Guess who´s alive


They rode out from Markarth onto the main road, Kanda and Allen in the lead on Shadowmere and Lavi riding in the middle on one of the horses they had gotten in the city, towing along the third one behind him with their supplies. At the very least, it meant less to carry themselves.

Their way took them straight across the bridge that went over the river bleeding out of Markarth and into the stony hills, gloomy, withered trees lining the sides of their path. Most of the way, the only things to intercept their path were mountain goats that had more interest in consuming the last remaining blades of grass than anything else.

Most of the road was level with only few gently sloped exceptions, leading them along a silent river past a small shrine and an isolated inn with a grass-thatched roof.

The Throat of the World came into distant view just as they climbed higher past several old Nordic ruins which brought them closer to the tundra after they took the path on the right. On the other side of the pass were forests of pine and cedar, and the climbing Jarrol mountains much further south, barely visible beyond the trees. They passed by a lone sawmill at one point, before heading into thicker woodland as mid-day dragged on towards dusk.

When the road forked, once again they turned right to head south. The rooftops of Faulkreath barely poked into view to their left some distance away. Further down the hill and just before the road bended, they turned sharply left through some trees and onto a dirt path, towards a pool of bubbling, black water.

"That door is still as creepy as ever," Lavi commented as his gaze wandered to the shadow of the rocks beneath the main road, where the aforementioned door - black and decorated in a massive carving of a skull with a glowing read hand-print on the temple - stood, sounding almost as though it was whispering and moaning ominously.

Kanda sent him a slightly surprised look.
"Been here before?" he asked, dismounting the horse and putting Allen down as well, "don't let your guard down," he warned the redhead, pointing his finger at the whitehead, "I want to see you standing on my shadow all the time, is that clear?"

Allen mutely nodded, his face a perfect picture of a completely oblivious five-year-old kid.

"Well I've never been inside," Lavi chuckled, sliding down from his horse. "But I pride myself in knowin' a lot of things." That and the Thieves and Brotherhood had connections to one another, since their lines of work sometimes overlapped. "An' after this I'll be able to pride myself on knowin' a little more."

Kanda grunted in reply and opened the door, "don´t snoop around - you might get killed."

He walked in, leading the way down the cramped hallway and into the first room. He greeted Astrid, the blond leader of the brotherhood, who was hunched over an old map spread on the table.

"Bringing friends for sleepover?" she asked with amusement when she turned around, probably too surprised to give a greeting in return. She briefly scanned the group until her eyes stopped on Lavi, "I know you," she said, squinting, as if she was trying to match his face with the correct name.

Kanda patiently waited until she remembered, grabbing Allen's collar as the sprout tried to sneak past him and down the stairs.

"Well hello there," Lavi greeted with a grin and a mock salute, surprisingly enough not letting his rather tactless tendency towards women get the better of him.

Mainly for the fact that he knew better where this one was concerned... not that he'd been quite so wise in the past.

"We-" meaning him and Kanda. "-sorta had some overlapping business in Solitude, so here I am."

"Ah, of course! The lewd guy from Ragged Flagon! You're still alive?" it was a rhetorical question but Astrid looked genuinely impressed.

"If you two are done," Kanda interrupted impatiently, flicking Allen's forehead as a punishment for his vain tires to sneak off, "I have to pick up my reward." he headed down the stairs, dragging the whitehead behind him. "Try to do that one more time," Kanda murmured when they entered the main cave, tossing a casual nod towards Astrid's werewolf husband, "and I will make the rabbit carry you around."

Lavi merely smiled at Astrid with sheepish, false innocence and sauntered along at Kanda's heels, a little less adventurous than Allen to go sneaking off to explore. At least not right away. It would be wiser to let the other assassin's see him as invited in following Kanda first, lest he get a dagger in his back, and then how would he be able to go after this scroll of his?

