Darkness. A heavy pounding on the skull and a ringing in the ears. One step forward, keep going, keep walking, don't stop to think about what's going on, not yet. Rain, it was heavy, loud in the ears though not yet enough to silence the ringing. A cool and welcome respite, she tilted her head up slightly earning a scream of pain from her neck, and parted her cracked, bloody lips to taste a drop. So thirsty, when had she last drank? No, don't think about it, just keep going, keep walking. That was all she could understand now, all she could make sense of, she had to keep moving, she was not safe.
The rain was getting heavy; it was a mild irritation but not enough to compel him to turn towards sanctuary. He tensed slightly and turned cautiously in the darkness, spying out a stumbling shape, outlined by the faint torchlight that hissed and threatened to go out in the storm. A jagged bolt of white tore through the sky and a low rumble followed, signalling that it was time to find shelter not worry about drunken oafs. Despite this sensible thought he found himself still standing, barely under the edge of the wooden roof and almost completely exposed to the elements. There was something odd about the staggering form; they weren't moving like a drunk, his sharp eyes observed that much.
Forward, she heard the low rumble above and felt the rain grow heavier. She was out in a storm but where? Probably alone in the wilderness, edging towards a pit, a rocky slope or worse. It was hard to tell, her feet were swollen and soaked with blood, and she could no longer feel the surface of the ground beneath her to guess if it was stone, dirt or something else. She supposed she might feel strands of grass brushing against her if there was any but it was hard to tell. Keep going, keep going, the voice was relentless in her mind, a mixture of words and a primal instinct to survive. There were no other emotions, anything else would be too human and she was unwilling to face that just yet.
He had thought he was too old and experienced for surprises, now he knew that he had thought wrong. The form was a woman, staggering in part because of the metal cuffs chained together on her wrists and ankles, and also because of her wounds. In the dark he could not see how bad her injuries might be, nor could he tell anything else about her, except that she had nothing save the tattered clothes she wore. Hearing the clang of armour from the right that indicated guards approaching, someone treading gently to his left and the soft chatter of people from behind, indicating that people were about to leave the building he had been in soon, he knew he had to make a decision fast.
The person approaching from his left should have been unheard to anyone but having spent years practising such subtle steps himself and also listening for even the slightest noise, he just managed to detect them over the rain. It was like a sixth sense, he simply knew that they were out there even over the noise of the storm, and already he could feel their brown eyes on him. The guards were almost in view, the rain was pattering loudly off their armour, just a couple of minutes more before they noticed her. Another bolt of white, hot light ripped through the black sky, followed by a louder rumble.
She paused and tilted her head again, this time she just let herself feel the icy drops, they were heavy enough now to seep through the blindfold and soak her eyes. It was odd to feel some of the bloodstains and dirt being washed away, she had gotten used to them, like a second skin, to the point that she had forgotten they were there.
He watched her tilt her head up with a cold curiosity and knew assuredly that she was not a local prisoner, no would be runaway convict from here. For one thing she would not be moving this way, for another she would be attempting to run, thirdly, no prisoners he was aware of were blindfolded and finally, stupid as some guards could be, none would have missed her darting out of a cell with her cuffs still on her.
"Who in the Rift is that?"
Time was up; his newly arrived companion had noticed her. So the choice was set, abandon her to the rapidly approaching guards, who were trying to quicken their pace thanks to the weather and failing as they were now slogging through mud and puddles, or help her. He hugged his hood closer to his face and murmured in a gruff voice, "I don't know but it would be best to get her out of sight and then find out." He moved swiftly, betraying himself to be more than an average citizen. His companion followed with equal speed, his brown eyes widening a fraction as he took in the woman.
She halted as she heard a few splashes and tensed when two gloved hands grasped her by her bony shoulders and pulled her sharply to the left. She was too confused to scream and, she realised, too tired and sore to resist. She wondered vaguely what kind of foe had her and if perhaps the throbbing in her head and haziness in her mind would be ended now. She was still being pulled, over wood now; she could hear the low thunks of it beneath feet even through the rain. They were moving down steps. There was a salty smell in the air now, yes she remembered that, the sea, when had she last seen it?
