A/N: An RP between myself and someone on Tumblr. Be warned, we're both gore-freaks =w= There is much murder, mutilation, and death in here~

I wrote the parts for Faulklin. Hige wrote the parts for Blackthorne and Arjorn.

Hunters and Hunted
A Skyrim Fanfiction
Original RP with higekihigure

The rockier areas of the Rift were exceedingly easy to traverse when compared to those of the steeper Reach. He had no concern for bears or trolls. Both could be avoided, and if they couldn't, he could handle himself well enough anyway.

He hadn't had proper work in some time now. After the Brotherhood's rebuild, they didn't have the manpower to pull off exceptional contracts against anyone important or worth going after, and most of the time it was in some remote location like a cave or ruin where he could merely steamroll through. That had its own kind of satisfaction, but there was something to be said for missions with a more subtle touch as well.

He didn't stop to ponder the irony of that thought coming from him of all people. Whether he was direct or sneaky about it, he was still a predator, a taker of life, and by the end, blood would be spilled. If he had any say, it would be a lot of it.

The night sky was half-mottled in clouds, and the only sound was the occasional breeze through birch canopies and crickets. Below the rise glimmered a lake, and somewhere at its center were some islets where his target was waiting for him. Closer still was an old fort on the lakefront, abandoned by military and taken over by vagabonds.

Faulklin froze when he heard voices, ones that were cocky, self-assured, and hostile. He quickly deduced that they weren't directed at him though, spotting two moving figures in the darkness, hunting a wild animal.

Well, at least they were going to make this easy for him.

He strung his bow and nocked a black arrow, aligning it with his single blue eye. It only took him a few seconds to focus before letting it fly, piercing through fur clothing that didn't suffice as proper armor and sent the victim of it staggering, probably as much in surprise as pain. By the time they let out their first shout, he was already firing another one into the man's chest.

Predictably, the second came running to find him, but he lodged a third arrow through their face and they reeled in agony. He used that as his chance to change positioning, slinking behind several rocks and around behind them both, slitting the first man's throat from behind and catching the second through the abdomen with the same blade as they turned around.

There were only three other low-skill bandits guarding Feldar's Tooth, making for an easy sweep. Too small of a number to properly hold a fort like this, which meant…

The information was correct, and the rest were just across the water in Goldenglow Estate.

He went to the precipice of the closest watchtower, unafraid of falling, and surveyed the three connected islands and the manor built atop it. Best to get an idea of the situation first, since there were too many ways for his target to potentially slip away under the confusion. He didn't think he'd have too much trouble with mercenary rabble, but his mark took first priority. He could deal with the rest second.

Blackthorne watched the Altmer massage the bridge of his nose as she sipped at her drink; he had been doing that for the past two hours. He had stated he was going to sleep, but had only laid his head down for a few moments before throwing the covers off the bed with a frustrated groan and sitting up to grumble to himself.

"What's the matter?" she finally asked when he got up to pace the room.

"I thought I hired professionals," he groaned. "Not drunkards and-... and children!"

Blackthorne felt her face scrunch up and get warm at his comment. "I thought we already discussed this," she flared, swinging her feet off the table. "I. Am not. A child! " She slammed her mug down for affect and was satisfied to hear wood crack with the force.

The Altmer flinched.

The house grew silent a moment, the first silence the Altmer had heard in days, then a laugh broke it and the loud ruckus below continued.

"Ye think I came to be the leader of a band 'a mercenaries because of money?" She scoffed. "Maybe ye think me mam just handed me them as a gift one day. Is that it?"

The Altmer stumbled for words a moment, found himself unable to form a solid argument, and instead unlocked the door to his room and flung it open. "What is this, then?" he demanded as a mercenary who had been sleeping against the door flopped inside. He smelled heavily of mead.

A mercenary who had been lazily eating bread and tilting his chair back and fourth at a table across from the door, was watching them with mild amusement, and another head could be seen poking around the corner beyond that.

"I allow my men to drink in shifts," Blackthorne stated. "This way they won't get bored waitin' for some petty thief to break in." She dragged the unconscious drunk into the room and propped him against the wall, a feat for someone her size. "Only a few of them are ever drunk at one time. Or would ye prefer having fifty-some-odd bored barbarians on yer lands?"

