A/N: Thanks for the reviews :) I appreciate the feedback. This story is definitely a bit different from anything I've ever written. I've decided things are going to be a bit slow in the beginning, as I'm focusing on setting the foundations for the relationship, and then pick up at around chapter 7-8. I'm taking my time with this one :3

Feel free to review if you want! Next update will be this weekend.

Legerdemain

Chapter Four | Hemlock

The fourth time Quintus Navale laid eyes upon her, he most certainly did know it was her, and was utterly taken aback by it. It had been a long time since he'd seen her last. So long that he had just begun to stop thinking about her night and day. (A little habit he'd picked up, for which he could not explain.) He was in the back room at the time, a heavy box under his arm that contained a new shipment full of ingredients from Solitude, trying to figure out where to place it on the shelf full of other labeled boxes. There was hardly any room left and Quintus knew that he'd have to spend an afternoon reorganizing, because the backroom was a total mess.

He didn't have time anymore, it seemed. His master stayed in bed most days, too weak to so much as move to the chair in front of the fire on the upper floor. Because he was essentially on his own, and spent most of his free time tending to his master, Quintus hardly had any time for himself or even the shop. He was frustrated and was angry at himself for being so, what with Nurelion on his death bed. Plus, he was trying very hard to figure out if there was anything he could do with the cracked Phial. When he wasn't tending to customers or his master or the shop, Quintus had his nose buried in old books, trying to find answers. It was maddening.

It was also late, not quite closing time but nearing the hour, when the shop door careened open rather loudly and he heard the heavy thud of booted feet in the main room. Quintus glanced up, sighed, and carefully placed the heavy box on the floor before the shelf. Then he called, "Just a moment, please." He hoped that whoever it was wasn't planning on causing trouble. He was ill equipped to deal with such a thing at this hour. Even so, a customer was a customer, and Quintus bravely stepped into the main room after a moment spent collecting himself, preparing for the worst. (He rarely had customers so close to closing, after all, and none of them swung the door so angrily or stomped into the room so noisily.)

But, as it turned out, he had no reason to be afraid or skeptical. It seemed that the strange, golden eyed Nord had a penchant for frequenting stores late at night, because here she was, and looking rather worse for wear too. For a moment, all Quintus could to was stare at her in surprise. He had, after all, nearly forgotten about her. (Nearly but not quite, because he still had odd dreams of her at night, and on his off days he'd sometimes see her face in the strangest of places.)

But then he noticed how she was standing, sort of wounded like, leaning to one side, chalky looking. She also had ice and snow slapped into her hair, like she'd been running or flying at some incredible speed and it had been inevitable. Her eyes were not quite as brilliant as the last time they'd exchanged words. Quintus stopped staring and instead walked forward, reaching her just in time as she stumbled towards the counter.

"Woah! There we are," he muttered as he scrabbled forward to catch her. The door was still open and it was snowing outside, and the already drafty shop was now very drafty indeed. He cleared his throat and helped her to the counter, where she didn't look like she'd fall over on her own. She did get this far, he figured, so she was probably still aware of what was going on. Still, Quintus hurried to shut and bolt the door, closing off the windy snowy weather that happened to be normal for a city by the ocean. Then he rushed back to her, hands fluttering over her form, not quite sure if he should touch her now that she seemed to be standing upright against the counter.

"Uh…miss?" Quintus called hesitantly, looking down at her face. He now knew her name, but somehow it didn't feel right to call her by it. Too intimate, something reserved for close friends and family, people who knew her for years and years. Not some mediocre city alchemist who had apparently bit off more than he could chew. He frowned, "Where are you injured? I have health potions and - " He was planning to say more, possibly regarding the new potions he had brewed only a week before, which were certainly ready for use. Maybe about how she probably came to the right place (if unconventional), because he could undoubtedly heal her, and for a fraction of the cost. But he was interrupted by one word as it came dribbling out of her lips. It was a word that froze him. "…Poisoned…" And that was when Quintus realized that tonight, he would not get any rest either.