Only when they were out of sight, beneath the docks and in the shadows, did he finally halt and take off her blindfold. Two bruised eyes looked back, black and cold in the darkness like a smooth piece of obsidian. "Who are you?" he demanded in his ever angry voice. "Where do you come from?"
Her lips cracked open painfully as she attempted an answer. Well she understood him, that was good at least, no language barrier. "I don't know," she answered softly, realising only now that it was all gone to her. All her memories, lost to the agony in her head, she tried briefly to recall something but it just made her skull sting more and she winced.
He shook her hard with both hands in an attempt to frighten her into the truth but all he got was a dull look in response. "Maybe I should leave you for the guards," he grumbled threateningly, "think how kindly they will treat someone already in chains."
"Not well I'd think," she answered coolly. The cuffs were heavy, and only now did she notice how they had cut into her skin and made it bleed, the blood was brown and sticky beneath the metal though she could not see it, only feel it rubbing uncomfortably when she was shook again.
"Why are you in chains?" he demanded.
"I don't know," she answered again. "I remember...nothing."
"Poor lass," his companion spoke up at last, an unseen form to her left. She turned her head slightly to spy him out, he was tall and muscular with hair to his shoulders, but that was all she could tell through the darkness and her swollen lids.
"If she's telling the truth," the first man growled.
"Well, dump her or bring her," the second male commented calmly as he folded her arms, "but that storm's getting worse, we need to find better shelter than right beside the water."
She could hear it rising to slap brazenly against the wooden paths and spray rudely against the walls; it was turning choppy in the wind. There was another rumble, longer than others and louder still, followed by the piercing shriek of the wind.
"You'd sink quick with those cuffs," her captor snarled at her.
She looked at him as calmly as she could, wondering if he was a captor, perhaps just a passerby trying to seize an opportunity. Funny how so many ordinary people were changed by simple circumstance rather than planning. He was fair skinned, with a brow wrinkled in frustration, and thick hair grown just past his ears. He was wearing armour but he was no guard, no, she wasn't sure what he was but definitely not that. "I would," she agreed with him, "but I'd rather not."
His companion cracked a smile and quipped, "quite the tongue for one in her state. Now, the weather's getting worse, we should move."
"Go Brynjolf if you're getting wet," he snapped angrily with a glower at the other man, "no one is asking you to stay."
The man, Brynjolf, shook his head scornfully and folded his arms. "Getting wet?" he echoed. "I think I've already gotten wet, there's not much more getting than this."
"I'm not trying to annoy you," she spoke up sincerely, "I really don't know who I am or where, or why..." She trailed off and turned her head to one side to spit up a mouthful of blood that was metallic to the taste. "Maybe I am a criminal," she murmured, "but I don't...well it doesn't matter." She turned her gaze back to his and commented, "that's all I can say."
He glowered back at her in frustration and wondered why he had bothered, to cheat the guards of something interesting? He supposed that was probably it, he had gotten greedy and neglected to consider that he might only be burdening himself. A bolt struck down from the sky, filling their eyes with its blinding light as it sliced a dock in two, singeing the edges before it reached down to them. She swung him round quickly, pushing him into the wall and hopefully safety, before throwing herself back.
Brynjolf let out a cry of alarm as a chunk of the path was turned to splinters. The woman fell backwards, dazed by the narrowly missed blow, her eyes flashing with red dots and the weight of the cuffs pulling her down. She was being drenched from all angles now, struck by rain and stung by the sea, it made her eyes ache and her nostrils twitch in disgust.
He moved quicker than she had, grabbed the chain between her hands with his right hand and wrenched her back in a split decision. "Let's go," he snapped before pulling her on. It was done now, he had made his choice and he would stick to it.
They moved back up, keeping to the shadows though it was unnecessary, only a few guards dared to continue patrolling the streets, and they kept to beneath the shelters of stretching rooftops and under stone bridges. Their feet moved over stone and then grass, she could see their surroundings in the pale glint of dying torches that danced in the wind and sank beneath the raindrops. There were tombstones, all small, arched and of varying shades of grey, their engravings lost to the night. She glimpsed a few statues; some small, iron fences and a few mercilessly battered offerings of flowers before she found herself being pulled down.