The Altmer seemed to be weighing this option as she added "They get nasty urges when they're bored." She chuckled to herself lightly, remembering something. "This one time, I caught Asgeld with his pants down with a chicken-"

"I've heard enough!" the disgusted Altmer interrupted, waving his hands in front of him as if to shoo away what he'd just heard. "As long as you can keep my grounds safe, do what you will."

Blackthorne grinned and nodded. "You should get some sleep," she stated, leading, or in this case, shoving him to his bed. "Got a lot of work to do tomorrow."

Once the man had been shown to his bed, Blackthorne made her brief rounds of the house. In total she had around 50 men on the grounds, half of which were outside patrolling the area. She kept them on a tight schedule of shifts, and made sure they kept to them, especially at night.

Most of the upstairs was quiet; mercenaries sipping at watered down drinks, reading a book, or sleeping on the beds and floors of the 'guest room'. Things were as they should be. Downstairs was another place entirely. It was boisterous and loud, though dying down now that the few who had been allowed hard drink were finding sleep in corners or on the upturned tables and cabinets. She woke the ones who were asleep before their shift and, with their help, moved the drunks to the pantries so they would not be in the way should anything actually happen, then made her way to the cellar.

She hated the cellar; it was cold, damp and smelled of molding hay. Her men had expressed the same displeasure, and she had allowed the few stationed down here mild drink; not anything hard, just something to give them a buzz and keep them warm. She found them just beyond the heavy, iron-studded doors laughing as one of them danced about with a hollowed out taxidermy moose head. It was covered in cobwebs and missing its eyes and she couldn't think for the life of her where they had managed to find it, but didn't care so long as the were awake and alert.

After sharing a hearty laugh with the four, she returned to her post, now with cheese and bread in hand, and readied herself for a long night.

Somewhere around fifteen or twenty guards, Faulklin would guess… and that was only the ones patrolling outside. He considered that maybe most of their force was outside the building itself, maybe thinking that more patrolling outside would keep the inside safer, or possibly to make their numbers look bigger than they were.

Still, he wasn't going to overlook the chance that there could be just as many inside. This was one of Maven Blackbriar's businesses after all. The woman was always too careful.

It was going to make a proper approach difficult, but for him, not impossible. He wasn't the best bladesman in a direct fight, a decent archer, but moving about unseen was his truest and most reliable strength.

In front of the old fort was a small dock and a single boat. At the very least, he could use that to get across without needing to swim, and without taking the single bridge straight in that would be heavily guarded.

Reaching the boat, he untied it from the dock and pushed off, crouching in the bottom with large black cloak covering him entirely and let the moving water do the rest of the work in carrying him to the islands.

He heard some voices above and didn't move at all, listening.

"Looks like some idiot forgot to tie the boat properly."

"Probably Vitcha again… damn boy needs to pay attention more. Told him a million times this is how you tie a proper rope. Does he ever listen though?"

"Should we leave it for now?"

"No. If it floats too far away, we'll never get it back. You keep doing the rounds as usual. I'll go take care of it. At least I'll have something to do now, and someone to chew out when I've finished."

Faulklin listened to each step that drew nearer, dropping onto the stones and mud of the shore, until he could hear the person right above him.

"Huh… who left this here? I hope they expect to get it back wet, leaving it in a boat like that." Faulklin felt a hand against his back, grabbing hold of his cloak, and finally sprung. The man was too surprised to make a sound, and by the time he might have thought of it, the boy had already lodged his sword through his throat and severed his spine.

The body fell against him and slumped into the boat, streaking his side in blood. He ignored it, stepping out and pushing the boat back towards the dock, where the body wouldn't likely be noticed. That only left sneaking around the parameter to the back door, using the outcroppings of the island's risen edge as cover and scaling up the rocks.

There was only one guard at the back. He dispatched them with arrows and then a rush of his blade before they could make too much noise, dumping the newest corpse down a nearby hole that served as the house's sewer.

Sneaking around the outside was easy. The inside was a little more difficult.

As soon as he entered, there was a man rounding the corner. Faulklin was lucky the guy wasn't paying a lot of attention and managed to get the jump on him. The noise, however subtle, didn't go entirely unnoticed. There had been a door to Faulklin's right as soon as he entered, closed but not sound-proof.

