"Well, well, colour me impressed, lass. I wasn't certain I'd ever see you again."
Sapphire kept her head down and twirled her last septim through her fingers in the same apathetic manner she had been for the last two hours. Ushering in new blood… another gambit as futile as the last. She let her head fall back and stared up at the murky ceiling, only half listening to Brynjolf and the newcomer.
Deadbeats. That the guild was prioritising them in any way, even as jobs for the new kids was a laughable sign of the times. She could remember when the guild so much as looked at a mark and their gold, jewels and dignity would all be dropped to the ground and meekly rolled over to them in seconds. But then had come the curse, and that was the end of everything.
She sighed.
"Hey. Hey-"
The trainee was too far across the flagon to hear her.
"Motherfucker…" Sapphire jumped down off her stool. "I said HEY!" She aimed and threw the septim in her hand like a knife, and it bounced off the back of her target's head.
Dirge let out a guffaw that didn't reach his eyes.
"It's not nice to throw things," The figure called back, stooping down to pick up the septim and rubbing the back of her head, "And I haven't got any hay, you can check my pockets."
Sapphire narrowed her eyes as she stalked down the ramp with the intention of getting her gold back. Too late, it disappeared into a pocket.
Sapphire held her hand out expectantly. "That's. Not. Yours." She growled.
"Call. The. Guards." The newcomer was not the usual milk-drinker. She was slightly taller than Sapphire, with pale blonde hair and blue eyes brighter than the guild's future by far.
Sapphire glowered at her.
"Call it compensation for the bleeding skull." She turned her back with a big smile, yanked the door open to the Ratway, and slammed it behind her.
"Wow." Dirge did an exemplary job at keeping his face straight. "You sure showed her."
"Dirge, just because Brynjolf banned me from drowning people in the cistern, doesn't mean that I wont."
He wheezed into the back of his hand and Sapphire rolled her eyes. She wrenched the Ratway door back open, leaving it slightly ajar, and marched after her septim.
"Hey, asshole. Hey-"
"I told you I haven't got any ha-"
"Go ahead; make the hay joke one more time, see what happens." The newcomer was against the wall with one blade to her throat, and the other jabbed against her ribs.
The newcomer cleared her throat loudly and took a deep breath.
"I haven't got any hay." She articulated slowly, with a shit-eating smugness. There was a pause as the taller of the two looked up, then slowly around the tunnel expectantly.
"Did I do it wrong?" She asked innocently, when noting happened.
"Argh! Just give me the damned septim back, already!" Sapphire fumed. She had never gotten so riled up over something so trivial before but something about this woman was dragging it out of her.
"Tell you what, say please and I'll give you two. Say it like you mean it, and I'll give you five."
Sapphire was almost purple but she gritted her teeth.
"Please, random asshole, will you give me back my septim." She forced in the nicest tone she could manage.
But despite her efforts, the newcomer was laughing. "I'm kidding, I don't have any gold on me." She pushed Sapphire to one side, ignoring the knives and carried on walking.
The thief let out a yell of frustration.
"Use your words." The response from the dark came.
By the time Sapphire was calm enough to climb out of the Ratway, the newcomer was done with the deadbeats and heading towards the town gate.
With my fucking septim.
"Sapphire. Keeping out of trouble, I hope." The guard responsible for her arrest on at least six occasions had a very thick nordic accent.
"Go fuck yourself!" She screamed, loudly enough for the majority of the market to turn their heads in her direction. Apart from Grelka. Grelka could tolerate Riften, but she couldn't give a damn about it.
The guard just sighed as she shoved past him.
Out of the gate, the newcomer was already out of sight. Determined, Sapphire turned on Shadr like a predator. "Where did she go?"
"I- Sapphire- I- Who- Where did who go?"
"The woman, where did she go?"
On the verge of wetting himself, he pointed a shaky finger down towards the farm. "She- she went that way, I swear!"
"If you're wrong, Shadr, I'm doubling that debt!" She shouted over her shoulder, already marching down the hill towards Merryfair Farm.
Shadr was not wrong. As she came down the hill, she could just see the newcomer talking with Dravin.
"-Cannot thank you enough, your payment is all here- oh. Sapphire." The Dunmer crossed his arms. "Helping to give something back for once, what a scary new feeling for you." He cooed sarcastically.
