16th Last Seed, 4E201

She hadn't been this angry in a long, long time.

Her hands were trembling as they held up the leather flap of the saddle bag, and her eyes stared disbelievingly at the dozens of small indigo bottles nestled inside—identical to the ones filling the other saddle bag, and her client's rucksack. There were easily over a hundred bottles, and she registered that fact in a daze, somewhere behind the roaring anger.

The steady pounding of her heart and the ringing in her ears were making it significantly more difficult to hear the noble man babbling from where he stood behind her—difficult, but not impossible. He was trying desperately to quell her obvious rage, but couldn't seem to stick to any one angle for more than a sentence or two. She could hear the nerves stretched taut in his voice, and the unmistakable pitch of fear.

'You weren't supposed to find out!' He sounded almost pouty, and when her only response was to hunch her shoulders and tighten her grip on the saddle bag, his tone turned appeasing again. 'Look, it's not as bad as you think, I swear! I know I lied, but...but I promise, if you just hold up your end of the bargain and take me to Riften, I'll split the money with y—'

'I don't want your dirty money,' she spat, cutting him off, and slapped the flap down in disgust. 'I'm having nothing to do with this.' Her voice was quivering in her anger, and she remonstrated herself viciously to make it hold still. Now was no time to sound weak.

'What do you mean?' His voice was laced with obvious panic, but still she didn't turn around.

'You're already involved,' he continued. 'You took on this job, signed a contract...' his words were starting to slip together as he talked faster in his fear. 'I paid you good money to travel with me. If you're thinking of backing out now, I won't have it. I'll—' his voice broke, and then came back threatening, with the sheen of desperation still coating his words like oil. 'I'll ruin you! I'll tell everyone I know that you're no good. You won't find work agai—'

Now she did swing around to face him, and the look in her eyes had the noble staggering back.

Her right hand gripped the hilt of her sword. For a wild moment, she considered just killing him, and leaving the body to rot in the woods. She had always considered herself an honorable woman, and there was no honor in murdering a client. And she never had before...but she had never had a job go sour like this. She eyed him, taking in the sheen of sweat on his pale face, and the softness of his privileged body, and knew that she could do it. The man was a few years her junior, and looked as if he'd barely held a blade in his life. The sun was starting to set behind the trees, turning the forest murky; it would be dark soon. If she killed him now and buried the bags, she could ride the horse to Nightgate Inn, and nobody would be the wiser...

But the crazed moment passed, and she mentally shook herself.

That's not you.

In the four years that she'd been a mercenary, she'd worked hard to make sure that she always stayed on the right side of the law, and had carefully screened her prospective clients. This job hadn't seemed any different when she'd taken it, and as a result she hadn't discovered this little pissant's secret until it was far too late.

And whether she liked it or not, his threat held weight. He came from an important family in Morrowind, and he had the ability to cripple her business, if that was what he wanted to do.

But it still wasn't worth resorting to murder.

She peeled her fingers off of her sword, and balled her hands into fists. She hit him with a withering glare, and when she spoke again, it was through clenched teeth.

'I made things perfectly clear when we met. I transport people, animals, objects. I don't move slaves. And I don't move drugs.'

He opened his mouth to say something else, but she cut him off again.

'That—' she jerked her head in the direction of the stalled horse, and his rucksack laying open on the ground— 'is a fortune's worth of Skooma. What were you planning to do with so much?'

His cheeks flamed, and he crossed his arms over his chest, defensive in spite of (or perhaps because of) his arrogance. 'I don't see how that's any of your business.'

Her eyes narrowed even further. 'I'd bet you're planning to sell it all over the province.'

The look on his face was all the response she needed, and she drew herself up to her full and considerable height before continuing.

'I should report you to every Hold in Skyrim,' she snapped. 'And I still might. But for now, I'm making things easy on myself—I'm dissolving our contract due to you breaching the terms.'

He gaped at her then, mouth opening and closing like a fish, but before he could interrupt her, she continued.

