Pain. Red eyes. Fire. The images came at once in a terrible blur, her flesh ached, she tried to scream. There were other people. There were other things too, hissing in the dark.

"Wakey wakey!"

Her mismatched eyes flashed open, widening at the sight of Cynric Endell's mocking face. He released her shoulders and leaned back slightly before commenting, "you looked like you were having a nightmare, though you weren't screaming."

"I couldn't scream," she answered calmly. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, wincing slightly as her wrists protested at the gesture. Cyrnic leaned back further, though he remained perched on the bed, his legs hunched on either side of her. "Thank you for waking me." She frowned slightly, trying to recall the nightmare though she was reluctant to. She remembered the fear she had felt, heart stopping terror, it had made her quiver and cry, but the cause of it she could not evoke.

Cynric nodded before springing lifting off the bed and standing up straight. "I was just passing by," he explained swiftly, "and it's morning anyway."

"How can you tell?" she wondered aloud as she looked about their gloomy surroundings. The torches had burned down a little but she could not guess how many hours she had slept for or what time of day it might be. It was a perpetually shadowy place, it had life in it though, there was always noise and subdued flickers of golden firelight. She could not feel afraid of the place, though her stay had been short so far she realised now it was nothing like the prison she had mistaken it for when first dragged down, that place, just out of reach of her mind, had been black and often thick with silence, it was the inside of a coffin, a pit in the world of the dead.

Cynric gave her a mocking smile from beneath his brown cowl. "I was out at sunrise; it was a pleasant one after that storm last night, though everything's still wet. Anyway, I should get going and I'm sure Mercer will be along soon to interrogate you." He paused to look at her carefully with his vibrant blue eyes, trying to spy out her reaction but she kept up her elusive calmness and gave nothing away. "Bye then." He turned and hurried off before she could reply, his footsteps echoing against the stone walls as he took no care to be subtle with his steps.

She swallowed hard and found her throat dry and in need of refreshment. Her stomach gave an expectant growl as well and she turned to the satchel Etienne had left for her on a wooden cabinet beside the bed. Starving but having learned from her vomiting, she took care to eat slowly this time, though it was agonising to do so. She plucked out a soft, red apple and bit into its tender flesh, taking time to suckle on its sweet juice and curb some of her thirst.

"Eating less wildly this time, well it's an improvement." She turned at the growl to face Mercer's pale and disapproving gaze. She had not even heard him approaching, he moved like a shadow, keeping even his breathing to a minimal. He was clad in black again, this time a mixture of leather and wool, no armour, though his swords were once again sheathed on his belt and he still looked formidable.

She continued to bite at the apple, too hungry to put it down though she knew the older man was going to be questioning her, asking her things she frustratingly had no answers to. She glanced to her wrists briefly and then her ankles, it felt strange without the cuffs and she almost did not like it, though she knew that was stranger still. 'Did I have them on for so long that they became a part of me?' she wondered.

"Do you remember your name yet?" Mercer queried bluntly. He had slept soundly but only briefly through the night, too many matters concerned him and now this woman had been added to his problems. He was already impatient to know something about her and knew he could not wait even a day never mind longer. If she gave him nothing he would be forced to start hunting for information, asking subtly about Riften and perhaps further out, she could not have wandered unnoticed in her state, there must be some witnesses nearby but if so, why had no one else thought to take advantage? 'Fear,' he thought to himself with disgust, now there was an emotion Mercer Frey did not know, at least as far as he was concerned. There was no foe he could not best, no lock that could keep him and he had never been at risk of capture or any severe injury in over ten years. Equally there had been no person he could not crack, until now. The worst, he decided, was that she genuinely did not seem to be trying to resist or evade his questions; she actually seemed to have forgotten herself.

"No," she admitted as she started to chew on the apple core.

"Don't eat that," he snarled, wrinkling his nose slightly in revulsion. He understood hunger and waste but even they, the downtrodden thieves, rats of the sewer, did not resort to eating unwanted scraps, let the beggars be forced to do that, the thieves could steal their food and buy it with stolen coin if necessary.

She looked to the core, reluctant to waste it, it had been too long since she had truly eaten, any food seemed precious to her, even the already decaying remains of something. She would willingly suck the marrow from bones if given the chance.

"I'm sure there's more in the satchel if you're still hungry," Mercer snapped as he watched her contemplate ignoring him and eating the core anyway. One thing he would not be, by anyone, was ignored.