It was Brynjolf who pulled the chain hanging harmlessly against the wall, causing the false tomb to slide back and grant them passage down to a wooden circle placed in the ground. He took out a key hanging about his neck, bent down and unlocked the keyhole in the circle before pulling it open. Down into a dark, unforgiving pit, down beneath the earth, this was familiar, this she would resist! She jerked back but his grip was as tight as the metal that bloodied her wrists. A scream escaped her but it was lost to the wind.
She screamed again but either her captor did not hear her or chose not to. "Not the dark," she murmured, "not in the earth, it's too deep!"
He paid her babblings no heed, wrenched her down and shut the wooden circle with his free hand, leaving Brynjolf to lock it again.
She did not scream again, it was too late, she was down here and the exit was sealed. 'Why is it so troubling?' she wondered as her eyes rolled about with uncertainty. There were torches down here, hanging on the walls, their amber light unhindered by the weather. It was part of a building, all cobbled stone and dirt with wooden bridges and steps and water. There was a large ring of sparkling water wrapped around a circle of stone, and it seemed to drip and ripple from every wall. There was a horrid stench to it though, something akin to waste and rot. She had smelled worse before in darker pits, the slow decay of bodies, the drying of blood birthed from torture. She shuddered, wondering if these brief flashes of dark memories were really better than no memories at all.
He tugged her under a torch and turned to study her better. She was in a worse state than he had thought, her hair was black from dirt, tangled with grime and blood, her skin was smeared brown, and her clothes little more than rags. It was impossible to tell her origins, though he hazarded a guess from her sharp cheekbones and chin that she might be an Imperial, then again she might simply have an angular face from hunger. There was no question that she had not eaten properly in a long time. "What a waste," he grumbled.
She studied him in turn with less disapproval; he had pale grey eyes, greying brown hair, the sparest hint of a moustache and creases at his lips from permanent scowling. He was older than her, somewhere in his forties she guessed, his armour was dark and in relatively condition, and he had two swords strapped to his belt. "Who are you?" she demanded at last.
His lip curled up in a sneer as he considered mocking her with a refusal to match her own inability to give information. Alas, before he could a woman called out, "what have you brought back?" She approached them with bold inquisitiveness, her frosty golden-brown eyes widening just a fraction as she took in the woman. "A person," she remarked dryly, "are we in the business of stealing those now?"
"She was out in the storm Vex," Brynjolf answered before the brown haired man could give an angry response. "Just as she is, lass says she doesn't remember anything."
"How troubling," the woman, Vex, replied dismissively.
The woman looked to her enquiringly and found a stern faced, slender female looking back, her skin was a pale shade of yellow in the torchlight, and her severely straight hair almost white. She too was clad in black, though it was mostly leather apart from the guards at her knees and shoulders. Like the men she was armed, with a dagger slung through her belt, its point left naked.
"Well you imagine yourself bound in a storm with no memory," Brynjolf suggested, "and no clue about your origins, troubling would be the right word."
Vex bit back a venomous retort and instead looked to the man holding the girl's chain. "Do you have a plan for her Mercer?"
The answering look the pale haired woman received immediately made her regret the question. He was quietly furious that she had not only questioned his intentions but given his name. 'Well she was going to hear it soon enough,' he thought grudgingly as his pale grey gaze shifted back to the girl. He noticed at last that while her right eye was a murky green the left was a gleaming silver, a vibrant spark of light just shining out from the swelling. "Yes," he snapped at last before looking about the large, round chamber they stood in. He spotted a hooded man armed with a long bow, and a sheath of arrows at his back. "Cynric," he addressed him loudly and brusquely, "here now!"
The named man swallowed down a groan before approaching them casually, brave enough not to run at Mercer's call but not so bold as to ignore it altogether. Besides, he was as intrigued about the woman as Vex. It wasn't like their Guild Master to bring back people of any sort to their humble abode. He paused and looked to Mercer from under the folds of his hood with as helpful and unthreatening an expression as he could manage.
"You're good with locks," Mercer grumbled at him, "get the cuffs off her." He pushed her forward to the man who inwardly sighed, not daring to do it aloud, before he examined her briskly. They both knew Mercer could have the cuffs off in the blink of an eye if he so chose but the perks of being Guildmaster included getting others to do your work for you.