'I'm not going to leave you here in the woods by yourself, no matter if you deserve it. I'm not heartless, and you look like the type of snowberry who'd get taken out by a skeever.'

'You can't do this,' he spluttered.

'The hell I can't,' she snapped back. 'We'll travel together to the closest settlement, and then you're on your own. I'm washing my hands of this. And if you have even part of a brain in that head, those bottles will disappear somewhere along the way. Catch my drift?' She resettled the straps of her own pack on her shoulders, and turned around to leave. 'Now pack up your shit, and let's move.' With that, she started walking.

'You can't do this to me,' he wailed at her back. 'You double-crossing bitch! Do you know who I am?' But she just smiled grimly to herself and kept on walking.

They'd only been walking for another few minutes when she'd had to rustle up her lantern, and light it to illuminate their path through the trees. Ordinarily she would've set up camp, but only a fool would think to try sleeping next to a freshly made enemy.

And there was no doubt whatsoever in her mind that she'd made an enemy out of the angry Breton riding behind her. He'd made all sorts of different threats as she'd walked away into the forest and he'd had to rush to catch up with her. But when he'd seen that nothing he said was fazing her anymore, he had quickly fallen into sullen silence, and it was in silence that they travelled now.

She knew from her experience with the surrounding area that they were coming up on a place called Darkwater Crossing; there was a community of miners who made their home there during the summer months, and they were well enough established that they had a courier line that ran periodically out to several of the other holds, and especially Windhelm and Riften.

As far as she was concerned, the community more than qualified as a settlement, and a plan was quickly forming in her mind. She would leave her idiot client—ex-client, she firmly corrected herself—with the miners, and leave them some gold to compensate for the inconvenience of knowing him. She would ask whoever was in charge of the camp to make sure he was taken care of until they could send out a courier with a request for a carriage. And then the scum ball could go wherever he wanted; whether to Riften or back to Morrowind, or to Oblivion for all she cared—it wouldn't be her problem anymore.

She was feeling satisfied with herself and with the plan, and picked up her pace towards the encampment she knew wasn't far away. The terrain was plenty hilly in this part of the province, and soon they were negotiating a narrow winding path that made the horse whinny nervously, thickly forested on either side. It was far from easy-going, and she subconsciously held her breath as she led the three of them onward. Around the last bend, after several tense minutes, the ground evened out and she breathed a sigh of relief. Then she heard a rustling noise to her immediate left, and what she saw when she turned her head made her stop in her tracks.

Stormcloaks. Over two dozen of them sat huddled on the ground in a loose circle against the rocky outcropping she'd just picked their way down from. They looked haggard and worn, their cuirasses patched and threadbare, their faces flickering in the dim light of a single lantern burning low in the centre of the circle. And all of them were staring at her.

Shit. She would've preferred a sabre cat. Any other dangerous beast, really.

She'd been keeping track of the civil war's progress—or lack there of—while she'd worked out of other provinces. And in all of her forays back into Skyrim, she'd been careful to avoid contact with either faction...but especially with the Stormcloaks. They were rebels; traitors to the Empire, and because of it they were hunted ruthlessly by Imperials and Aldmeri alike. No place where Stormcloaks lingered was safe for a neutral party—Imperial authorities had infamously little sympathy for anyone who 'allied' themselves with rebels, and it didn't take much to count as an ally in the eyes of the Empire or Dominion.

And these Stormcloaks were no exception. They'd been sitting huddled and silent off of some narrow forest trail under cover of night, with hardly any light to even see by, let alone a fire to warm themselves or cook their food. They looked as if they hadn't slept in days, and many of their faces held open suspicion—they were clearly trying to lay low here.

This was not a good place to be.

Before she could make another move, a man near the centre of the circle with a long blonde beard and a prominent scar rose quickly to his feet and addressed her.

'Hail, kinsman.' His tone was guarded, and she saw that his hand gripped the handle of an axe at his side. 'What business do you have here?'

'No business,' she replied immediately. She squared her shoulders and held his gaze. 'We'll just be passing through.'