She sat the core beside the satchel at last before tugging out some bread from the satchel and eating it. She stretched out her right hand as she ate and looked at the scars on it, mystified. 'How many hurts were done to me?' she pondered. 'And how long for? Are these the injuries of years, months or weeks? From the same person or many? Did I deserve them?' Her eyes filled with aggravation and she let the arm drop by her side. "I know nothing," she said at last, feeling his eyes bore into her, "not my age, my name, my home or why I came to you wounded, blindfolded and in chains."

'To me?' he thought with a snort of derision. 'To Riften, she could have wandered to anyone unwittingly.' He kept these thoughts to himself though, knowing it was pointless to say them. "No clues at all?" he pressed for information. "No memories? No flashbacks in your sleep?"

She looked at him sharply then, wondering if he knew more than he was letting on. Had he seen her troubled in her sleep as Cynric had? Had she cried out then? Cyrnic had said she was silent, unable to scream. "Fear," she confessed, "I remember fear, a strong, terrible horror, it turned my blood cold, made my body quiver and my senses desert me. It was all I knew but the cause of it I cannot remember."

"Or will not," Mercer suggested with a scowl. "Maybe fear drives you to forget."

"No." She shook her head, instantly dismissing his accusation. "I don't feel that fear now, I felt it for so long that eventually it left me, or I grew so used to it that I simply forgot it was there. Even to remember something, something terrible, would be better than nothing. You seem annoyed about my inability to recall myself, think how I feel."

He folded his arms and thought to himself, 'annoyed is putting it lightly.' "I think you have something you want to forget," he insinuated. "Well for now, you can stay here but you will have to make yourself useful. You won't be going back up to Riften mind, not until I figure out if you're wanted here or not."

"I won't run from you," she said, guessing at his real concern, "where would I go?"

He shrugged. "Anywhere, it makes no difference to you, not that anywhere would take you in without coin, save the prison, you're too old for the orphanage. Just find some use down here for now." He started to walk off, determined to send out the thieves for information, although he would be subtle about it of course. They could listen to rumours while on other jobs, simply keep an eye out for anything suspicious.

After that she rose quietly to hunt for a place to relieve herself, she bumped into Tonilia on her wanderings, though she could not recall the fierce eyed Redguard woman's name. She had met too many people down here last night to remember each name, and she knew there were many more still to meet. "Well you're looking a little better," the dark haired woman observed, "maybe just one foot in the grave now instead of both. Got to give that thief credit, he's done good work for an amateur."

The dark auburn haired woman nodded politely in agreement. "Thank you for the potions and ointments," she said.

Tonilia shook her head with angry dismissal. "Don't thank me; if I wasn't promised coin for them you wouldn't have gotten their usage. Now, is there something you need?" she queried severely, making it clear that she had no interest in helping the stranger. To Tonilia strangers weren't just a threat to the Guild but a risk to her relationship with Vekel, her business and her general standing in the guild. Any newbie could take a fancy to Vekel, or think themselves smart enough to be a better fence than she was.

"Where can I go to relieve myself?" the woman asked quietly.

Tonilia rolled her brown eyes and jerked her head to a door on the right. "Through there, then left, then the second door on the right."

"Thank you." The woman followed the Redguard's directions and found herself in a small room that stank more than the rest of the Guild. It had a few chamber pots and a narrow flow of water, which ran down the wall with a gap between it and the floor for people to relieve themselves into. Hastily she alleviated her bowels before washing her hands beneath the small waterfall and heading back out. She wondered what exactly Mercer wanted her to busy herself with- cleaning, cooking or something less mundane? She knew she owed him and the others for helping her and was happy to repay them how she could but her skills were limited and she suspected that she would not meet the Guild Master's expectations.

Etienne came across her in the Cistern and was quick to approach her and ask, "how are your wounds?" He was matter of fact about it, not so much concerned for her as concerned about what Mercer might do if the woman worsened or died. He did not know her, why should he feel for her?

"Some are sore, others numb," she answered truthfully, "they are healing though, thank you."

"What about the one on your back?" he queried. It had been the worst as far as he could tell, and he worried that he had not gotten to the infection in time.

"The most painful," she admitted, "but that's to be expected."

