They delved into the ruins and then some. Over the following three months, Dar'epha and Gylhain took Haafingar, Hjaalmarch, and the Pale by storm. They cleared caves and ancient places of all sorts; slayed vampires, trolls, draugr, and even a few Falmer during a tense expedition into the Dwemer ruin of Mzinchaleft. They'd run short of food and been forced to turn back before they could get to what Gylhain wanted to show her new friend: Blackreach. She promised there'd be another time.
The personal highlight for Dar'epha had been, when exploring the coast north-west of Dawnstar, they'd found a half-submerged shipwreck and spent a joyful few days diving through the freezing water for the sunken cargo. They found little of value, but it didn't matter. On the last day there, as they emerged from the water, they encountered a snow bear, and they were forced to frantically grab their gear and flee in their underclothes. Gylhain later lit a fire with one of her dragon shouts to get the chill out of their bones.
Sadly, it couldn't last. While drinking one evening at the Nightgate Inn, planning on heading north into Winterhold, a courier had burst in from the cold. Somehow, General Tullius had tracked down Gylhain, and they needed her for another push in the war. They could have ordered her—she had formally enlisted in the Legion and was therefore bound by military hierarchy—but clearly they felt some respect was due to the Dragonborn. Regardless, Gylhain had to leave. With a quick smile and an open invitation to her house in Whiterun, she was gone.
Dar'epha went back to the Guild, losing herself in job after job, crime after crime. Gylhain got married, to someone named Angi. They took up residence in Honeyside in Riften. Dar'epha would drift in to visit occasionally, despite the internal sharpness she'd felt upon hearing of the matrimony. But with the civil war still in full swing, Gylhain was never around, and Dar'epha would end up dining with Angi, sometimes in addition to the Dragonborn's housecarl, Iona. Angi was a practical woman, hardy and sometimes taciturn, but Dar'epha enjoyed her company nonetheless.
Eventually, word filtered down to Riften that the civil war was over; the siege of Windhelm was broken and Ulfric Stormcloak had been slain by the Dragonborn herself. As soon as Delvin had ascertained there was work for them in that city, Dar'epha had got herself on a job there, hoping to run into Gylhain still lingering in the fallen stronghold.
Things had not gone according to plan.
Dar'epha was entering her second evening in Windhelm's jail. At first she'd taken it as an excuse for a rest, dozing in the hay provided, pulling faces at the guard, trading insults with the half-drunk Dunmer in the next cell. Despite the seeming absence of Gylhain from the city, the job itself had gone off without a hitch; it was what had happened on her way out that had gone sour.
Viola Giordano had been in the Grey Quarter again, spouting her anti-Dunmer babble. With none of the elves brave enough to talk back, knowing the guards would come down hard on them if they made even the tiniest move towards a Nord, it had fallen to Dar'epha. She'd lashed out, her claws raking at Viola's face.
She'd thought nothing of it, left the racist scum staggering in disbelief in the snow. But two hired thugs had tried to corner her behind the stables before she could leave. Cheap to hire and thus easy to dispatch. But there was a principle at stake. Storming back into the city, she'd found Viola easily enough, complaining loudly to a guardsman about her assault. From a distance, Dar'epha had taken out one of her daggers and let fly. Unfortunately, in her rage she had failed to take good account of her footing, and at the last second her boot slipped on the icy stones. The dagger landed in Viola's shoulder instead of her neck, and Dar'epha soon found herself surrounded by Imperial guards. Bitterly she decided to surrender and bide her time; if there was a prison that could hold her, then she wasn't worthy of her Guild membership.
The room outside the cells contained nothing more than a stack of hay—in case any of the cellmates needed new bedding—and a solitary guard in a solitary chair. He was dozing in the dreariness of his current post. Reaching her hand into her braided hair, Dar'epha retrieved what she'd stashed there earlier: one lockpick. One was all she needed.
Time, then, to escape. Besides, the prison-issue clothes were beginning to irritate her fur. She went to work on the lock, glancing up at the guard every few seconds to ensure he hadn't woken up. Lockpicking was one of Dar'epha's primary skills, and it wasn't long before she had a paw on a door-bar, ready to pull it open. Unfortunately for her escape plan, the door swung inwards it made a highly audible scraping sound. The guard bolted into wakefulness, his eyes wide. He stood and drew his sword in one motion, reacting fast to the situation. But Dar'epha was faster.
She rushed out of the cell, keeping low, and before the guard could get in a swing she'd swiped his legs out from under him. Still moving faster than almost any human could hope to, she sidestepped his falling body and delivered a whack to the back of the guard's head. The increased speed at which the head in question hit the stone floor was enough to blast him into unconsciousness. Dar'epha hoped that his helmet had protected him from the worst; the Guild had a thing about killing while on a job.