That didn't mean he didn't peer around the chamber they came into, part natural cave with pillars of joined stalagmites and stalactites, a small waterfall and pool on the right of the room and a fire pit and work bench on the left. Flags with black hand-prints - the signature symbol of the Brotherhood - fluttered off the walls, and just above the falls was a round, stain-glass window of reds and golds with a skull in the center, giving him the chills. All the same, it had a certain sense of dark charm to it.

"This place is homey. I'm startin' to think I joined the wrong guild," he mused, before pausing as his head throbbed as well. There was almost a chanting in his head, low and in words that were entirely foreign to him, and his eyes were drawn to the half-circle wall in the corner, where a glow of bright blue seemed to blaze to life against the shadows, and a strange breeze from seemingly nowhere seemed to beckon him towards it.

"What the hell-?" the man cursed, clutching the side of his head. Allen looked confused but he shortly noticed the Word Wall to their left, glancing between Lavi and Kanda in worry. Of all the places, they had a Wall here in the sanctuary! He focused on the thu'um carved into the wall.

"What is that?" Kanda asked, taking a step closer and making the markings light up.

Just like with the dragon before, an odd, crackling wind swirled around both him and Lavi when they drew close and the glow of the marks on the wall vanished, filling him with an odd sensation.

Lava glanced at Kanda with a confused tilt of his head. "What in Oblivion... was that? You saw it too, right?"

"I-" Kanda started, staring dumbly ahead but not really seeing anything. Allen moved around them, silver eyes watching them in unveiled wonder and interest. He moved to Lavi, circling him carefully before stopping in front of him. He experimentally poked his chest and leaned closer.

"What does it say?" he asked quietly, eyes flickering to Kanda and back, "the wall - what does it say?"

Lavi blinked, staring down at Allen with his own dumb expression.

"What? How should I know - it's just a bunch o' chicken scratch or something, far as I can tell." Not that he'd actually tried to read it. He figured maybe Allen was curious... then again, how did Allen even know it was words and not something else? He squinted at it.

Strangely enough, something about it just sort of clicked into place and he hummed, sort of pointing and following the lines of markings with his pointer finger.

"Something like... Nonvul Bron dahmaan daar rot do fin fodiiz bormah waKriiko morokei kein los wa zin geinmaar wa dir ko ko morokei kein los wa zin pah do keizaal." He was half-waiting for Kanda to start accusing him of making all of that up, but something he couldn't explain put sounds to the markings. The sounds didn't make any sense to him though, and he couldn't connect them to a translation he could actually understand. One stuck out to him more for some reason, however, and he scratched his head idly. "I feel like the 'Krii' is especially important here..."

"Yes, it is," Allen murmured, backing away slightly as he fiddled with the hem of his robes. He silently returned to Kanda's shadow, looking lost in thoughts.
Kanda threw Lavi a questioning look and cuffed Allen on the back of his head. The smaller male hissed and puffed out his cheeks but he didn't move from the assassin's side.

"Anyway," Kanda grumbled, shooting a last, mildly concerned look at Allen and turned to Astrid, "where were we?"

The other assassin, along with few others, stared at the trio in various degrees of suspicion, but none of them dared to voice their questions until Astrid intervened.
"What...was that?"
Neither of them missed how her hand ever-so-subtly inched for the knife on her thigh.

Kanda and Lavi shared another glance. "Some ghostly shit, that's for sure, but never mind that," Kanda barked, shrugging theatrically, "I came for my money - NAZIR!" he shouted and all the tension in the room was magically gone. With an air of nonchalance that didn't quite veil the challenge for anyone to dare to question him, he swaggered out of the room to look for his pay, Allen trotting after him.

Lavi didn't miss the tension, though he played the "too-dumb-to-notice" card. He was somewhat used to suspicion, and if things, for one reason or another, turned dicey, he knew he could slip away easily enough without actually being caught or killed.

Seemed Kanda's shouting was a good cure for that though and he smirked, following Kanda just far enough to escape the leery gazes of the other assassins and then ducked away to look around on his own a little, silent and practiced as a mouse. Since when did a thief look for anything worth taking in front of the people who owned it, anyway?