Another mercenary emerged, muttering something to the effect of, "What are you doing, falling into walls? Go easy on the drink," before freezing as he saw Faulklin and his dead fellow slumped down the wall. The man drew a sword, but Faulklin closed the distance a split-second faster, cutting him through the lungs. It didn't come without taking a jab through his own lower side, but his wounds would heal. The mercenary's would not.

Faulklin left him choking on blood as he stepped into the room the man had just emerged from, barely avoiding the swing of a two-handed axe that imbedded itself in the door frame. He took his blade to the back of the mercenary's leg and brought him more to the brunette's own level, slicing his throat.

No others came to confront him, but the room wasn't unoccupied. The rest were simply passed out drunk, unaware to their surroundings. He killed them too, not caring if it would be seen by some as cowardly. The more he killed in their sleep, the less of a problem he'd have later.

He didn't bother with more rooms than he had to, walking down the hall and poking his head around the corners before continuing on, dispatching lazy or unaware or drunkenly guards as he went with relative ease. Mostly it was simply that they weren't really expecting anyone to come traipsing through, but that was merely to his advantage.

He managed to dodge around a dining room filled with a greater number of mercenaries who were more awake and reach some stairs going to the second floor. The second floor was even easier since the ones up there were almost entirely asleep, confident that the ones downstairs would handle any confrontation that appeared.

The floor was spotted in pools of blood from slain men and women who had been caught asleep on the floor or dozing at a table, leaking between floorboards and from the ceiling to the first floor below, by the time he reached his target, who was already up and armed with a knife. All the same, the Altmer was cowering in a corner.

"You, how did you get in here?! I know I didn't hire you with the rest… guard! Guards! Blackthorn! Someone, defend me, kill this fool!" he shrieked. Faulklin was the exact opposite, glaring coldly as he advanced and poised his blade. "S-stay away from me! I'm warning you! I'm connected to the Black-Briars! They'll hear of this! You'll pay if you do anything to m-!"

He didn't get the chance to finish, an ebony sword cutting his words short before he fell to the floor, bleeding out. Now the only task left to complete was report back to Nazir that it was done.

Blackthorne had spent a good hour or three talking with Bjarn at the table across from the Altmer's room. She likely would have talked to him all night, but he was new to night shifts and she allowed him to end his shift early, which left her to sit in the silence alone, and increasingly restless.

With no stimulus and little else to do, she had decided to raid the pantry in the room just outside and to the right of her post. If she was going to guard this place, she was going to take full advantage of its food stores as well. She had just decided to take a whole bag of apples back to the table when she heard commotion below the stairs.

"Blood!" a voice shouted below. "There's blood coming from the ceiling!"

She had a split second to register that as actual panic before hearing the Altmer scream for her from the other room. Her heart sped up, a mix of panic and excitement, as she dropped the bag in favor of her twin axes and raced out of the room to her charge.

She didn't slow down upon entering the room, barely registered the body laying on the floor as she leapt at the figure wrapped in black.

Faulklin surveyed his handiwork for a moment more as he heard the sounds of panic reaching through the floorboards from below. Seemed that someone sober enough to notice the carnage finally did.

He gingerly stepped around the body and to a table where a pouch of coins sat. No use leaving it be. Maybe it'd even keep Nazir from bothering him with insipid contracts not worth his time. The Redguard didn't really care where the coin came from, right?

He heard the running footfalls that announced the first mercenary to arrive to confront him, his blade already drawn, so he was prepared to block when they sprung at him.

What surprised him most was their height. He was used to always being looked down upon, quite literally, with his lacking stature. This was one case where he couldn't say the same. She was at least the same height as him… no, maybe she was shorter. A child? Or…

He didn't ponder it long. What did it matter? A child or short adult, it made no difference to him. He blocked the first axe that swung towards her, but noticed she had a second one, and quickly kicked out at her stomach to push her back so he could regroup and deal with both blades accordingly, before more mercenaries could show up to crowd the room.

"Too late," he muttered, not taking his eyes off her but his words referencing the dead owner of the estate whom she and her fellows were hired to guard.