Cynric was young looking, fair skinned and pleasing to the eye with dark stubble tamed into a thin, down pointing moustache and neat beard, a few telltale scars on his left cheek and vibrant blue eyes that almost seemed to glow as they caught the flickering amber flames of the torches. He wore brown, it was less imposing than the black and less protective as well, comprising of dark, baggy trousers, knee high chocolate brown boots, and a tan tunic with greaves and shoulder pads for protection. He slung his bow over his left shoulder carelessly, hunted out a lockpick from his right sleeve and reached out a hand to her left one.
She flinched to feel his warm touch, having only Mercer's cold, damp one to compare it to. Cynric flinched too, startled by how icy her fingers were. He straightened her arm gently and said, "keep it still," before releasing it. He pressed the lockpick into the lock of the cuff and began twisting it round; it shuddered just once before clicking free. He prised the cuff off and she immediately gritted her teeth in pain as the cuts beneath it opened anew and fresh blood came out. "You've had these on for a while," the young thief observed chirpily. They were thick, stronger than the standard cuffs of your average jail cell, and, he observed as he began to work on the second one, hard to unlock too. Whoever she was someone had wanted to ensure she stayed a captive.
When the right cuff came free, the young thief let them drop to the ground harmlessly before bending down to work on the cuffs on her ankles. 'I bet Mercer just didn't want to kneel before a woman,' Cynric thought to himself snidely as he worked on the cuffs. 'It's not like he would break a sweat with these.' He studied them closely, they were made of several metals melted together, ended up a dark grey in colour, it was hard to tell them apart from any other cuffs save to say that they had been designed stronger than most. 'Probably not from a local jail cell,' he thought to himself, 'but maybe a more royal prison, or some noble's dungeon, or worse.'
When the cuffs finally came off her ankles she finally shook her wrists out and then her ankles, a look of surprise filling her eyes briefly. It was too strange a feeling for her to think of the removal of her bonds as relief. 'How long were they on?' she wondered as she studied her wrists, which were blackened with blood and dirt and gradually turning crimson as fresh blood stained them.
"She's bleeding badly," Vex commented sardonically, though it was unclear whom she was addressing as she deliberately kept her eyes on the woman.
Cynric stood up and took a couple of steps back. "Well injuries aren't my department I'm afraid," he remarked blithely.
"No, jail breaking was," Mercer growled at him, "and as I recall, you weren't too good at it."
Cynric frowned beneath his hood but said nothing, knowing like everyone else that arguing with Mercer was as wise as poking a Frost Troll. "I think Etienne knows a bit about healing," he commented in an attempt to divert attention from himself.
"Go and get him then," Mercer snapped.
"Vex get Tonilia," Brynjolf requested, "she should have some bandages and herbs."
Vex gritted her teeth, unwilling to be bossed about by the redhead, especially when it was for a stranger but, averse to risking a rebuttal from Mercer if she disobeyed their second, she turned and walked off slowly.
Brynjolf gave a small, tight grin as he watched the pale haired woman go, knowing he would probably receive a curt comment or two from her later, he might be her superior but only just, Vex was third in the Guild and considered herself above running errands. He would have gone himself but he was unsure about Mercer's motives when it came to the stranger and he was reluctant to just leave the pair.
The woman looked about her with a dull curiosity wondering what illegal profession these people were guilty off, knowing that very few law abiding citizens chose to dwell underground. She knew she should be scared or worried but could not find the energy to feel either emotion, her strength had been zapped with her few ignored screams. Satisfied that she had not been dragged back to whatever underground torment her mind was trying to block out she was content to stand in silence.
Cynric returned hastily with a man somewhere in his early twenties, he wore the same dull, brown uniform as Cynric though it hung looser on him and he was unarmed. Clean shaven, he had a serious blue gaze that he turned on the woman quickly. "What happened to her?" he queried.
"I don't remember," she answered him quietly as she met his revolted gaze.
"So you claim," Mercer grumbled, still unconvinced that someone could recall nothing about themselves, not even a name.