His face darkened and he muttered a low, "I see." His alchemist's mind was already whirring, dipping over all the known poisons, and all the cure disease potions he had stocked in the back room. He knew intrinsically that, had it been an easy poison to cure, this woman wouldn't have risked her pride to come stumbling into his shop. Which meant that he'd probably have his work cut out for him.

The first step was, of course, to get her to the back room and to his bed. It was the only free bed in the shop, since his master was using the one upstairs. So he decided to be brave about this since the situation called for it, and looped his arm around her waist and let her lean against him, and they half walked half stumbled around the counter and to the storage room where he often slept. The woman fell onto the bed with a heavy thud and a barely conscious groan, and Quintus crossed his arms, stared at her, and assessed the situation.

The armor had to come off but he had no idea how to get it off. Since he wasn't a warrior and had never worn armor, Quintus had absolutely no idea how to go about this. But he knew that this poison was already circulating through her bloodstream (if her state of consciousness had anything to say one the matter), and knew he'd have to act quickly. He rolled his sleeves up, lit a couple of candles for light, and knelt by the bed. She was wearing some kind of steel and hide leather this time. It was a lot of little buckles that strapped the armor tight to her body. He wasn't sure which ones were for show (if any), so he undid all of them.

Quintus learned a lot about armor that night. He learned that it was ridiculously heavy and that it must be difficult to fight in it. He learned that it was made up of many parts that he could barely name, and that each part connected to the others in a series of belts and buckles to keep it all secure. He also learned that he was very glad indeed to not have to deal with such things on a daily basis, because by the time he'd gotten the main part of the armor off, he was exhausted.

But his work was only just beginning. He had to admit that he felt rather lecherous, pressing his fingers over her body. But there was nothing for it. In a matter of moments, Quintus found all her wounds, the superficial scratches as well as the major gash on her stomach, and hurried to get a closer look at it.

Often times, a healer could tell a lot about the type of poison from the way the skin around the area reacted to it. While Quintus was no healer himself, he was certainly quite knowledgeable about poisons and had some innate understanding of how they worked, and how to detect them. And while it was often a guessing game (unless you were a healer and therefore had the necessary spells and incantations to truly know for sure), Quintus already had a good idea as to what the poison was.

The wound was not bleeding. It had initially but had stopped, and the thicket of blood around the cut was already dry and cracking. The gash itself was in fact dry as well, but also dark around the edges with an odd blackish residue. Already, Quintus knew that nightshade had been used. This wasn't particularly surprising to him: nightshade was a common ingredient in poisons and was often used as a base. But it rarely stopped the wound from bleeding to such an extent. This was a deadly poison designed to stop the body from expelling the disease. He frowned and shot to his feet, hurrying over to his shelf of ingredients and searching, pulling out boxes and altogether making more of a mess, but not caring. He had to think.

Canis root was used for paralytic poisons, but it was clear that there were no such effects as the Nord (as he was apt to call her) had been able to make her way to his shop from, most likely, outside the gates. It was possible that wormwood leaves had played a part, but Quintus shook that off after another moment of contemplating. Wormwood was difficult to find in Skyrim. While not impossible, it was improbable. He closed his eyes and wracked his brain for a common ingredient that was used alongside nightshade.

The wound looked like it was caused from a poison of lingering damage, because it wasn't bleeding and wasn't healing, either. Wounds like that were often the result of some such ongoing poison, which had effects that lasted days or even weeks if not treated immediately. They also often led to death because the body wasn't able to expel the disease. And Quintus knew that the most common ingredient in lingering poisons was either deathbell or nirnroot. Or both.

He glanced at the woman on his bed, then sighed for what felt like the hundredth time and took out a sample of nightshade, deathbell, and nirnroot. Then he reached into a different box and took a blue mountain flower and a stalk of wheat, both common ingredients in the most basic of health potions. Working on the cure would take some time, time that he might not have, so before Quintus left the room he grabbed a small vial of a restore health potion and had the woman drink it. She was barely conscious but she didn't seem to question the potion. Either she trusted him or she was too far gone to even realize what was happening around her. If nothing else, the potion would buy him a little time while he worked.

He hurried back to the main room where the shop's alchemy table was set up. The ingredients he put on the shelf of the table, and he lit a few extra candles for better lighting. Then he got to work.