He frowned slightly beneath his hood and murmured, "I should look at it. Come over here, I've got some clean bandages on me." He led her to a private area to the left of the cistern where a cluttered bookshelf and forgotten barrels offered them some shelter. She turned her back to him and lifted her top slightly. Etienne frowned when he saw bloodstains on the bandage, carmine spots, thick in the middle and thin around the edges of the wound. He unbound the bandage with care, crumpled it up and discarded it into a wooden basket sitting in the shadow of the bookshelf. The wound still burned fierce, thick and yellow at the edges and a damp crimson in the middle. He produced a healing potion from his right pocket and rubbed it on liberally with a cloth before wrapping a new bandage about it. He stood up, wiped his hands against his thighs and murmured, "you will need a healer to look at it, I'll let Brynjolf know."

She turned her head slightly to face him and nodded with a look of gratitude. The young thief was puzzled by her lack of worry and wondered if she had suffered too much to care or was simply too used to infections to be bothered by them. "In the mean time, don't put too much strain on it," he advised.

"I won't, thanks again."

Etienne nodded before darting off through one of the many doors in the place. When he had initially come to the Guild he found it labyrinth like with the deadly Ratway- a maze of sewer tunnels, booby-trapped chambers and the shady, insane members of Riften. He imagined the young woman found it the same and hoped that she did not think to wander to The Ratway Warrens unwittingly. 'Perhaps I should have warned her,' he thought dryly.

As she turned her attention back to the Cistern she caught Cynric's amused gaze. He was standing on the opposite side of the room in a small, unblocked chamber holding a long bow, he had been about to pull an arrow from the quiver at his back until he had spotted her. His companion, the archer Niruin had noticed her too but chosen to continue with practising his skills with the longbow. 'Let Mercer keep his business to himself,' the Bosmer archer had thought dismissively upon spying the lost looking woman.

Cynric studied her; she did not look shaken so he supposed Mercer had not been harsh with her or had not had the time to be harsh with her. 'What will he do with her?' the former jail breaker wondered. 'Does he think she's worth something? Doesn't look like it, but a lot of valuable prisoners never do.' He slung his bow over his shoulder and approached her casually. "Anything I can help you with?" he questioned.

She looked at the Breton and said, "he told me to make myself useful."

"He? Mercer?" Cynric guessed.

She nodded.

"You can call him by his name, he's not a Daedra, he won't appear in a flash if you say it. Well he usually won't, although he can be very quiet at moving, sometimes even I don't hear him," he confessed. He lowered his hood with one hand and smiled at the woman in an attempt to put her at ease, although she did not seem too anxious to him. 'Maybe she's just good at hiding it,' he thought to himself.

She gave a thin smile in response, stretching out her cracked lips and crinkling the purple bruise on her left cheek. "I don't know him; it seems rude to speak of him so familiarly."

Cynric laughed at this, causing Niruin to look their way with suspicion. "No one knows him," he mused, "except maybe Brynjolf, well alright I can tell you some things about him but we're allies, not friends. Look, down here we go by first names, it's easier. You could call him Mr. Frey if you want but he'd probably curse at you for it and everyone else would laugh. He's Mercer, I'm Cyrnic, the archer," he gestured back with the thumb of his left hand, "is Niruin, and you've met others. If you're here long enough you'll get to know our names soon enough." He paused and placed his right hand under his chin thoughtfully. "When will we get to know your name?"

She thought hard about it hoping some hint of it would come. Had she been named for a parent? Who were her parents? Did they still live? Were there siblings? Did they know she was gone, did they care? She shook her head helplessly and retorted, "I don't know."

"Ah well, it's alright," he assured brightly, "no one knows Sapphire's real name either, or Rune's. Guess you will just have to make do with a nickname like them," Cynric suggested, "otherwise everyone is just going to call you woman, stranger, girl and worse." His grin widened.

"That's a good idea," Brynjolf enthused as he walked over to them, having just entered the Cistern through the wooden doors that led to their local tavern, The Ragged Flagon. "I hear your memory's still gone lass." He gave her a sympathetic look. "It's a shame but no fear, it will return soon in the meantime. Until then, what would you like to be called?"

She thought on it for a moment but anything that came to mind just felt wrong, no name suited and she could think of no traits that would create a nickname. She shrugged at the tall Nord and murmured, "I don't know." She frowned; sick of hearing herself say those same words over and over. 'Why don't I know?' she wondered in anger. 'Why is there nothing left of me in my head?'