The Dunmer in the other cell had also come awake at the sound of the scraping door, and now made himself known.
"There's no way you can make it out of here alive, you know." His voice was low and even, filled with defeat and loss.
Dar'epha hefted the guard's sword and jingled the prison keys in her other paw. "So you won't be wantin' me to let you out then?"
The Dunmer tapped his fingers against the bars. "Why? They'd cut me down and say I asked for it. Better to just serve my time. That way I can see my family again."
"Sooner or later you're gonna have to take a stand 'gainst these Nords," said Dar'epha.
"Perhaps," replied the Dunmer. "But not today."
"Now's your best time!" she exclaimed, feeling a rising anger at the dark elf's defeatist attitude. "Ulfric's dead, but this damn town's not gonna get better unless you push for it."
The Dunmer frowned. "What should we do?" he asked. "Go around throwing daggers at civilians?"
"Huh. She was askin' for it."
"You cannot understand our plight," said the prisoner. "If you are going, do so. And if you work a miracle and escape this place, fare you well."
Dar'epha grunted with some respect, or as much as she was capable of. "Same to you," she said.
She turned away: the time had come for her to quit the prison, and all of Eastmarch if she had her way. Which, of course, she would. She advanced towards the exit, opened the door and cautiously made her way up the corridor towards the barracks. The next part of her escape plan pretty much hinged on pure luck: if there were too many guards in their barracks, she knew she would be cut down or subdued before finding an exit.
But the Divines must have smiled on Dar'epha that day, for when she entered the room it was completely empty. Almost unable to believe her luck, she went to work. There was only one door—other than the one she'd just come through—and that led straight into the main hall of the Palace of the Kings. Bursting out in front of Jarl Brunwulf and his assorted guards and guests wouldn't go down too well, she thought. So she consigned herself to the only other option: out one of the windows.
Dropping the stolen sword on a bed, she then dragged that bed across to block the door and prevent an untimely interruption. Panting with the effort, she turned to examine if there was anything of use in the room she could take with her. Her sharp eyes immediately picked out a large chest in one corner. In it she discovered her confiscated belongings: her Guild outfit, thankfully unblemished—at least, no more than it had been already; a small and unfortunately light coin pouch; the shipping manifests that had been the target of her job; and only one glass dagger. Although she was put out at having only one of her favoured weapons, she got a chuckle out of imagining the other still embedded in Viola's shoulder.
She quickly stripped off the ragged prison robes and donned her Guild armour. The dagger went through her belt, the coin pouch and manifests were tucked away in various pockets. She took a wooden bowl from one of the guard's bedside tables and hurled it through the window closest to the way she'd come in. The glass shattered easily, and within two seconds, Dar'epha had leapt up from a bed to the sill and, taking a quick look, she managed the high fall with ease, landing on all fours.
Dashing her hopes that the exit would somehow land her in the docks, instead she found herself in the courtyard in front of the palace. A location in full view of the guards standing at their posts on either side of the doors. She made a mental note to ask Delvin if the Guild could compile some sort of list of how to escape each hold's jail in the most convenient way.
One of the guards shouted, "By the order of the—"
But Dar'epha was already moving and heard no more. Her feet moved faster across the stones than she thought they'd ever moved before, faster than when she escaped the giants at Guldun Rock, faster than when she'd seen her first dragon. Rounding Candlehearth Hall, she heard more guards behind her and tried to pick up her pace. She slid through the city doors, getting through in just enough time to dodge an arrow, which instead rebounded off the metal.
Out of Windhelm, but not out of trouble. On the bridge she espied more guards advancing from the other end. But there was still a way, always a way, but not one she would have normally considered in any other circumstance.
"To Oblivion with the lot of you," she growled. Then, in one short leap she had climbed the stairs leading up to the precipice. Curling her toes over the edge as the guards closed in, she jumped.
About half an hour later, after the guards had given up on shooting arrows down into the dark water and gone back to the warmth of their watch-fires, Alfarinn the carriage driver was surprised to encounter a shivering and very bedraggled Khajiit stumbling up to his vehicle.
"I'll pay you double," she said, "just get me to Riften, fast."
Alfarinn had learned long ago not to ask questions of his clients.
"Climb in," he said. "There's a blanket in the back, looks like you might need it."
"Thanks."
As she'd hit the surface of the White River and gone down, Dar'epha had decided what she was going to do. It had been too long since she'd gotten into a scrape with a certain pretty Breton woman alongside. It was time she paid a visit to her old friend the Dragonborn.