"Yes, Sapphire here was instrumental in retrieving your bow, couldn't have done it without her."
Sapphire couldn't choose who to glare at.
"Really." Dravin wasn't buying, but then, the newcomer wasn't selling- she was giving, and even Dravin wasn't stupid enough not to see the idiocy in insulting that. "Well, I suppose I could find a reward for you, too."
"I know just the thing." The newcomer said, before Sapphire could respond.
"Oh?"
"She'll take some of your finest hay, been pestering all day for some- agh!"
Too angry even to remember she was armed, Sapphire picked up what looked like a very thick oven glove from a barrel top and started beating the newcomer with it with both hands.
"Use your words!"
"I'll use my fucking words!" Sapphire hollered. "Give me that fucking gold piece or I'm going to shove it up your-"
"Ask not." Dravin said to his wife as she drew level with him, watching the thief beat the stranger, both of whom were now on the ground, mercilessly with the glove.
By the time they made it back to the guild, they were both covered head to toe in dust, and Sapphire was still down a septim.
"What in blazes have the two of you been doing? It's been two hours." Brynjolf looked from one woman to the other waiting for an explanation.
The newcomer spoke first. "We, uh. We had a… roll in the hay." She shouted the last bit in her effort to say it quickly, and then vaulted over the table and bolted for the nearest door howling with laughter as Sapphire dropped the dead-beat's coin pouches and ran at her.
"What in hells was that all about?" Vex had had to pin herself against the wall as the two charged past her.
"Haven't the foggiest- and did she say they'd had-"
"Let's not read too far into it, Delvin." Brynjolf held a hand up and collected the coin from the floor. "Rune?"
"Yeah?" Rune was stopped in mid-motion uncorking a mead, unsure if he should continue if he was about to be sent out.
"Go and tell those two there's still work to be done, the sun is strong today, more people will be out enjoying it. It's the perfect weather for some break-ins."
"Sure." He sighed, uncorking the mead and chugging some of it. It's what most people did before going to confront Sapphire when she was in one of these moods.
The newcomer was sitting on top of one of the wardrobes out of reach, whilst Sapphire prowled around underneath trying to work out if she could tip it over.
"You two- sorry, what was your name?"
"I have a few, 'Asshole', 'Random Asshole', 'Godforsaken Fucking Damned Bitch', take your pick."
"Uhm." Rune looked at Sapphire for help.
"Sounds right to me." The thief muttered saltily.
"I suppose you could just call me Sera."
"Okay… well, Sera, Sapphire- Bryn wants you both out for some good old fashioned burglary. Something about the sun being out."
The newcomer leaned over to get a better view of him.
"So, you're saying we should be productive… whilst the weather is nice?"
Rune looked a little confused. "I- well, yes."
"And, if you were to use a phrase for that, we should…"
"Make hay while the sun shines..?" The man guessed.
Sapphire screwed her eyes shut tightly and took a deep breath. "Just get me out of here and away from her."
"Sorry, Bryn wants you to stick together. Said we can't afford not to have someone with us watching our backs anymore."
Sera looked delighted. "Hey Sapphire, did you hear that? It's going to be me and you, you and me, all day."
"Kill me, Rune, I'm asking for a friend."
Rune was already backing away. "I'm sure you'll get along just fine." He said uncertainly.
-X-
"Let's hit that one."
"That's an orphanage."
Sera nodded encouragingly. "Exactly, they're kids, how are they going to stop us? Come on, who's going to die if we try?"
"Maybe you." Sapphire growled. "Just shut up and follow me."
They broke in through the window to Mjoll the Lioness' house after assuring she and her 'personal ass-wiper' as Sapphire referred to him were still at the market.
"She's a outsider snob, goes around all day spouting off about how she's going to take the thieves guild down if it's the last thing she does. Got me arrested twice now."
"Hm, as long as your not bitter, that's the main thing."
"And those were her last words, before she bled to death, on the floor."
Sera held her hands up in mock surrender.
"Just take this and and fill it with anything that looks remotely valuable." Sapphire thrust a knapsack into the other woman's chest and then crept around the corner to the main room. Sera shrugged and did as she was told for once- she had already met Mjoll, and she didn't care for her at all. She went through all the rooms on the ground floor, finding a nice size bag of gems hidden below a lot of clothes in a draw, a reasonable amount of gold, a few small ornaments and two silver and ruby necklaces.
