her coin purse while he mumbled an apology and walked away. He looped behind the local alchemist's shop and made a beeline for the blacksmith's. Once he was sure he was cleared he opened the coin purse and started to count his loot.

"Oh boy that was easy, like stealing as sweet roll from a baby." He let out a small laugh.

"You know, it's not very polite to steal from others." The smooth and quiet voice of a woman cooed from a few yards behind him. It was akin to a rock that had been chipped away and smoothed by the flowing waters of a river.

Lucius turned around, already anticipating for the guards to grab him and haul him back to the Dragons Reach prison. But when he turned around there only stood one person, a Dunmer woman in light armor, with surprisingly no weapons.

He gulped as he now recognized the armor she wore, it was that of the Riften Thieves Guild. With a swiftness akin to that of the wind she was in front of him and had already snagged her coin purse from his hands, counting to make sure nothing was missing. He stood there, not knowing what to do, just waiting for her to make a move.

After another moment of two she had finished counting out her coins and placed her purse into a more secure pocket on her cuirass. She stood there for a moment, eyeing him up and down. It was at least thirty seconds before she spoke again.

"So you want gold, eh?" He simply nodded. "Well then you're in luck." She motioned for her to follow while she made her way up to the Wind District. He continued to follow her until she stopped just behind the Hall of The Dead. "You did a decent enough job as a pickpocket, but not good enough to get away stealing from a trained thief." He nodded along with her as she talked. "Listen, I'm not gonna do anything about you stealing my coin purse, if fact, I actually have a job for you."

His brow furrowed in confusion; first he tries to steal her coins now she was offering him a job?

"What job?"

She smiled a little, tough he could see little else of her face. "Atta boy; any way, I need you to take this letter and bring it to a man in the Bannered Mare. His name is Sabjorn, and if he asks who it's from, tell him it's from a potential investor."

Lucius nodded and the woman took a sealed envelope out of one of her many pockets and handed it to him. He looked at it briefly, noticing the strange bird-like symbol on the seal. Without another word he nodded to her and began running towards the inn.

The crowds in the market had begun to disperse a little, but he still had to weave in between people until he came to the steps of the Bannered Mare. He pushed open the door and began looking around until he found the owner, a blonde Nord woman.

"Excuse me!" he said, getting her attention, "I'm looking for a man named Sabjorn." The woman simply huffed and pointed towards the back room.

He walked inside and saw a man who must've been in his early thirties looking through a book and writing down different bit of information on the page. He was so preoccupied with his writing that he didn't notice the small boy slip in next to him.

Sabjorn started when a small hand holding a letter entered his vision.

"What do you want boy, can't you see I'm very busy!" He ripped the letter from Lucius's hands and began to read, a surprised look coming over his face. When he finished he looked back a Lucius then back at the letter. "Who sent you with this?"

"I don't know, she just pulled me aside and told me to bring this to you." It wasn't the whole truth, but then again, a little lie never hurt anyone before.

"Mhmm." Sabjorn hummed suspiciously, but dismissed his thoughts as a smile formed on his face. "Well, if my new partner wishes to remain silent so be it, go back to the person who sent this letter and tell them I accept." He scribble down a few things on a piece of paper before signing his name and handing it off the Lucius.

He burst out of the Bannered Mare, a smile on his face and coin on his mind as he sprinted all the way back to the hall of the dead. As he rounded the corner a dark ashen skinned hand grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him around the corner. He doubled over, out of breath, while the Dunmer woman waited for him to tell her the news.

"Well, what'd he say?"

"He gave me this letter for you to read." He pulled the letter out of his pocket and held it out for her. In a mere fraction of a second the letter was in her hands and she was urgently reading over the contents.

As her eyes moved over the last words a small smirk formed on her lips. She carefully folded the letter and placed it in a pocket. "You did good work, kid." She nodded her approval and patted him on the head.

She turned to leave, but stopped when he grabbed onto her sleeve. "What about my coin?"

The woman smiled, reaching into her pouch and tossing him a dozen septims. It was a little less than what he'd expected, but seeing as how things could've turned out a lot worse, he wouldn't be complaining. He looked up from the gold on his hand, wanting to thank her, but she was already gone. Lucius shrugged, pocketed his coin and began making his way home, all the while wondering if he'd ever see that strange woman again.

-000-

24th of Evening Star, 4E195

A cold breeze blew threw the dungeon, chilling Lucius to the bone. It would seem that this time he had royally fucked up. Getting caught stealing was one thing, but getting caught stealing from the Jarl was another.

He'd gotten too cocky and been busted by one of the Dragonsreach guards trying to steal from the Jarl's office. He'd been caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Well, it was more like his hands in a giant chest of gold, and that gold being the funds used for the Whiterun Guards.

But besides it all, that wasn't the worst part. He could handle being caught by the guards and being in prison, but it was the chewing out from his father he was dreading.

"Where is he!" Speak of the Daedra.

Lucius cringed as a balding man in his early forty's rounded the corner to his cell. A long scar ran down his left cheek, a souvenir from his service in the Great War. He was Cunero Caius, Lucius's father, and captain of the Whiterun Guards, which honestly made things a bit awkward.

His father stared him down, seething with rage. It was actually quite comical, as Lucius stood a good quarter of a foot above his father, thanks to his mother being a Nord. It was a solid two minutes of silence before his father spoke.

"What the fuck were you thinking!" Lucius opened his mouth to speak but was promptly cut off. "No, never mind, don't speak because I already know the answer. You clearly weren't thinking at all! I mean, stealing from Dragonsreach!? You've really screwed the pooch this time Lucius!"