He found a few coins laying around in drawers and chests - maybe about fifty gold in total, some herbs that would be good for making potions and poisons, some rings and potions, and two amethyst gems. Sadly, the assassins were a little too aware of his presence for him to be able to lift anything off their pockets, but what he did manage to get was still worth the look-around.

It took Kanda approximately half an hour to get his money and suffer through all the questions Nazir threw at him whilst eyeing Allen with interest.

"Your..." the Redguard gestured to the younger male visibly struggling to find the right word, before stuttering, "pet - price?" Allen pout-frowned and Kanda sighed for what felt like the millionth time.

"My price," he said monotonously, "not that kind of price!" he added hastily when Nazir bulged his eyes at him. Kanda ignored the offended slap on his back and Allen's upset huffing. "If you've got some contracts for Riften, I can take them, but nothing else. Not until I come back."

"Busy?" Nazir asked, already reaching for a scroll on his left, his eyes flickering to Allen in silent question.

Having explored the rest of the place already, Lavi returned. He wondered for a moment about if he might have a shot at nabbing something off the distracted Redguard, but Kanda saw him before he could follow through and he smiled innocently, passing it up.

Pickpocket someone in front of Kanda's keen eyes? Ha! Yeah right.

"Y'could say that," he interjected. "We're sort of partnering for a job."

Kanda shuffled on the spot tensely and nailed him with a look that clearly told the thief that he knew exactly what he was doing but was willing to keep his mouth shut for the sake of keeping the blood from spilling on the dining table Allen was eyeing quite eagerly.

Nazir silently shook his head but Kanda was sure his eyes lingered on Lavi's pockets a little longer than necessary. With a calculating look in Lavi's direction he rolled up the scroll and handed it to Kanda.
"There is one contract - nothing difficult," he said, "there have been a few complains about a redhead man with worsened sight..." he trailed off purposefully.

Kanda almost laughed, "well it can't be helped," he said, biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from smiling, "who could that be."

"Haven't got a clue!" Lavi declared purposely as he sat down next to Allen, not willing to give either of them the satisfaction of freaking him out. Besides, it wasn't like no one had tried to put out a hit on him once before... or maybe a few times before. Thieves tended to make enemies.

And plus, Lavi had been antagonizing and dodging Kanda's blade whenever he ran into the guy off and on for years. What was one more time?

Plus, he had the Lexicon thing that Kanda would need to get to the Elder Scroll. Kanda couldn't simply just off him before then.

"Guess you'd better figure all that out then," he mused, popping a piece of cooked pheasant into his mouth, being less sneaky about that than Allen was attempting to be.

Kanda made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat and opened the scroll to read it himself. "Seems like someone got into the wrong business," he hummed, "for eight hundred? That's a little excessive - not that I'm complaining."

"He's really good at hiding." Nazir explained, going back to watching Allen as if he was the Nightmother herself. The lad didn't seem to notice, though, and was content with stuffing his face as quickly as possible. "Will you be staying?" the Redguard asked, and Kanda didn't like how his eyes haven't strayed from Allen at all.

"Nope," Lavi chirped. "We're heading out just as soon as Yuu there decides he's got what he needs from here." Whether that be sleep or other things besides payment, Lavi wasn't sure yet, but he didn't really press for details, since he was sure Kanda would announce without prompting when they were leaving.

Kanda eyed the table wistfully as he took a deep breath to smell the roasted meat Allen was so enthusiastically tearing apart before he gave in and sat down.
"Is there more?" he asked, grabbing a bowl of Honker soup and a garlic bread. Nazir pursed his lips and rolled his eyes before shouting at no one particular to bring more.

Allen lit up like a pyre and wiggled in his seat at the promise of more food.

They ate until they were satisfied and then left since Lavi wanted to get going sooner rather than later. He insisted it was because he wanted to make sure they got to the Scroll as soon as possible so that there was less chance of something going wrong... really it was because he wanted to disappear before a few assassins noticed a couple too many things missing.

