I will preface this by saying that THE DRAGONBORN HAS NO EFFECT ON THIS STORY. This is just really the story of a Companion and a thief forming the most unlikely of friendships and trying to keep it together as shit hits the fan. The Dovahkiin is mentioned in this first chapter but his story is separate from these two.

Pronunciation guide: Huszh = "hush"

Nephethys = "neffeh-this"

Neph = "Neff"

I hope you all enjoy this little project of mine.

Your friend,

G.P.

Ahhh, the pungent scent of the Ratway.

Huszh took a long lungful of air through his Argonian nostrils, passing through the iron gates and slipping behind the door. He had not been down here in a good few years...and in the heat of Midyear, the sweat that clung to his scales could drive a man insane. But his purpose for being down here outweighed his disgust. He had friends down here, and he needed a favor.

Riften had never sat well with Huszh. His half-brother was the jeweler in the central market, Madesi, and since the two Argonians had parted ways upon arriving in Skyrim, the younger now quietly sidestepping sleeping drunkards had done all he could to avoid this part of the province. He would not lift a finger for his elder brother. But Madesi had more than earned that, and he wagered not a soul in town knew he had a brother.

He crossed the underground bridge and knocked his knuckles on the table in the small room, noting the familiar shadowmark next to the door to the Ragged Flagon. The seagreen Argonian kept his parcel - a long, sword-length box - tight under one arm, the other scaled hand on his Skyforge steel sword that was strapped to his belt. Huszh was by no means unnerved by thieves, no. Nodding curtly to Dirge as he came into the common room of the Flagon, he recognized the glow of the lamps she had placed over her table on the platform above the lake. No, certainly not afraid of thieves.

His best friend was a thief.

"Nobody can ever call Huszh of Lilmoth a liar. 'Cause when I said that I would 'stay in trouble'," Huszh called as he strode up to the person he'd come to see, "Boy, did I stay in trouble."

The vaguest hint of a smile crossed the sitting Dunmer's lips as she looked up at her oldest friend from her work. The thief in charge of heists, plans, stolen rare tomes, and archives, Nephethys or just "Neph" had been a thief a few years before she met Huszh. Both were having a go at a bandit camp, be it for different reasons. Huszh had been paid to clear it out, where Neph was paid to steal its leader's prized glass warhammer to be sold to the fence. But since that day and now two years later, they trusted each other beyond the bond of siblings.

Neph was a thin, slender elf, but her prowess was with the bow. Huszh had once seen her bring down a frost troll from sixty-something paces, and when she did run out of arrows, she wasn't above bashing a man's face in with the bow itself. Black hair braided back from her face to pour over her tomes, she smiled with her one-red, one-white eye up at Huszh.

"What new mischief did you run into this time?" She shoved her quill into her book as means of a marker, and placed it onto the bench seat beside her. Huszh gave her the box he'd been coveting, and sat down across from her. Ink-stained sleeves were rolled up her lean arms and her nimble fingers braced against the box. "Or is it the same old mischief?"

Huszh shrugged, the corner of his lips curling up. "Only one way to find out."

As she lifted the box, shimmers of light peeked out from the cracks and as she dared to gaze inside, her eyes went wide. She quickly shut the box, staring at him. "Huszh."

"Yes, Neph?" He propped his spiky jaw up onto a fist, his elbow against the table. He dropped his voice to barely above a whisper. "If you're wondering why a Daedric artifact is in that box, I can definitely say that stupidity and mead had something to do with it."

"Well...if this is what I think it is, I'd say that stupidity and mead is exactly what Sanguine needed," The elf said matter-of-factly, pushing the box away from her. "Why bring this to me, though?"

"I certainly can't take it back to Jorrvaskr with me," Huszh, for the first time since she'd known him, seemed deeply ashamed of what he had done. "I cannot disgrace Kodlak like that..."

Befriending Huszh had made Neph a few friends within the Companions, and although Neph was not well-liked by their Harbinger because of her profession in larceny, she respected the old man enough to understand that. After a short silence, the Dunmer took the box again. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"Keep it if you like, sell it, I do not much care where it goes," Huszh admitted, standing and rounding the table. She managed to get one leg out of the bench seat before he gathered her up in an almost painful hug, "You've saved my skin yet again, friend."

"Yes, yes, you're very welcome." She said, tapping the steel armor over his shoulder in protest.

When he set her back down on her feet, he crouched to pull a slip of paper out of his boot. Huszh gave it to her, and crossed his arms. "Vilkas told me that a thief managed to get into Jarl Balgruuf's bedchambers, steal his copy of Before the Ages of Man, and manage to ride off into the night. He also mentioned that whoever it was was wearing Guild armor...?"

Neph read on the scrap of parchment and arched an eyebrow. "Is this really all they want for my head on a platter? I'm a little hurt."

"So it was your horse I saw gallavanting down the Plains District," Huszh's white smile was full of sharp, reptilian teeth. "Nearly ran over the famed Dragonborn, you did."

"Oops," Neph muttered, "I would've had to take Loredas off to wash the dragonblood out of Malcolm's coat to sell. Shame, shame." She pocketed the parchment and tapped the books in the stack from her workspace, shimmying the fourth from its position. "I've already sold three exact replicas of the text, bindings and all. Poor fools. Here." She handed it to him. "Buy yourself something nice."

"You do realize that the Jarl won't accept it back without some sort of proof that it wasn't me who stole it in the first place?"

"Which is why I'm coming with you," Neph leaned against the table, stretching and working out the kinks in her back from sitting for so long. "We'll stage a capture. Meet me by Sigaar's carriage in the morning. I'll tell you the rest then."

"You're an enigma, elf."

"Have I ever led you wrong?" Came her mock-hurt reply.

Huszh clapped a hand on her shoulder on his way out of the Flagon.

"Which is why we're still alive."