Edited motherfuc- Ahem.
The first thing Gar'ret thought when the strange man walked into their camp was that his tail itched. That wouldn't mean much to any other Khajiit, but to him, who was told by his mother when he was old enough to understand that he would never feel anything in his tail, ever, it meant a whole lot.
See, his tail only itched when something extremely bad was about to happen to him. It happened when his mother died, and when his father was taken by the Thalmor. It happened when the dragon almost killed him outside Helgen six months ago, and before every nearby dragon attack since.
And right now his tail felt like it was being invaded by a colony of ants with tiny spiked boots on.
There was nothing too special about the man, beyond some strange red coloration on the lower half of his cloak, which was long enough to almost drag against the ground.
'Wait, that looks like dried blood!' Gar'ret thought, franticly scrambling to reach his client.
The man's smirk peeked out from under the shadowed hood, "Too late."
"Shit!" Gar'ret's fellow bodyguard shot out and went for his sword, hoping to gut the man who stole his paycheck.
Faster than the two could react, the cloaked man brought the dagger back and threw it into the charging bodyguard's stomach before he could even unsheathe his weapon. Twisting to right and reaching inside his cloak, he threw a trio of knives into Gar'ret, disrupting his half-charged firebolt spell and fatally wounding him.
"Did you all have to be so dreadfully predictable?" The man asked the dying bodyguards,"I mean really, the muscle goes for his sword and charges in without thinking at all, and the cat with no weapons tries to use a spell he obviously hasn't used before. A starving bosmer child could've fought better than the two of you." He looked honestly disappointed in their lack of skill.
"How 'bout ya come say that to my face you cowardly bastard!" The Nordic looking bodyguard with the knife in his stomach wasn't gonna take this lying down. Coincidentally, he was face down in the dirt not a half second later.
"Ah, yes, the dead man speaks like I'm the coward. I may as well not even mention that he works for a family of cowards, who hide behind their money and connections." At this point, he was the only one alive in the camp, Gar'ret having succumbed to his wounds shortly after the cloaked man started talking. "I mean Maven was the one who sent me to kill you all. What kind of woman sends an assassin after their cousin anyway? Certainly not a woman I want to work for."
"Although, the pay wasn't bad," He scratched his chin which was still cloaked in shadow with the rest of his face, "I might even consider working for her again. Unless I kill her after getting my money that is."
With a short utterance of what sounded like "mother", the cloaked man picked out Gar'ret's eyeball and ate it.
Riften is a town of extremely guilty pleasures, thievery, and corruption. The Black-Briars gallivanted about with money spilling from their pockets, sealing shut the mouths of any and all who opposed them, in one way or another. The Thieve's Guild based in Skyrim took the tunnel system under the city as their sanctuary. And anyone who had enough money could pay to have his crimes ignored.
Oddly enough, it was also the home of the only orphanage in the province.
The cloaked man walked up to Maul, Maven's muscle on the streets, and stared him in the face without saying a word. The big nord scowled and reachesd behind him to grab the man's payment, a carefully counted amount of gold, inserted coin by coin into the bag by Maven's most trusted servant.
The last time he didn't get enough gold Maven had to replace her entire staff.
Before Maul could hand over the gold, a small, dirty hand grabbed it from the side and stole it away.
"Hey! Thief!"
Maul shouted and ran after the gold. He didn't care about the thief, but Maven specifically said she'd kill him if he mucked up this hand off.
The cloaked man gave a small, unnoticed smile and jumped up onto the roof of Haelga's Bunkhouse.
In the end, Maul had lost the thief – and the money – and decided he'd best spend his time drinking until he was killed when the client told Maven about his failure.
But that wouldn't happen, because the cloaked man hadn't lost the thief, and was waiting just outside an abandoned home in the corner of the city, Honeyside. He pushed opened the door after noticing the lock was broken some time ago. Upon entry, the door squeaked and the wood groaned, indicating a state of disrepair, obvious through the look of both the interior and exterior.
He heard some shuffling and a gasp before he entered completely and knew exactly where the source of both was almost immediately.
"Who're you!" A particularly young and feminine voice shouted from his right.
"The man who's money you stole"
Another gasp.
She – because it was definitely a she – moved to run out the door to the left of the noticeably worn bed, but before she could cover more than three feet, a hand grabbed her left arm none too gently.
"Lemme go!" She screamed, horrified by the thought of what this man would do to a poor little girl who stole from him. She knew what happened to others like her, and had nightmares of such things almost every night. She tried to push him away but it was like trying to push one of the mammoths out in the tundra. She got progressively more frantic and was about to bite him, before he did something she'd never expected.
He hugged her.
She stopped struggling almost immediately, and a tense silence settled over them.
'He's so warm… it's like the fire at the inn.'
She froze, stunned by this unexplainable development. She didn't even notice when he started petting the top of her head like an older brother or a parent would do to a child. She melted into it and her nerves calmed, the aura of safety and warmth washing over her.
'Why? Why is he… I don't understand…' The girl was decidedly miffed and could barely even think about it anyway, she felt too tired all of a sudden. Only seconds later, she was sound asleep.
The cloaked man adjusted his hold and picked her up. Taking her outside and to the Bee and Barb, the man noticed all the sour looks the people he passed gave the little girl. After assuring Keerava that he wasn't a child molester and that the girl wouldn't steal anything, he rented a room and walked up the stairs. After putting her down on the bed, he examined the girl, hoping to use her body to understand how she lived.
She appeared to be around fifteen, with the developing body you'd expect of a teen. She had hair the color of honey and tanned skin that took many days outside to get. She was of average height, if not a bit short, maybe an inch above five feet, it was hard to tell while she was lying down. The most important part about her was how skinny she was, being very thin but not unhealthily so, most likely from a distinct lack of a balanced diet.
It made sense, considering she probably only ate whatever she could steal.
The cloaked man spent a short time deciding how to explain everything to her when she woke, and moved a chair to the wall. Sitting down and closing his eyes, the man fell asleep.
End