Blackthorne staggered from the kick, but didn't falter in her pose or attack as she rushed at the assassin once more, going for his left leg with one axe and his mid-section or chest with the other.

Sure, her charge being dead was a damper, but this ass was mistaken if he thought she was going to just let him go.

Behind them heavy steps were clomping up the stairs.

Faulklin leapt back away from her swings, the axes missing him by a hairs breadth, but missing him all the same. Offensively, he was sub-par. Dodging, however, was something he excelled at.

Maybe if his circumstances were as normal as anyone else's, he might let her cut him down, and he'd probably laugh at her for doing so, likely to her great confusion. He didn't so much fancy the thought of being crippled, or the torture that would ensue when her and her cronies would try and fail to kill him - even more to their confusion - and instead focused on the fight seriously.

While he was back-stepping, his single eye took quick snapshots of the room, taking stock of what he had to work with, seeing possibilities with each glance.

His back ran against dresser shelves in the far corner as he dodged another swing. His free hand groped for a useful object, and found the neck of a wine bottle. Not anyone's first choice in weaponry, but it'd do. He swung it around and down to smash it over her head. Even if she blocked it with her arms or weapons, it would be enough to slow her down for at least a few seconds.

The door wasn't really a free option, with other mercenaries quickly closing the distance to it, nor were the too-small four panel windows, but there was another that the girl probably hadn't recognized.

He dashed past her and up the shelving of a cupboard in the shadow of the door. It teetered and fell over, but not before he managed to push off and hoist himself partially up onto one of the many wood beams crisscrossing the ceiling, directly above the door, right as the rest of the mercenaries unknowingly burst in directly below him and kept going, showering the girl with questions ranging from "Where are they?!" to "What happened?", completely oblivious that the slayer of their comrades and employer was poised just above and behind with a sword poised in one hand and a charging fireball in the other.

Blackthorne tched in annoyanceas the brunette 'escaped' into the rafters. "There's nowhere to run, you -" her insult was cut short as the room flooded with mercenaries eager for a fight and full of questions.

"Where are the vermin?" several asked boisterously, effectively overriding her own words.

"He's above you, you idiots! Clear he way!" she shouted, but it went unheard by those further back and those still demanding answers, who crowded a good portion of the room and door way now.

She began to shout a louder command, but it trailed off as she watched the fireball light up in the assassin's hands, instead turning into a frantic demand for everyone to get out and get to cover. She backed up the small step behind her, towards the bed, and near a darkened corner between a dresser and tall stand; out of his line of sight.

A few nearest her had followed, though it was doubtful they all fit out of line of sight, while he rest of the room erupted into chaos.

Faulklin was counting on the bullheaded battle-hunger that most mercenary-band types possessed, letting them file in underneath like a herd of sheep to slaughter. Most men and mer, as he saw it, were little brighter.

A few started to notice him, but by then, he already had a fireball ready and shot it down, an inferno exploding against a few of them and the surroundings. There was screaming and the smell of burnt flesh, as well as scattering. Someone was actually smart enough to dive for a flagon full of water, but by then he already had another fireball ready to explode against a few more.

One person that he didn't hit lodged an arrow in his shoulder, and the pain that made him jolt offset his balance so that he fell. Another arrow came aimed his way, but with the explosion of flames and the many running, screaming bandits, the wood floorboards in the center of the room gave way, splintering and collapsing to the first floor, him along with it.

He gasped the smoky air for a few moments, though it didn't cause him any grievance, and snapped the arrow shaft close to the wound, staggering to his feet and taking off towards the door.

Let them deal with the remaining chaos. His job was already done, and while he was stubborn, he wasn't dumb. He'd take out any that pursued, and leave the rest for another time.

Blackthorne paced in her spot near the bed a moment before deciding there was little point in wasting time finding an alternative route downstairs when the most direct one was in front of her. She sheathed her axes, covered her nose with part of her fur-lined vest and hopped into the smoking wreckage.

She landed with a loud crunch, followed by a load groan that she couldn't be sure was the wood or not, and nearly fell into a nasty mix of trophy antlers and splintered wood as she settled on more stable ground.

The fur did little to keep out the wretched stench and her green eyes watered from the smoke that stung them. Around her men and women were groaning, screaming, even crying, and she found herself at a cross-road of choice. As much as she wanted to chase the assassin, as much as she felt she needed to, her men came first; for good men were hard to come by, and none too cheap to keep near.

