Remember Me For Centuries

'Sweet Mother, Sweet Mother. Send your child unto me. For the sins of the unworthy must be baptised in blood and fear.'

'What do you mean you killed her?' Brynjolf's voice was piercing as it echoed against the stone walls of the Thieves Guild.

'I… She…' I stammered, trying to form a sentence from the emptiness I was left with after my brain abandoned me. I swear I had planned out what I was going to say at this moment, but seeing Brynjolf so disappointed in me after failing another simple heist hit me harder than I could have expected, and this time I had failed spectacularly.

'Do you have any idea what this is going to do to the Guild's image, Lass? Not only did you fail to retrieve the documents that Maven requested, but you killed the woman. Maven will want your head and our other clients will want to know how this job went so wrong!'

The weight of what I had done hit me. Seeing the man who had brought me off the street and raised me for the past five years disappointed in me yet again made me feel nothing but melancholy. I'd never be the prodigy he wished for. He stopped himself from continuing his rant and moved to rest his hand on my shoulder, beckoning me to sit down next to him.

'Talk me through what happened, then maybe we can fix this mess.'

I sighed, breaking the eye contact he had initiated with his plea. 'She was just so horrible to them, Bryn.' I began. 'Everything went to plan at first. Inigo had told her that he found me in the gutter, we even spent the morning down there making it look like I'd been living on nothing but skeever meat, but even with the spare bed from Aventus, Grelod isn't taking in anymore orphans. She said they're on lockdown to make sure no one else escapes. I tried looking around for her office, but before I could she was screaming at Inigo for having left the building. She wanted to make an example out of him so she…'

'What did she do, Lass?' Brynjolf was attempting to comfort me. Inigo was my best friend. We met when Brynjolf brought me to Riften after he found me in the gutters of Whiterun, clutching the Skyforge steel dagger my parents had given me to protect myself before they were killed in combat. I could have stayed in Jorrvaskr, but it hurt too much to be around the people who reminded me so much of my parents. It hurt less to be alone.

While Brynjolf provided protection and a place within the guild as their youngest member, he was often out of Riften on jobs. Inigo was always around. He was a Khajit, blue in colour, who had never known his real parents, but instead had been raised by an adopted Khajit mother and an Argonian father, before they, too, were killed.

'She cut his fur off. Held him down and made the other children watch. I tried to stop her, but Inigo just pointed to her office and mouthed for me to finish the job while she was distracted. But, before I had a chance, she cut his ear. He scratched her in defence and she dropped the scissors. I caught them and put them in her heart. Because of all the screaming, the guards were banging on the door, so we had to run before I could get the documents. I'm sure Maven will be after Inigo too.' My tone was a cold as Brynjolf's expression had turned.

Two weeks later, Inigo and I were still holed up in the Ragged Flagon waiting for the salvation that Brynjolf has promised from an indignant Maven Black-Briar. We couldn't stay in Riften. As the eleven year old thief and her Khajit best friend, Maven knew who we were. Thus, we had been entrusted to the watchful eye of Delvin Mallory while Brynjolf sat opposite a strange woman. We had been watching her closely since she had walked in, clad in black and blood red leather armour. Even with her blonde hair flowing over her shoulders after the removal of her cowl, she was intimidating against the friendly faces around us. This woman was no thief.

'What do you think they're talking about?' I asked Inigo, hoping his Khajit ears could pick up more than my small Nord ones.

'I do not know, my friend. But it cannot be good. This woman seems dangerous.'

Killing Grelod wasn't just a matter of a failed job for Maven. She had privately funded Honorhall Orphanage while Grelod was alive and had tasked me in obtaining documents detailing where Maven's investments were going. With Grelod dead, Constance Michel had taken over the orphanage and had started to educate the children in the hopes they would one day leave Riften and lead full lives, rather than turn into the pawns Maven had hoped for.

After what seemed like hours, Brynjolf's defeated sigh echoed around the cistern. He walked over to us with the blonde woman swiftly on his heels.

'We've come up with a solution, but I don't know if you'll like it, Lass.' He kneeled in front of me, taking my hands and looking me in the eye. 'Maven runs this city. Even with Karliah back and the guild restored, we aren't powerful enough to hide you. But you seem to have made some friends who are.' He looked up to the blonde woman, beckoning her to take over.

'When you killed Grelod, you may have been doing your friends a favour, but that kill was, by rights, a Dark Brotherhood contract. I've seen your work. Eleven years old and already mentally and physically strong enough to pierce a woman's heart with a dull pair of scissors. You show promise. A few years training with us and you won't have to be worried about what Maven will do if she catches you, she'll have to worry about what you'll do to her.' She gave Inigo and I a warm smile.

Brynjolf sighed, a glint of sadness in his eye. 'You'll both be going with Astrid to the Dark Brotherhood. You'll be safer outside of Riften and with trained killers watching your back. I just wish I could keep you safe myself.'

The woman, Astrid, interjected again. 'We won't just be leaving here without covering our tracks, though. In order to prove your worth, you're going to have to cover them yourself. I've heard about your little conscience stopping you from being able to carry out heists, but it seems it hasn't stopped you from committing murder. Maybe the Dark Brotherhood is the place for you.'

Astrid's last statement weighed on my mind. I had never been a good thief. Growing up in the companions meant sharing everything; to take from a companion left everyone worse off. My parents had instilled a strong sense of honour in me before they died. If someone had done me or my friends wrong, I was to challenge them. Fight them, if I needed to. Maybe even kill them. But ruining someone's life through manipulation of the law and taking what they held dear seemed dirty and small. I loved Brynjolf and the people in the guild, but wealth was not a solid foundation on which to build a life. But wasn't murder worse than stealing?

Blood. So much blood. It seemed I was better at killing that I was at stealing. Although bandits were deemed as less than human by most of Skyrim. Did that make it easier?

Two bodies lay in the beds that had been claimed by Inigo and I. Throats slit. Enough of our belongings left over to make our residence clear. Enough blood to make the survival of each occupant impossible. Neither of us uttered a word as we dragged their bodies deeper into the tunnels of the Ratway, eventually finding a sewer in which to dispose of them. A trail of blood led to the spot, obvious that whoever had been killed in the beds of the children had been dragged to, and disposed of at this spot. The bodies would never be found.

It was at this point we donned out new Dark Brotherhood armour, ridding ourselves of the bloodied rags that had become of our tunics and accepting our new identities as assassin initiates. Anyone who saw the two of us now could piece together the scene we were putting together easily. There was just one last thing to do.

Despite Brynjolf's best efforts, Maven knew that Inigo and I were still hiding in the Ratway, meaning that more guards would be coming through looking for us. That made it the perfect place for them to find something else.

Way lay the bones of the skeletons out carefully, creating effigies of ourselves out of bone and flesh before lighting candles in a circle around our work. It was a sombre experience. The reality of what we were getting ourselves into washed over us both as we shared a sad look. We were just kids. Kids who had just created a story to be found by the guards. The Black Sacrament, the call for the assassination of two targets, most likely because the Guild was fed up of having to cover for their youngest member and her furry friend. This scene would be found first in a room located in the Ratway Tunnels. The second scene would be where the assassin had found the targets as they slept and dragged their bodies away. Whoever had called for this assassination was a monster. Or at least that's what we wanted them to think. Maven would believe us to be dead, and the Guild would be safe.

It was time to leave.