His father rambled on and on about right and wrong, good and evil and how his mother would be upset about all this. It was something he had grown accustomed to and had learned how to drown it all out. When his father finally finished his tirade Lucius finally got his chance to speak.

"So are you going to let me out or not?"

Caius let out a dry humorless laugh. I'll take that as a 'no'.

"Oh, son, no. No, no, no, no, no. You obviously need to learn a lesson. You've embarrassed not only yourself, but also your mother and I. I think a nice long stay in my little vacation home here will do you just nicely."

Caius began to walk away, but Lucius was determined to have the last word.

"Fuck you old man!" He shouted down the row of cells while flipping his father the middle finger. He knew it wouldn't get him anywhere and was pointless, but it was something at least.

Lucius moved back to the rear wall of his cell and leaned against it, sliding down against the wall until he was in a sitting position. Closing his eyes he prepared himself for the long wait until his father would let him out of here. Then he heard the faintest sound of boots walking across the stone floor of the prison. When he looked up he saw a face that he'd honestly never expected to see again.

There before him stood that same Dunmer thief that had caught him trying to pickpocket her almost twelve years ago. She had a smirk on her face, thought that's all he could really see, as the rest of her face was shrouded in the shadow of her hood.

"It seems that you've ended up in quite the predicament."

He scoffed and shook his head in mild amusement.

"Yeah, I guess I have. So what do you want from me now?" The thief stood there for a moment, scanning him up and down before speaking again.

"I want to set you free."

"Why?"

"Because You did such a good job for me, now I'm repaying the favor."

He felt like she was being honest, but there was definitely something she wasn't telling him, though at the moment he wasn't very concerned given the situation he was in at the moment.

Before he could give a response the thief had already tossed a small pouch on the floor of his cell. Quickly, he picked it up and rummaged through the small bag. Inside were four lock picks and twenty gold.

"There's a grate in your cell that leads to some underground tunnels; follow those tunnels and you should be able to escape."

He looked up from the pouch to thank the thief, but she had already disappeared. With no other option other than rotting in his cell he looked around the small room for the aforementioned grate. He eventually found it in the right hand corner, under the small bucket that passed for a latrine. Throwing the bucket aside, he quickly found the small lock on the grate and easily picked it.

As the grate swung open he quickly jumped down, and instantly regretted it. In an instant his nose was assaulted by all kinds of putrid stenches. Lifting up his boot he saw that he'd landed in a pile of shit. His nose crinkled at the stench.

The tunnel he currently occupied was pitch black, with only the light from his cells grate providing any kind of light. Using his hands, he felt his way along the wall. These tunnels were absolutely disgusting, filled with both human and animal excrement. He almost wish that he'd stayed in his cell...almost. After wondering for a few more minutes he came across the first source of light head seen in the tunnels.

Only ten or so feet in front of him was a door, where it lead he didn't know, but anywhere was better than here. As he opened the door, he immediately took back what he'd thought when he walked through the door and saw that he was in the guards' barracks.

Damn it, what am I supposed to do know, he thought. Observing his surroundings, he noticed there was a chest full of guards armor. Without a second though he slipped into the chainmail shirt before pulling on the leather tunic and colors of Whiterun.

He could hear some guards in the next room, probably getting ready for the night shift. He figured he could slip out among them. He grabbed the closest iron sword he could find and slipped the sheath onto the uniforms belt. Cracking open the door he noticed that most of the guards were just about to head out. He slipped a helmet on and ran out to join them.

Lucius managed to slip into the group without being noticed, and followed the closest guard that was making for the main gate. All the while he was sweating nervously, hoping that nobody noticed the extra guard that wasn't supposed to be there. It was about two hundred yards to the gate from the guard barracks, and he was looking over his shoulder almost the entire time.

He knew that there would be a bounty on him once they realized he had slipped out of jail, but he would worry about that later when he didn't have to worry about getting dragged back up the Dragonsreach.

He was a mere fifty feet from the gate when another guard came running to the group he was in.

"A prisoner has escaped from the dungeon, we're organizing a hun at the moment."

Lucius froze where he stood, positive that he would be found out an captured. Or worse. Luckily for him the sergeant who was assigning them their post started barking orders, yelling at a small group of the others to search the Whiterun perimeter.

Realizing this would probably be his only chance, Lucius snuck into the small group of men and followed them through the gate. As the rest of the group split up to search the perimeter he slipped away and hid behind the stables. Lucius quickly slipped out of the Whiterun colors and abandoned the helm.

Without another moments hesitation he took off towards the hills, not knowing where he'd go or what he'd do. But one thing was certain, he was free, and he'd never comeback to this Gods forsaken city.

-000-

The wind blew through the tall branches of a bristling pine, rustling the needles and causing them to fall. A couple of said needles fell on her head and became tangled in her long auburn hair. She paid no mine though as the object of her interest was currently sprinting full tilt towards the tree line a little less the fifty feet away.

When she'd first laid eyes on the lad twelve years ago she hadn't thought much of him. Sure, he was a half decent pickpocket but that hardly qualified him to become a real thief. But there was something about him that she couldn't quite put her finger on at the time.

So whenever she had been in Whiterun, to pass correspondence to Sabjorn, she'd made a habit of checking in on the kid from the shadows, watching how his skills were coming along. She'd helped him from behind the scenes here and there. She'd actually gotten a little attached, like he was her little protégé. Kinda like how Gallus made her protégé.

She shook those memories from her head as the boy made his way into the tree line, disappearing into the darkness of forest. With him out of sight and on his way, she jumped down from the trees landing with a role and dusting herself off. There wasn't really anything else left to do around here, everything had been set in motion and her plans were coming together.

A dark smirk crossed her lovely lips as she thought of how good revenge would feel. It may take week, months or maybe even years, but eventually, Karliah would have revenge.