She decided Arjorn could deal with the assassin. He was never far from the small red-head and was sure to be near enough to spot the stranger.

Arjorn had been enjoying himself in the chicken coops when the chaos had begun. He was quickly at attention and even quicker to notice the shadow pulling away from smoke. He didn't need to hear the whistle to know that this did not belong.

With a snarl he barreled at the figure; a 5′7 mass of muscle, metal, fur, claws and bloody feathers that one rarely - if ever - saw, and it was all focused on tearing the strange shadow apart.

Faulklin's first choice of direction upon exiting the building the same way he'd come in was to go right. Going left led him back to Feldar's Tooth, but there was water between him and it. On the other side - the direction he went - was a dock with a Nordic knar and a smaller boat tethered to the poles. He could use the smaller boat to cross to land and escape.

Less expectedly (though somehow he thought he should have predicted it. This was the Rift after all) was the huge mass of a fully grown bear that seemed to come out of nowhere. And clearly, this was no random, wild bear, considering it was covered in a big, clanking mass of armor, fit just for it.

He didn't even pause to swear, spinning on his heel and dashing towards the woodwork of a platform where supplies were kept outside, throwing himself between a gap in the wood frame between thick barrels. The entire structure rattled and tilted from the charging beast that struck out with heavily-clawed paws, barely missing.

The first space with a diagonal-beam wouldn't allow it to fit, but the animal immediately backed off and swung around to where there was a wider gap. Faulklin scrambled to his feet and leapt onto another diagonal-beam and dug his fingers into the lip of wood at the top of the platform, edging up the diagonal surface until he could pull himself up on top of it.

He saw the briefest movement through wood boards of the bear, but mostly he heard it huffing and puffing, pacing heavily below and back into the open. His new perch wasn't going to last more than a minute or two with that chasing him.

He panted as he glanced around for his best escape route, and even as he did so, the creature rose onto its paws and slammed them against the wood, which audibly snapped and splintered. Faulklin was mentally counting each slam, of which the sheer force almost knocked him off of the platform even before it broke.

Two… three… four… five…

That was the point that the legs gave out and teetered towards the water and docks. Maybe he could make the jump from the corner to the smaller boat… it was a gamble, but worst case scenario, he'd miss and hit the water. He could swim, if poorly, just not as fast as a bear, although a bear in heavy armor was more likely to sink in deep water.

He wasn't getting any more choice, hopping off the falling platform to the rail of the wood pathway and launching forward.

He barely cleared the gap, hitting the edge corner of the boat and falling forward hard. He hissed and reeled, the arrow in his shoulder and pain in his side from the earlier mercenary blade, but forced himself up and cut the tether, pushing the boat from the dock.

Arjorn continued the chase with little pause, going so far as to dare a jump into the small boat, nearly sending the small shadow catapulting off the side of it. He clawed his way into the boat leaving deep, jagged gashes in the creaking wood until he finally found balance in the center.

The bear huffed loudly, its warm, foul breath spilling over the small brunette for a moment before it was swept away in the chill breeze. Water was threatening to overtake the vessel as it strained to stay afloat under the bears sheer weight, it pooled at the pairs feet, nipping them with cold pins. Arjorn swatted at the small figure, long dagger-like claws seeking to eviscerate its target.

Faulklin could hardly believe that the bear actually leapt after him. The beast must have been either stubborn or stupid. Either way, Faulklin had never much liked bears to begin with, right up there somewhere with frost trolls and slaughterfish.

Maybe it'd be best to abandon ship and simply swim after all…

He stood unsteadily, back heavily against the headpiece of the boat with the bear looking to close the distance, though at least it was no steadier than he was.

It swiped towards him and he ducked to the side of it, barely avoiding its claws, or at least avoiding them catching flesh. It did, however, catch the folds of his cloak, and as soon as it did it yanked him towards it, and there was no way he was besting a bear in matters of physical strength.

He toppled forward, swearing profusely, and no sooner had he hit the half-sunk hull of the boat then powerful jaws crunched over his shoulder and he screamed.