Brynjolf saw the irritation that burned in her eyes; it mirrored the flames in his Guild Master's gaze when the redhead had asked him about the woman.

"Amaris," Cynric spoke up, "I knew an Amaris once, good enough name, why don't you borrow it until you remember your own?"

The woman could not tell if the older thief was mocking her or not, but she decided that she did not care as the name was nice enough. She nodded and sounded it out along her tongue- "A-ma-riss."

Cynric chuckled and Brynjolf gave a small smile. 'At least we have something to call her now,' he thought, 'though I doubt Mercer will be satisfied.'

It was not her own name, probably not even close but she liked it even if it was odd on the tongue. At least now she would have an answer to one of Mercer's questions even if it was not the truth.

"Now," Brynjolf said, "Etienne says you need a healer to look at your back. There are a few in the city I know and could persuade to come down to look at it for some coin."

"Come down?" Cynric echoed. His blue gaze flickered over to the newly named Amaris and he queried sardonically, "not allowed out to play anymore?"

Brynjolf frowned slightly at the younger man. "With wounds like hers she's best not wandering too far."

"Yes that's it I'm sure," Cynric retorted innocently, earning a scolding look from the redhead which he answered with a smile.

"Maybe you could teach her a few things until I have time to fetch a healer," Brynjolf suggested with a small smile.

Cynric folded his arms and queried wryly, "are we recruiting her?"

"Recruiting?" Amaris questioned in puzzlement.

Brynjolf turned to her with a warm, brown gaze. "To the Thieves Guild lass, don't worry though you will always have a choice in the matter, if Mercer does decide to recruit you, but I don't think he has planned that far ahead."

"Well some archery lessons then," Cyrnic suggested, "it's useful for anyone- hunter, warrior, thief, assassin or simple defender and I think maybe you need some fighting technique. Of course with your wounds still being raw you can just observe." He turned and started walking back to where Niruin was still practising. "Come on," he called her on.

She followed after him and Brynjolf headed towards one of the many exits out of the Thieves Guild.

Riften was a tangle of rumours, lies and intrigue; it was easy to miss things that tied together, their links often unclear at first. There was after all not just the Nord uprising and the bloody Imperial subduing to contend with in the wake of Ulfric Stormcloak's murder of the High King but the personal problems of Riften as well, the crushing steel boot of Maven Black-Briar who dealt with Thalmor, thieves and assassins alike, the corruption of the guards and the attempts to seize some power by Jarl Lalia Law-Giver. It was all politics, the Thieves Guild was meant to be the power in the city but lately that had been slipping, they were losing their edge and Maven seemed to think she held the same dominance over them as Mercer, though the thieves were smart enough not to agree.

As it was, when evening came, Mercer found himself bombarded with information considered 'suspicious, useful, mysterious, unusual,' and, as Vipir the Fleet had felt the need to mention, 'creepy'. There were stories of creatures on the outskirts of Riften, of things that scuttled across the ground in the night, hissed in the shadows and looked out at wary travellers with yellow eyes, and of course warnings of disappearances and bloody corpses turning up to go with them. Mercer paid them no heed, Skyrim was a dangerous place, and there were many things in the wilderness to kill you without the recent addition of dragons and an increasing boldness in the undead draugr and skeletons.

Talk of necromancers wandering through the city did not concern him either or murmurs of members of the Dark Brotherhood striking out at two unsuspecting folk, one a middle-class woman and the other barely an adult male from a distinct noble family. The rumours about slave ships had intrigued him slightly but there was little evidence to suggest any had come near Riften and there was no mentioning of wrecks she might have escaped from.

The only ones with news were a couple of male thieves in their thirties who had recently robbed Merryfair Farm, remarking how they had been relieved to return to Riften just before the storm. They had mentioned seeing a woman stumbling towards the city but had thought of nothing of it and taking a different route back had avoided her. They could trace her as wandering from the west, slowly and awkwardly, she had looked too poor to bother with and they had taken sufficient coin anyway, and a bow. One had reluctantly added something about feeling watched that evening, like evil eyes from the darkness were on him; naturally Mercer had scorned this and dismissed him with a curse.