"Well she will need cleaned," Etienne said sternly, "I can't even see half the injuries for muck." He glanced back up at her mismatched gaze, realising that he was being rude, talking about her as if she were mute, deaf or simply not in the room. "There's a room for washing," he explained to her, "it's not much but it will do, your wounds need cleansed first."
She nodded agreeably, it was logical of course.
A dark skinned woman arrived with a scowl, carrying a brown, leather satchel of goods. "You wanted things to help with wounds?" she queried sharply, her yellow gaze darting from Mercer to Brynjolf and finally the woman. "Well don't you look colourful," she remarked dryly. "I've seen all types brought down here," she continued, "but never one that looked like they would drop dead on the first day, can't imagine you will bring us much gold."
"Tonilia," Brynjolf interrupted with a gentle but firm look, "give Etienne the goods." He nodded to the younger man.
The woman sighed, rolled her eyes, lifted the satchel's strap off her shoulder and then thrust it into Etienne rudely. "Fine," she grumbled, "I hope I see some coin for these things though, they're expensive you know and meant to be for people injured on the job."
"Well we'll just have to take care of ourselves until you can replace them," the redhead retorted lightly with a chuckle. "Don't worry though; you will have your coin." He glanced briefly at Mercer and knew that it was unlikely it would be the Guild Master who would reimburse the fence.
"That will have to do I suppose," she muttered before turning and hurrying back the way she had come.
"Let's go then," Etienne addressed the woman, "follow me."
"I'll be right behind you," Mercer growled at her warningly, not ready to let her out of his sight. In truth he was curious to see what was under the muck and blood, maybe a clue to her origins.
Etienne led the way, taking care to be slow so that the woman could keep up. He wove the way through narrow tunnels of dirt and stone before leading them through a wooden door to a small, well-lit room in which a natural stream trickled in a small flow from the wall and into a stone basin set against the wall below, with three small holes to allow the water to continue on into the ground. There was a small fireplace behind with a black kettle hanging above it to boil water in, and against the wall were two large, wooden basins, big enough to hold a full grown person in, several dirty looking towels, sponges and two bars of soap, one formerly lemon yellow and one ivory, both now varying shades of brown. Etienne grimaced slightly at the sight before lifting the kettle and holding it under the stream. He knew the woman could bleed out but reasoned that if she had survived so far she could last a little longer and if not, well it was Mercer and Brynjolf who had brought her here; let them deal with the body.
"I'll do that," Brynjolf, a little more concerned, offered, taking the kettle from Etienne, "you start fixing what you can."
"Very well," Etienne murmured. He reached for one of the cleaner looking sponges, held it under the stream, and then turned to the woman. "Wrists first," he said in a matter-of-fact way. She held them out obediently and he scrubbed them hard. Brynjolf hung the kettle over the fire whilst Etienne rinsed and soaked the sponge repeatedly. He scrubbed as hard as he dared until most of the grime was gone, next he hunted in the satchel for a glass bottle of healing potion and poured it on each wrist liberally. Though it stung the woman did not resist, it was certainly no worse than the pains she already bore and she knew it would go numb soon. Once that was done, Etienne bandaged them up and began to scrub at her ankles.
When the kettle had boiled Brynjolf poured it into one of the basins and returned to refill it. All the while Mercer watched with folded arms and an impatient gaze. After the kettle had been filled four times, Brynjolf then filled a much larger cauldron with cold water and added it to the basin, once this was done Etienne turned to the woman expectantly. "You should..." He paused for a moment and his cheeks turned a faint pink beneath his hood. "Well you should wash now," he added hastily.
"It's alright lass," Brynjolf said assuredly, "we'll wait outside, if you can manage it alone."
"No we won't," Mercer snapped, "not when you could be a mage or assassin or some other trickster."
"Mercer," Brynjolf protested as he looked to his superior calmly, "she's too wounded to try anything, and we can stay outside."
"I won't try anything," the woman said as she looked to the older man with a neutral stare, "but you can all stay if you don't trust me, I don't mind." She turned her back to the three without waiting for an answer, stepped up to the basin and began to shed her tattered clothes with some difficulty. Though it hurt, she managed it without too many gasps of pain, and at last was able to step into the water. She let out a yelp then as the water instantly stung her bruised and bloody ankles, followed by a groan as she slid down uneasily and let the lukewarm drops invade her broken flesh.
