She would have to swim, she decided grimly. Again, she found herself wishing she had never come to these frozen lands. She unloaded most of what she owned, keeping only a small dagger and the fur armor on her back. She was accustomed to carrying her belongings with her, but it would not do to get her pack wet. Finding an appropriate place under a nearby tree, she started to dig.
"What are you doing?" came a voice in the dark.
She sprang to her feet, dagger drawn. She was surprised when her keen eyes met a large, round pair not unlike her own. Khajiit eyes. Cat eyes. She had been so startled at the intrusion that the accent had slipped past her notice. How was he standing not six paces away? Had he not been Khajiit, he never would have made it so close, she was sure.
Moving protectively in front of her few worldly possessions, she watched the newcomer warily.
"Who are you, Khajiit?" he asked.
She thought carefully on an answer, focusing on his blue feline eyes.
"K'heta," she answered finally.
She had given away much. In Khajiit, the K marked her for her past crime. For murder. She had earned it. He had deserved it. The K scared some, perhaps she could avoid a fight here, but if this Khajiit was intimidated or even surprised by the admission, he did not smell it.
"This one is called Kharjo," he said. "It is well to meet another Khajiit in these cold sands."
She did not know what to think of this warm welcome, Skyrim had not been thus to her so far. The caravan she had traveled here with had been seized by Imperials for the moon sugar they carried shortly after crossing the border. The others had escaped, she had not been so lucky. Since then, it had been civil wars, dragons, and Nordic legends that had plagued her. She wanted no part in any of them.
If she could get out of this situation safely and finish this job, she would have a warm bed to sleep in and food to eat after running so far for so long. She looked hungrily towards the estate in the middle of the lake. The glow from the windows of the main house reflected off the water. It was the only source of light.
"You've got Goldenglow eyes, K'heta," said the newcomer.
At first, she thought he was referring to the yellow color of her eyes, but then she remembered the name of the pretty house in the middle of all that water. Her attention snapped back to this unknown Khajiit.
"What do you know of my plans?" she demanded.
"Peace, K'heta," he said, putting out his empty hands. He had put extra emphasis on the K. "I just meant, many eyes have wandered in that direction, no legs have wandered back."
She felt her tail flick in agitation and stilled it. "My eyes and legs may wander where they will."
"True," he said. "But this Khajiit just wishes to be of service. We are so few in Skyrim, it would not do to let this one stalk the moonlight alone."
She considered this. She had been given help in Whiterun, the Imperial Lydia, a warrior zealot who seemed to expect K'heta to do impossible things. She had left her at the earliest chance in an inn in Ivarsted and slunk out of town in the middle of the night, crossing the wilds into the Rift. She had been on the run before and alone since. Sizing him up in his steel plate mail, she wondered if he would be able to sneak in all that?
"Before this one decides to trust you at her tail, what business have you, Kharjo?" she asked.
"Yes, I was hired to protect the others as we walk the roads of Skyrim. It is a thankless task and I would rather be back home in Elsweyr, but I have little choice," said Kharjo.
"Other Khajiit?" she asked, surprised. She hadn't seen another of her kind since the Imperials raided her camp.
He nodded. "A caravan. Ahkari freed me from a prison in Cyrodiil, and now I must repay my debt. A word of advice, my friend - do not mix gambling and drink. Taken together, they will empty your pockets of every septim."
That was not advice she needed. Her mother had been a sugar tooth, a slave to skooma. It had destroyed her mother and K'heta's own childhood. As a result, the drink was not one of K'heta's own personal sins. She wondered again if this man could be of any use.
She had no other aid. The Thieves' Guild, as they liked to be called, worked alone. When they had given her this task, they hadn't offered any help beyond that silly set of armor. K'heta could not blend in to the city crowds dressed like that. She would make herself the mark. She had buried her own set just southeast of the city gates, where the guards never go. She had kept the boots. Her own pair were well worn and had earned their holes. She had given those to a beggar in the street on her way out of town this moon. Everything could be useful.
"Would you like to repay your debt early?" she asked.
He whistled lowly, it was a musical sound that reminded her of home, and looked towards the lights in the middle of the lake. "That would be a lot of coin," he said.
"Surely that place has it," she said slowly. "But can you swim in all that steel?"
His nose and whiskers crinkled up in a silent laugh.
"You will come with K'heta?" she pressed.
"Khajiit guards your back," said Kharjo.
She finished burying what little she owned and into the frigid water they went. They swam in silence through the dark still lake and came up on the northwestern side of the small island that housed Goldenglow Estate, Riften's local source of honey. This all seemed like silliness to her, but then, the reasonings of these men and mer usually did. They were very strange. She didn't trust the Argonians, but at least she understood their motivations.
She shivered, shaking some of the water free of her fur and started to wring out her wet tail. She could see the trapdoor that the yellow one had spoke of. Vex, she thought was her name, back in the Ratways with the rest of the thieves. Vex had been here before and failed. Vex must not be very proficient. That was not a problem K'heta had. She opened the hatch and climbed lightly down a rickety ladder into in a damp sewer. Why must everything in this country be so very wet and cold? She heard Kharjo land behind her and motioned for him to be silent. She crouched low in a sneaking position and headed down the tunnel.
