Note: My twin sister is being a pain in my ass. Read her Psych fic, or she will haunt you next. It's called "The Thorn in My Side" by woodelevesrock42. Do it now, or you may find a bespectacled teenage girl outside your window, singing "Don't Talk With Your Mouth Open" by Heartsounds. You have been warned.

Gareth, closing shop for the day, gathered his cloak, and sighed. It had been nearly four months since Lathon, and even longer since he'd left home. He threw the cloak over his shoulders. Now, since he was a merchant, he was able to afford clothes he'd hadn't even been able to look at before. The cloak was made of a fine, thin wool, lined with wolf pelt.

"Off for the night?" his Imperial assistant, Ley Lerus, called from behind the counter. Ley was a dark-haired, gloomy kid, a few years younger than Gareth.

"Do you mind locking the door for me, Ley?" he said in reply, shaking dust off of his hood, and slipping it over his head. Ley raised an eyebrow, and disappeared behind a stack of new Elven goods.

• • • • • • •

The streets were dangerous at night. Gareth was well aware of that. But, lately, he'd noticed the beggars and thieves giving him a wide berth. They'd creep up, short swords drawn, then suddenly stumble backwards, a look of utter terror on their faces. Gareth, confused, left the matter unsolved in his busy mind, and would continue on his way, a bit more wary.

He arrived late to his inn room that night (he'd stopped to mail a letter packed with gold to Timothee, who was planning to retire), and came to a bar full of flies and vomit.

Dodging the drunken Nords and quarrelsome Khajiits, he slumped up the stairs. Really, he hadn't realized how deadbeat tired he was. He unlocked the door clumsily, and yawned to himself.

"Laenafil?" There was no reply. He didn't worry. She was often late, only to show up later that night, with an armful of assorted useless trinkets.

He sat on the edge of the bed, and smiled.

• • • • • • •

The night brought a strange dream. Something dark and something gray. He jolted out of bed, still in his cloak.

The candle had melted into barely a stump, and it's flame was putrid and chalky with smoke. Gareth ran a hand over his face, groaning.

"Tired, Gareth Laul?"

His eyelids snapped open. Gasping, he jerked his head around, searching for the source of the noise.

There was an edgy chuckle.

"You won't find me, Laul, unless I show myself," the voice was a man's, musing and mirthless. Gareth reached for the dagger Laenafil had left behind on the dresser.

"Why don't you do that, then?" Gareth said as amiably as he could. "Show yourself. Be a friend." If he couldn't see the man, what gave him reason to believe the man could see him? He wrapped a hand around the dagger's hilt.

"I don't think you want to do that." The man snapped. "You see, I come with a proposition."

Gareth was fully awake now. His senses were on fire, his heart banging around, slippery, in his ribcage. No, he'd have to talk his way out of this situation.

"What are you proposing?" he said, quietly, not removing his hand from the hilt. Sweat was pooling in his palms. "I'm not a stupid man, Mr..."

"Ah. You may call me..." the man paused, as if contemplating his own existence. "Lachance. Lucien Lachance. I am the Speaker, the representative, should I say, of an...agency, which is... interested... in your talents,"

A heavy silence. Gareth breathed in sharply. Talents? He was a merchant, not a goddamn circus act.

"I don't think I follow you, Lucien Lachance," he narrowed his eyes. "I think I would trust you a whole lot more if I could just see you."

The candle flickered. Something heavy tread on a loose floorboard.

"Oh, I don't think you would, Laul. You see, there is a...complication." He was whistling now, under his breath, as he moved, unseen, across the room.

"I'm not trusting an invisible stranger," Gareth snarled, tensing his hand. He was waiting, waiting for the creaks, barely audible, to reach where he sat.

"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Gareth Laul," the man laughed again, and a board close to the bed groaned. "I'm no stranger."