"She'll need new clothes," Brynjolf commented as he purposely stared at the wall.
"Go and get some then," Mercer snapped.
The redhead frowned a little realising his folly, but then if he didn't get the clothes who would? Etienne had to tend her wounds and Mercer wouldn't go. 'I'll just have to be quick about it,' he told himself as he nodded and hurried from the room. He reasoned with himself as he went that Mercer had hardly rescued the woman just to kill her and they were thieves not assassins after all but still, he was uneasy, after all what did the Guild Master want with the woman? 'Maybe he thinks she'll fetch a good reward from someone,' he thought.
She scrubbed forcefully with a sponge until the water was black and her entire body was flushed red with the strain. Etienne filled the cauldron with water from the stream again and brought it over. "For rinsing," he explained, "if you'll...let me pour it over you."
She nodded calmly, keeping her back to him and her slender arms wrapped about herself. She shut her eyes tightly and flinched when the thief emptied the cauldron over her, chilling her to the bone and drenching her tattered locks. She stood up after that, revealing a form bruised all over and bony, barely there and not the least bit appealing. She wrung out her hair and grabbed one of the threadbare towels, with effort she dried herself and wrapped the towel clumsily about her form.
"I should tend that wound on your back," Etienne suggested, "it looks infected." It was deep, at the small of her back with a few choice pink scars stretching from it and golden-green pus spilling out with fresh blood.
"Alright," she said softly, pulling the towel down about her waist and standing still, "go ahead."
She was so unruffled about everything that Mercer was becoming irritated with her, how could someone who had been beaten so badly let strangers take her and tend her so easily? Should she not be hurling curses at them, bawling in the corner, or begging for freedom or mercy? Did she expect these things eventually or had she simply been struck so many times that she did not care? It was the mystery about her that annoyed him most, he knew nothing about her, given how easily he could study and read people, it was an insult to his talents to struggle so. Yet it was the mystery that had compelled him to snatch her before the guards could, bring her here and order his thieves to help her. Curiosity and greed, a thief's two biggest weakness, they always wanted to know what was behind that locked chest, or door, why there needed to be so many bolts, spells or guards for protection, what could be so valuable? Or in this case who could be so valuable or threatening to be bruised, cut and bound in the manner she had been?
Etienne used a cloth, a creamy coloured ointment and yet another generous sprinkling of a healing potion to tend the girl's wound though he privately thought that a real healer or at least, master of apothecaries would need to look at it. His skills came from personal usage over the years and having an older sister who was an assistant in an apothecary, he knew certain herbs and flowers that could be used to stop poisons festering and help the skin knit quicker, and potions to cool fevers or prevent infection, but his knowledge was limited and his best talents were bandaging and stitching.
After Etienne wrapped the wound up tightly in a bandage, Brynjolf returned with some 'borrowed' garments for the woman. He had guessed at her size, rushing to grab something from a collection of stolen clothes kept in a chest, ready to be sold or worn. He handed her undergarments, a pair of black trousers torn at the knees and a brown shirt that had been patched at the elbows. She accepted them with a grateful nod and stepped out of the basin at last, allowing Etienne to bandage up her ankles before she put on the clothes.
Dry and changed, she turned to them at last, a fair skinned young woman with small freckles on either side of her small nose, slightly pointed ears, an angular face that was probably pleasing with more flesh on it, and a tumble of tangled, coppery brown waves.
'Could be a Breton or an Imperial,' Mercer thought, 'maybe a Nord, I don't think she's pale enough, though she might have some of their blood in her, of course her accent's giving nothing away, just the wider Skyrim dialect. She probably is a mutt with origins all over, but where was she a prisoner?'
"Remember anything yet?" the Guild Master queried bitingly.
The young woman shook her head, not as bothered about her amnesia as Mercer. Maybe when she had slept and started to heal she supposed she would care more but for the moment she focused only on the present and satisfying her baser needs.
"She," Etienne paused and turned his shaded gaze from Mercer to the woman, "you," he corrected himself, "should eat something, and then rest."