They passed through Faulkreath, which was just over the hills from the Sanctuary, without incident. Just beyond Faulkreath was a slightly different matter, since there was a bandit encampment hanging directly over the road, though they were little more than a nuisance truth be told.

Ducking away from some arrows and behind a tree, Lavi grinned at Allen as a few licks of flames danced in his palm. Seriously, did these bandits even bother to find out who they were messing with before arrows started to fly?

" 'ey, 'ey sprout! Watch this, are ya watching?" He conjured a more intense flame between both hands, peeking around the tree to figure out his aim, and then send a large fireball flying. It hit one of the bandit archers and sent them flying off the bridge hanging over the road. "Bull's-eye!"

Allen, who was crouched in the shrubbery nearby, pursed his lips and cocked his head. His eyes flickered to Kanda who was busy taking cover behind a tree slightly further from him and Lavi, looking quite bored. It was not that he didn't want to engage - he was just not feeling like taking an arrow to any part of his body and, quite frankly, he felt very content at letting Lavi handle the situation since he didn't know a thing about spells.

"Remember what the wall said?" Allen asked, suddenly drawing the attention to him. He didn't know what made him try it out but he knew that there was no way of taking his words back now. Not when the two men were eyeing him like that.

Kanda and Lavi shared a glance.

"You should... try shouting the word." Allen suggested uncertainly, ducking his head as another arrow flew by.

"Maybe y'should take this one, Yuu," Lavi laughed, playfully teasing, "actually make yourself useful." Besides, his magicka was starting to run low. He felt like he probably had it in him for one, maybe two more fireballs, before he'd have to let it build up again. "You like to shout a lot anyway, right?"

Kanda frowned from his spot, "you want me to run over there shouting nonsense some asshole beat into a wall."

"It's not nonsense!" Allen shouted indignantly, puffing his cheeks. Before either of the two men could act, he jumped out of his cover and shouted something that turned the nearest bandit into a chunk of ice. The was only a second where everyone gaped at him before the bandits retaliated with a hail of arrows and angry insults.

"Oi!" Lavi barked, leaping out from behind the tree and grabbing Allen by the back of his clothes, throwing him off to the side of the projectiles and sending out one of his own via another fireball that exploded in a bandit's face and sent them reeling on the ground.

Another bandit appeared that was far more heavily armored and toting a thick metal shield, probably some higher ranking one, maybe their chief. Lavi gathered up a last fireball and aimed it but the bandit chief blocked the incoming flame with his shield as he was charging at them.

"Shit," he panicked, fumbling for his war hammer. "...uh... um... what do I do?! Just yell somethin', right?!"

Kanda swore under his breath as he drew his sword.
"KRII!" He yelled as he leapt on the road before the bandit could reach their hiding spot. The man staggered as the force of the dragon shout hit him and stared at Kanda with eyes wide open.

"What did you-" he didn't get the chance to finish his sentence as he fell to the ground with a pained moan.

Kanda blinked and smirked, "well, isn't that handy!"

"Ooooh..." Lavi gaped, somewhat impressed, though still a bit confused. Of course he didn't fail to miss that Allen somehow knew how this... power worked. Actually, come to think of it, Allen knew a little too much about it. Even Lavi himself didn't much know about this particular ability, or if he did, he couldn't recall exactly from where. He noticed that it didn't outright kill the bandit, but it did something that incapacitated him at least. "Handy indeed. Just what was that?"

Allen squirmed when Lavi pinned him with a overly-curious look and tried to wiggle out of his grasp. Kanda has less time to wonder about what happened as the bandits attacked again, this time, however, less eager.
"You can ask him later!" he shouted, dodging a sword and dancing around the few brave fools who dared to approach, "get your ass here and help me!"

He spun around to slice a throat of the nearest bandit and kick another one in the knee. The latter went down with a sickening crunch and a pained scream.

"Ya say that like I didn't already get enough of 'em with my fire spells!" Lavi tossed in return - mostly in banter - before leaping towards the fray with his war hammer and cracking one guy in the ribs, leaving him to roll around on the ground gasping in pain.