Skeevers hunted the sewers beneath Goldenglow Estate. Kharjo proved himself useful there, at least against the vermin. She would wait to pass judgment until after they had made it inside the estate. The sewer let out at a side door to the main house. The lock tested her patience, but a few broken lockpicks and whispered curses at the moon later they entered unseen.
Brynjolf had been right about the level of security inside, there were guards everywhere. When they got to the stairs, she left Kharjo as lookout at the top of them, glad once again of his presence. Goldenglow Estate was currently owned by an Altmer named Aringoth and K'heta slowly snaked a path through the hallways unseen, making her way to his chambers.
When she reached it, she entered the room, closing the door behind her. She crept up the side of the wall and peeked out around the bookcase. She could see the elf sitting alone, seemingly unaware of her presence. She carefully moved in.
He turned his gaze to her. She had never excelled at pickpocketing and now she was discovered. K'heta silently cursed the moon as her small dagger instinctively found its way to Aringoth's throat. Unlike Kharjo, this one did smell afraid.
"I do not want to have to kill you," she said quietly. "You do not want me to do so either, so you will give me the key to the safe."
"You think you can steal from me? You'll never get off this island alive," said Aringoth.
"I think that Khajiit will succeed, you think that Khajiit will not. Soon we will both know the truth," she said, fishing the key from his pocket.
Knocking his chair out from under him, she moved nimbly across the room towards the door as he crashed to the ground. He called out an alarm and she jumped deftly to the side as the door flew open. She quickly quaffed a potion of invisibility and dashed out of the room. She didn't stop moving until she reached the landing at the stairs, where she found Kharjo and a dead guard. Her potion wore off then and she faded back into view.
He shrugged helplessly as she took in the scene. "I suppose someone may have heard me," he told her in a voice of innocence. She moved on to more pressing concerns.
"Quickly," she said and he fell in behind her. "We are found out, but I have the key. We make to the basement with much haste."
She handed him a potion of invisibility and she quaffed another one herself. They crept downstairs as quietly as house cats. She silently picked the metal gate between them and the basement and they fled into it. There were two guards who should have been there to greet them, but were thankfully poor at their jobs and it was easy to move past unseen.
As they rounded a corner, they saw a final guard sitting watch at the stairs leading to the lowest part of the estate, Kharjo motioned for her to wait. She did and she tried to mask her interest as he crept up behind the seated man. She was right, the steel plate was too bulky. The guard heard him and rose, starting to turn towards Kharjo. Before he was standing upright he had been knocked solidly to the ground with a heavy mace. She didn't know if the man was still breathing or not and she said as much.
"It matters little, Khajiit," he said. "These people in Skyrim care little for us. It is likely better for us if he is not."
She did not like that line of thinking though she had witnessed enough prejudice amongst these Nords to understand the sentiment. Realizing she was running out of time, she set those thoughts aside and sprung down the stairwell and to the safe. In seconds she had it opened and the contents tucked neatly into her belt pouch, over a hundred gold and a Goldenglow Bill of Sale. It seemed Aringoth was not in truth the owner of the estate.
She also picked up two fat coin purses off of a nearby table. That would be Khajiit's cut for the night, the rest would go to this so called guild. As they exited out the basement door into the cold Skyrim night, Kharjo pulled a goat horned torch off of the wall.
"What are you doing that for?" she asked. "We already stole from them. We do not need to destroy property too."
She didn't mention the men who had died.
"We'll need this for the next part of the job," he said.
That's when she remembered the bee hives. There were six of them and her instructions were to set three on fire, careful not to let the flame spread to the adjoining hives. She supposed this was less odd than what the people of Whiterun had expected of her, but these people in Skyrim were very strange. Maybe it was the cold.
Then she realized. "How do you know this? I never explained this part," she said.
"You never explained any part, Khajiit," he said.
He shifted uncomfortably before admitting, "I am also in debt to Delvin of the Thieves Guild. Do not trust the man's bluff."
That did make sense. Why else would he have been there tonight and have been so agreeable to come along on this unmerry adventure. It also meant the Thieves Guild had invested more in her than just armor, that perhaps they put more value in her welfare than she had believed. Or perhaps it meant Brynjolf didn't trust her to do the job herself.
Using the night eyes every Khajiit had, she scanned around them. Taking the torch from his hand, she gestured towards a tiny island just to the north.
"Cross over and wait for me there," she said. "I will do this next part."
He looked over at the hives and then back towards the island. Nodding reluctantly, he slowly crept towards the banks. Before he made it to the water, she had hopped down the side of the rocky estate and was standing in front of him again. She could see his face clearly in the dark and this time, surprise was there. She took his hand and placed in it one of the heavy coin purses she had swiped from the basement.
"Your share, Khajiit," said K'heta. "May it find you freedom."
Tufts of fur under his ears twitched. "I have freedom enough," he replied. "I have the twin moons above me and Goldenglow eyes before me. Anything more would be greedy."
He was looking intently at her, his blue eyes reflecting the light of the main house. Her own yellow eyes must be lit up as well. She felt her face redden underneath its coat in a way that hadn't happened since she was a foolish cub.
"This one is glad you have come to Skyrim, K'heta," his low voice rumbled.
She felt for the first time, that she might be, too. She couldn't bring herself to say the words though, she only nodded.
"I will wait on that island," he said.
He sunk into the dark waters and she turned towards the small enclosure that housed the six large bee hives. This would be the easy part.