"Good idea," Brynjolf enthused.
Mercer frowned, he wanted to question her more, hound her until he got something, even just a scrap of information about who she was. 'Divines be damned she worse than Rune,' he cursed in his head.
"Come on lass," the redhead said, "let's see if we can find you something edible and somewhere to sleep."
Mercer's frown deepened at this, he knew he had brought it on himself by bringing her down here. He had made the choice and he had to stand by it now or risk looking foolish in front of the guild members, but it was risky letting an unknown woman stay in their domain. He did not want to let her out of his sight either until he had some information out of her but he conceded that she did need to rest and that he had important guild issues to deal with. He let Brynjolf lead the way out but stayed with them as the redhead went to one of the storage rooms to find some food for the woman. Etienne remained with them too, inquisitive and eager to see that she was properly rested. He helped Brynjolf gather some food and carried it in his newly acquired satchel as Brynjolf led the way to an open room where a collection of worn beds sat. He turned to the chestnut auburn haired woman and quipped, "this will have to do lass, not the cleanest but not the worst."
"It's," she paused and looked to the beds, they were singular and wooden with a flat mattress, a single, battered pillow and a thin blanket, "perfect," she said sincerely. She could not recall when she had last slept soundly or softly.
"We won't be far," Mercer informed her, meaning it as a threat rather than a comfort, "so don't think of running or hiding, it will only be a matter of time before I find you."
Brynjolf shook his head scornfully before giving the woman a consoling smile. "Don't make an enemy of us lass and we won't make one of you, you're a guest here not a prisoner, eat and rest and we'll talk more tomorrow."
She sat down on the edge of a bed in the middle, trying not to show the fear Mercer's words had filled her with. Truthfully she had no notion of running or hiding, it would be foolish when she had no idea where she was and no strength to do it, but the idea that she could never escape this man chilled her.
Etienne sat beside her with a spacious gap between them, on which he rested the satchel. "What would you like to eat?" he queried tranquilly. "There's cheese, apples, bread." He looked up and saw how ravenous she had suddenly become, her eyes growing wide as he listed the foods and her cracked lips parting.
"Anything," she answered hungrily.
He turned the open satchel round, offering the goods to her. "Help yourself."
She grabbed a chunk of bread and shoved it into her mouth with both hands, chewing at it greedily. She was so eager to swallow she almost choked and spluttered a couple of times before it went down. Mercer shook his head with disgust whilst Brynjolf gave a small smile as she reached for an apple before the bread was done, raising it for a bite as she continue to chew the bread. When the bread was gone and the apple halfway done the woman suddenly began to retch, doubling over and choking until a thin trickle of pale yellow vomit came up and splattered onto the floor.
Etienne sighed and said gently, "you haven't eaten in a long time, have you? Your stomach's not used to the gorging."
"Disgusting," Mercer snapped. "I have business to attend to now," he commented, "but don't think offering you help means we trust you, if you are a threat I will cut you down and spit on your corpse."
She visibly flinched at the ice in his eyes and nodded. "I understand," she retorted, honestly but still calm.
He shook his head, turned from them and walked off. Once Brynjolf heard the door slam shut down the hall he remarked cheerfully, "don't mind him lass, we just have to be careful over who we trust given our profession. If you're not a threat to us no harm will come to you from anyone down here," he assured, "not even Mercer. He has a temper; just...stay on his good side."
"Does he have one?" she wondered aloud.
Brynjolf laughed and Etienne smiled at that. "Somewhere lass," Brynjolf answered. "Now, I have to go too but if you need anything, just ask. This is an open area, as you can see, so there's usually someone wandering about or resting here, if you want me I will either be through that door," he pointed to one on the right, "down the hall and in the chamber on the left, or down this hall, second on the right, then left, then third door on the right, then left again."
She nodded, though they both knew she was unlikely to remember that.
"I'll come back in the morning anyway," he offered.
"Where is here anyway?" she dared to ask.
Etienne looked to her with mild surprise, and then to Brynjolf, did she really not know? 'Risky,' he thought.
Brynjolf smiled. "Welcome to Riften's Thieves Guild lass."