Frustrated, he had occupied himself at the Guild Master's desk with several notes, scrolls and books. There were the forgings from ledgers to update, the takings of coin to add, the value of treasure to work out and the potential loss they would take on it to sell it without suspicion. Times were tough in the guild, Delvin Mallory muttered that the daedra Nocturnal, their patron, had deserted or cursed them, whilst others complained that things were getting worse and debated about leaving. One, Maul, had though he had not gone far, becoming Maven's right-hand lackey. Mercer never remarked about it, or gave any credence to the murmurs of curses and ill luck, only scorning it when someone was stupid enough to directly ask him about it. He remembered once many years ago when things had been good for the Guild, truly good, when he had been young and naive, he scolded his youth and privately though that the current members of the guild were undeserving hypocrites most of them anyway. It was silly preaching about honour when you were wrongfully taking property from someone.

He halted in his writing when he felt a pair of eyes upon him, of course he had heard her approaching his desk, she was almost deafening compared to the others, too clumsy on her feet, out of balance too, probably trying to compensate for the loss of the weight of her cuffs. He glanced up at her pointedly, meeting her stare with his hostile grey one. "Don't you have better things to do than disturb me?" he questioned moodily.

The healer had looked at her back an hour ago, frowned and grumbled until Brynjolf had paid him enough coin to tend it with a paste and leave Etienne with some other ointments and potions to treat it with. Until then she had patiently and quietly watched Niruin and Cynric practise with their archery until they had grown bored with it, and departed for some stealing in Riften. After that she had eaten and drank some more before Brynjolf had given her some tips on fighting with a dagger, and a disapproving Sapphire had corrected some of his teachings and shown her examples of how to stab someone with two daggers, demonstrating on a dummy.

"What do you hope to gain from me?" she questioned bluntly. "Do you want a new thief? I don't think you do, so will you keep in case I'm worth something? It seems strange when you could surely just take what you want."

Mercer nodded at that with what might have been a small smile of pride; it was hard to tell as he banished it so swiftly. "Some things are harder to learn about than others," he admitted, "maybe your family has treasures no one in this Guild has even heard of, though I doubt it. Chances are you are just a common thief with no Guild ties, who I've just wasted time on, or you are a Stormcloak sympathiser or-"

"No," she interrupted sharply. The empire, the Imperials, she had been loyal to them, she felt it confidently until she thought about it, tried to remember, then the mist stole it away and left her only with doubt.

"No? An Imperial supporter then, so you do remember something, but in name or nature I wonder. Do you just support them or are you from Cyrodiil?" He knew she was not from Cyrodiil, her accent was Skyrim, even it was too generic to pinpoint, but her parents could be Imperials, it might explain her twang, it could be Skyrim tainted with Cyrodiil.

"I..." She clenched her fists in anger and refused to say those words again, it was so repetitive, on and on trying to remember, would she ever recall who she was? "I can't remember," she choked out at last, it wasn't 'I don't know' but it amounted to the same thing and the frustration continued to blaze through her.

"Maybe you're one, maybe the other, and maybe it doesn't matter because maybe you're worth nothing," Mercer snarled at her coldly.

"I must have been worth something to someone, otherwise why chain me?" she retorted, infuriating him with that ill-suited calmness that clung to her. How could she be so tranquil down here amongst criminals she knew nothing of? Had it been so bad before?

'She's right,' he thought angrily, 'and it's why I helped her, because she must have some worth but what and to whom? Even prisoners have worth, they equal what they stole, they are the valued prize the guards take instead when they can't have the robbed goods or lives returned. Maybe she killed someone, maybe she just took a loaf of bread and one stale crust is all she's worth, but perhaps it's more. Divines damn her I need to know!'

"I won't leave until I heal unless someone here wills it," she admitted softly, "even if it means staying down here all the time. I have nowhere to go and I doubt I could wander and find the same luck again. At least until my wounds repair I will stay if I can, and do what you ask and promise that if I remember something, even if it is terrible, I will tell you, since it is the only thanks I can give for the aid I have received."

Mercer frowned, unsure what to make of her words or decision. Would she remember anything if she stayed here? He suspected that in the end it would be a mistake but curiosity and perhaps greed too drove him to nod in agreement. "Stay until you're healed then, though you will have to be useful but you can't be one of us, not with your wounds for a start and not until I can trust you, which I can't until I learn who you are."

"Alright."

"Now, what are we calling you until you decide to remember your real name?" he questioned bitingly.

"Amaris."