He quirked a brow, tilted his head. 'This is pretty secluded country. What brings you through this part of the forest?'

Inwardly, she cursed. They probably thought her an Imperial spy. She would have to play her cards right, or she'd have a bigger problem on her hands than the idiot behind her.

'I am a mercenary,' she told him, her tone amenable. 'And this man is my client. We're making our way to Riften.'

'To Riften, you say?' The Jarl of Riften backed the Stormcloaks, and everybody knew it. 'Why take such an indirect route?'

'My client wished to avoid the volcanic plains, so we're making our way around them.' The words came easily, because they were the truth. The man seemed to relax, just a bit; it was a well-known fact that the plains were best avoided. She extended her hands palms up in front of her.

'We have no quarrel with you. We're just on our way to the Rift.'

He eyed her for another second, and then nodded to her curtly. 'Very well.' He relaxed his grip on the axe, and she turned to make a hasty departure.

It was then that the Breton opened his mouth.

'Now, hang on a second,' he wheedled, and the eyes in the circle shifted from her to the man on the horse.

'You can hardly expect me to travel through the entire night, can you? I need to rest.' He flicked his eyes over the group of ragged men and women to his left, and jutted a hand out towards them. 'You said yourself that it's safer to venture the wilds in numbers, and it looks like they're already set up for the night. Why don't we camp with them?'

Both she and the bearded Stormcloak started talking at once.

'We're not looking for—'

'That's not a good—'

They looked at one another for a bare second, and then she snapped her head back to look up at the man she was leading.

'It would be best for us to keep moving,' she said tersely.

'But why?' His tone of voice made it perfectly clear that he thought she was being crazy, and his face was set into stubborn lines.

She felt her anger starting to mount again, but kept it firmly in check. 'You can't just stumble into any camp you find and insist that they take you in. That's not how the real world works.'

He straightened up in his saddle defiantly, and flippantly tossed the reins he'd been clutching over the saddle's horn. He looked maddeningly imperious now, and his mind was clearly made up. 'I see no reason for us to continue. This is a perfectly good place to set up camp, and surely, rebels or no, they wouldn't mind sharing the space with fellow travellers.'

She opened her mouth to respond, but one of the Stormcloaks beat her to it. Tough and grizzled, with a hank of greying hair, he scowled at the Breton as he lurched up from the ground and took a menacing step toward them.

'Rebels? You are looking at proud Nords. The true sons and daughters of Skyrim! If we rebel against anything, Breton, it's the oppression of Elven filth.'

Things were starting to get out of hand. The noble idiot had clearly offended more than a few of the Stormcloak soldiers, and a dark muttering had started among them. She spun quickly around, and held her hands up and out in a peaceable gesture.

'Please, don't listen to him,' she said quickly, trying to keep her tone civil. 'He doesn't know what he's talking about.' Then she rounded back on the insufferable man on his horse, and levelled him with a vicious glare.

'This is non negotiable. We are leaving, now.'

'Aye.' The Stormcloak who'd first spoken agreed with her, and he sounded decidedly unfriendly now. 'T'would be best for you to listen to your sell-sword, I think.'

The young Breton's eyes gleamed with a strange kind of belligerence, and when she reached out to grab his reins, he snatched them away from her.

Her temper surged, and her words came out in a shout. 'Enough of this! Stop making an ass of yourself, and move the gods-damned horse!'

'Or what, you stupid s'wit?' he shouted back. 'What are you going to do?'

What her answer might've been, they never found out. At that moment, the forest around them filled with the sound of yelling men, and all at once they were no longer alone in the camp.

What she'd feared most as soon as they'd stumbled into the Stormcloak's hiding place had become a reality. It was an Imperial ambush.

The scuffle that ensued had been spirited, but short. The Stormcloaks had outnumbered the Imperials, but the Imperials had the advantage of surprise, and had taken their time surrounding the camp. And the Stormcloaks were diminished; exhaustion made them easy opponents, and it wasn't long before the fight was determined.