Sapphire was upstairs rummaging through the bedrooms when Sera finally decided she was done and went to find her.
"What are you doing?" She said loudly in the other woman's ear, having successfully crept up on her unseen.
Sapphire dropped the broach she was holding in shock and grabbed the person behind her by the throat instinctively. It unbalanced them both, and Sera quickly found herself on her back on the bed with Sapphire clumsily on top of her, hand still cutting off her oxygen.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Sapphire hissed, letting go of Sera's throat roughly.
"Being sat on by a lunatic with a lot of repressed anger?"
Sapphire rolled off her and retrieved the broach from the floor. Sera lounged where she lay, partly to annoy Sapphire, partly because it was a really comfy bed.
"Will you get off your ass and do some work?"
"I've done my half the house, thank you."
"Ugh. Whatever. I'm done, anyway. Get up."
"It's really comfy, Sapphire."
"I'm going without you." Sapphire said blankly. She left the room with her knapsack and Sera listened to her go down the stairs before she followed her. They climbed back out of the window they came through, and the second Sera's feet touched the floor, her back met the wall once more.
"You know, if you keep pushing me up against walls like this, I'm going to get ideas."
"Shut up and listen- we're going through the city and straight down the steps to the lower levels. The guards will probably see us and call for us to stop- don't stop walking. Carry on until we're down below street level and then let me handle the rest."
Sera smiled. "You're on top."
"Ugh."
They made their way briskly through town, and true prediction, they were just approaching the orphanage when the first guard spotted them and the the bags over their shoulders and called out to them to stop.
They ignored him, and went down the stairs as hastily as they could. As soon as they were out of sight, Sapphire wrenched the bag from Sera's shoulder and dumped in along with hers into a barrel. From the same barrel, she produced two identical ones, threw one at Sera, put hers over her shoulder as before and pushed the other woman by her arm to keep walking.
"Halt!"
This time Sapphire stopped, and Sera followed suit.
"Can't I do anything in peace?"
"Not when you wear that armour, sneak thief. What's in the bags?"
"Why do you care."
"By order of the Jarl, I demand to see the contents of those bags."
"Oh, is he here? Didn't realise the Jarl came down to the lower levels very often." Sapphire peered round as if she were looking for him.
"Last chance Sapphire- friend of Sapphire. The bags."
"Choke on them." Sapphire sighed, throwing hers over ungracefully.
Sera did the same and the guard looked like he might blow a fuse when he looked into them, pulling out a carrot. "Vegetables, huh? Making a stew? Fine. You get off easy this time- but if I find your hand in any pockets around here, I'm going to cut it off."
"Yeah, yeah." Sapphire grabbed her bag when the guard kicked it back over to her. He didn't bother with the other one, and Sera went to pick it up with a look of great offence.
"That was a pretty good idea." Sera said once her was gone.
"They fall for it every time. Come on." She shouldered past Sera and hoisted the original bags out of the barrel, replacing them with the dud vegetable bags.
"Won't the vegetables go bad in there?"
"Not my problem."
-X-
There was one last bottle of mead in the box by Sapphire's bed and she drank it in one go.
"Well, that wasn't very lady like."
The bottle smashed against the wall inches from Sera's head.
"Is that why you choose to sleep in a secluded back room?"
Sapphire was intent on ignoring the woman.
"Well, if you're too tired to speak I suppose you won't want this septim back, after all."
There was a long drawn out sigh from the thief on the edge of the bed.
"If I let you keep the septim, will you promise to leave me alone?"
"No can do, partner in crime."
Something heavy landed on the bed beside the brunette. It was a very large coin pouch.
"Brynjolf just finished working out the cuts. You can have my half."
"Is this a bribe?"
"No."
"Charity?"
"Nope."
"Philanthropy?"
"Nuh-uh."
Sapphire was at a loss. "Then what is it?"
"It's a coin pouch."
"Sera."
"It's an apology."
"I- What for?" Sapphire's mind was immediately racing with all the stupid things that the newcomer could have done that would warrant actual repayment.
"For things we can't help." And with that, Sapphire was alone.