The bear moved to yank its head, but paused when the boat pitched and instead only bit down again, readjusting the grasp that its fangs had. Faulklin used the moment to swivel around, even though the agony in his upper torso only grew, and jammed his sword into the pit under one of the bear's front legs.

It was the beast's turn to roar in pain, jolting to the side and causing the boat to capsize both of them into the water with a grand splash. The bear still didn't release straight away, and he twisted the sword further, clouding the water with dark blood. Finally the bear released him and he likewise withdrew his blade, boy and bear trying to reach the surface with mixed results.

The bear at least turned its sights back to Goldenglow, at first unable to even breach the surface, but it finally appeared on the shore. Faulklin, glad to be rid of it, hooked an arm between the wood planks that made up the seats of the overturned boat, simply to stay afloat, and headed for the shore near Riften docks.

When he managed to get close enough that he could reach the bottom with his feet, he hauled himself onto land and simply collapsed for a few minutes, burning his wounds shut so they wouldn't continue to bleed out.

He glanced up for a moment as he stood on shaky legs, unsteady from what blood he did lose and the cold of the northern waters. He spied the large shape of the bear on the shore, barely visible at such a distance, and other figures he assumed to be the remaining mercenaries.

Didn't matter. This job was done, and he didn't fancy trying to fight them now with the wounds he'd accumulated. Weary, he turned and trudged towards Riften stables, where Shadowmere was waiting to take him back to the sanctuary.

Blackthorne was doing her best to assemble order in between her trips in and out of the burning home, dragging survivors to safety and casting quick healing spells all while barking orders to the ones that had gathered.

"Fetch water, don't let the fire spread!"

"Help me get the living from the rubble!"

"Don't just stand there! Move! Move!"

She was in the midst of hefting smoldering boards from a body when a moan resounded from the dock:

Pain. Hurt. Need you. Hurt. Need you. Need you. Need you.

Blackthorne threw the board to the side and took off at a sprint toward the bear.

Arjorn was sopping wet, water running from his fur in rivulets as he slogged towards the familiar elf. A relieved but pained snort escaped him as she hugged at his head and hurried to press the release latches on his armor. The armor fell from him in a series of clunks and, as if all energy had suddenly left him, he fell with a huff onto the grass.

Rest now. Tired. Hurt. Relieved. Hurt.

Blackthorne scratched behind his ear, reassuring him he was safe as she pulled a red vial from her side pouch. He snorted contentment and she smiled slightly despite the panic in her chest.

She did a quick assessment of his body, lifting heavy paws to find the culprit with relative ease. She winced at the deep, dark red of the cut and hoped upon all hopes it wasn't too deep to heal.

She uncapped the small vial and poured the liquid into his mouth, which he swallowed with some disdain, and she watched as the injury slowly seamed shut into a tender, frail scar. It would likely be a few days until it solidified into a full scar, but he would live. He'd better.

A solid heat filled her chest as she recalled the lithe assassin, replacing her anxiety with anger as she walked back up the hill with renewed vim. He would pay for this; for the death of the Altmer, her men, and for the injury given to Arjorn. She would see to it that he paid everything he owed due.

"We leave in the morning!" she announced. "Once the fire's out we make for Riften. We-"

"Er, Miss," interrupted a Breton with a wince. "What about Maven, what are we going to tell her?"

Blackthorne had forgotten about the original owner of the Estate, and the fire inside of her flickered to an ember as she thought on this. They couldn't just leave without saying anything, she would receive word of the incident by morning, no doubt, and the blame would fall directly upon them. With Maven's influence in both the Thieves guild and The Dark Brotherhood, as well as her overall political power, they would fall under an attack they could not win against, loathe as Blackthorne was to admit this. She couldn't just send a messenger, telling her they had somehow failed. No, that would not satisfy the woman, or Blackthorne, at all.

She crossed her arms, cupping her chin with one hand in thought a moment before regaining some of her spark.

"I'll tell her meself as soon as we get to Riften," she decided. Turning to the Breton, she said "Take a skif back to the Tooth. Tell them we won't be returning as soon as we'd planned and to bolster the defenses. I can't be sure when we will return." The Breton nodded understanding. "Take Asgeir, Ferald, and Gryf with you."

The Breton nodded once more, "Yes'sir."