She had tried to flee the scene and leave the Breton to his fate when chaos had broken out in the camp, but a soldier in steel armor had anticipated her and knocked her flat on her back, winding and dazing her. She hadn't so much as drawn her sword in resistance, but from there, it made little difference. Her hands and feet were bound with rope like the surviving Stormcloak soldiers, and she was dragged roughly through the woods by her wrists.

She could hear the nobleman yelling pitifully from somewhere ahead of her in the trees. He was sobbing, proclaiming loudly over and over again that he had nothing to do with the rebellion, telling their captors his name and the names of his noble parents, but it didn't seem to be doing him any good.

When she craned her neck, she could see through the light of the Imperial's torches that they had commandeered the Breton's horse, and were walking it along. Her stomach lurched painfully—she knew what they'd find when they searched the saddle bags.

After another minute, amidst all of the Stormcloak's cursing and the Breton's sobbing and the rustling of the undergrowth as bodies were dragged through it, she heard the voices of Imperial soldiers calling out to each other in the distance. Moments later the trees started to thin, and then she was being hauled onto an actual road—one of the Emperor's roads, stone-cobbled and well established. As soon as she felt her armored back connecting with the rocks, the man who'd been dragging her through the forest abruptly dropped her, and headed back into the woods—presumably to help others with their prisoners.

She struggled against her bonds, but they'd been well tied, and before she could make much progress, a different Imperial soldier approached her.

'Please.' She did her best to keep her voice level, to reason with him. 'I am not a rebel. I was simply passing through when you attacked the camp.'

He snorted. 'Right. Because this would be the first time I've ever heard that excuse.'

'Look at me. Do I look like a Stormcloak? Am I wearing the armor? Think.'

The man held his torch up then to actually look at her. He saw a statuesque Nord woman in sturdy armor, devoid of Eastmarch's bear. She had thick black hair that had unravelled and was full of debris from the forest. Mud streaked her thoroughly, and there was a fire in her eyes that betrayed her level voice.

But the Imperial shook his head. 'It doesn't matter. There's more than one way to make a traitor of yourself. And the company you keep can't be ignored. Armor or no armor, we're taking you in.'

Frustration spiked in her and clawed at her like a wild animal, and she had to bite her lip to keep from snarling. She glared at him in contempt. 'I'm innocent,' she said flatly.

'We'll be letting General Tullius be the judge of that.'

'If he's half as dim as the rest of you, then he can kiss my ass.'

Now the Imperial looked menacingly at her, and when he responded, his voice was sharp. 'Hold your tongue, woman. You're in the Empire's custody now.' He reached down to grab her with the hand not holding a torch, and started to drag her down the bumpy road.

She weighed her options quickly, and didn't see that she had many—as far as she was concerned, there was really only one. Determination had started a fire in her gut.

'See if you can keep me that way,' she responded. And then she reared up with all her strength.

The force of her flailing as hard as she could was enough for her to drag her captor down to the ground and wrench herself free from his grasp; quick as a hare, she was on her hobbled feet and staggering away from him. She only knew one flame spell, and it wasn't very strong, but she used it now to blast the ropes that bound her feet together. It took longer than she'd expected, nearly too long, and the fire coming into contact with her leather boots made them singe and smoulder. But the Imperial had on heavier armor than she did, and she was given precious seconds while he struggled to clamber to his feet. After what felt like an eternity to her adrenaline-filled system, she ripped the charred ropes apart with a lunging step, and she started at a dead run for the forest she'd come from, hands still bound in front of her.

The Imperial had been in shock at her sudden escape, but now he started to yell at the top of his lungs.

'Runner! We've got a runner over here!'

Chaos broke out around her all over again, but she didn't waste time looking back. She ignored the various aches in her body and the searing in her lungs and focused all of her energy on making it to the tree line.

She was certain she was going to make it. She was certain, right up to the point where a different Imperial soldier tackled her back and knocked her to the ground, hitting her head on a rock jutting up from the soil, and everything went spinning into black.