After he cracked one in the side of the head and sent them sprawling to the dirt, the last one or two turned and wisely ran away, screaming something about surrender.

"Took 'em long enough to smarten up, huh Yuu?" Lavi grinned.

He looked over at the man in time to see him draw a lungful of air and shout again, only this time he was left blinking dumbly as nothing happened. The bandit it was blinking right back at him but before anything else could have happened, Allen came running back with his own shout that turned the man into an icicle.

"That was close!" Allen gasped as he tried to catch his breath.

Lavi popped up behind Allen, his head close enough that it may as well have been resting on the whitehead's shoulder.

"Yuu, I think ya broke the shouty thing. Didn't look like it did anything that time."

Kanda's head whipped his head around so fast Lavi was afraid it would snap off. "Why!" He barked harshly, making Allen take a half-step back.

"It takes time," Allen said quietly, and trying very hard to look everywhere else but at the two men, "you cannot use it in quick succession. Sometimes it takes a day before it works again."

Kanda swore under his breath at the vague answer, "when can I use it again then?"

Allen shrugged and glanced at the bright sky as if it held the answer. "When you're not feeling tired anymore," he said finally, and walked off to find the horses.

"Well that was a helpful advice," Lavi muttered at Allen's backside, a touch of sarcasm to his voice. He didn't dwell over it for very long though. "Looks like it's up to me the next time we find ourselves into trouble, then!" he boasted, giving Kanda a few pats on the shoulder that were probably meant to come off as reassuring and erred more on the side of condescending. "Don't worry, Yuu, I'll protect ya from the big open world!"

"You can't even protect yourself!"

Everybody in their merry little dysfunctional group knew it was not true but nobody felt like popping that particular bubble.
They moved on, gathering the things the bandits were so kind to leave behind, careful not to overload the horses. Lavi was lucky to find find a tome of some kind and his eagerness to or read it as soon as possible provided Kanda with a period of silence long enough to make him calm down.

"So," Kanda spoke, poking Allen in his ribs and making him jump, "who taught you to read those things? The scribbles on the wall." he clarified when Allen turned around with a confused look.

"My... father I guess?"

"Oh yeah?" Lavi hummed, not looking up from his reading and doing just fine with both tasks of that and listening to their conversation.

He thought of asking 'where is he now?' but thought better of it. People in his and Kanda's profession didn't tend to ask too much on personal back story, though he'd be the first to listen if Allen gave it.

"Where'd he learn it from? I mean it's not exactly common language around here, written or otherwise."

Allen turned around to peek over Kanda's shoulder at him, his sharp, unique eyes judging. "It's a tradition. In our family, I mean." He fell silent for a while, squirming in the saddle until he sat more or less sideways. "He taught me Dovahzul like any other father would teach his son the language of his people."

"Dovahzul?" Lavi repeated, glancing upwards towards the sky in thought. It kind of rang a bell, but he couldn't quite recall from where. Maybe in a book?

Then he remembered the alternative name to Dragonborn was Dovahkiin. He'd have to live under a rock at the bottom of the Sea of Ghosts not to have heard of the title. He could guess that the "dovah" between the two was the same, though it didn't hurt to be sure.

"Dovah is another word for dragon, isn't it?" he pondered aloud, touching a hand to his chin, humming more quietly. "...and I guess zul might be some kind of indication of a language then..."

But that couldn't possibly be correct... could it...?

"You are really educated!" Allen exclaimed, looking genuinely impressed and making Kanda snort.
"Hard to believe," he noted, shooting Lavi an amused glance over his shoulder. So he was listening after all. He glanced back at the sprout and back at Lavi, his face telling him that he was wondering the exact same thing, but he was not willing to voice it himself.

"A lot more educated than you," Lavi retorted playfully, pointing an accusatory finger in Kanda's direction. He could see at a glance that Kanda was having similar thoughts, but he wasn't willing to jump to that conclusion just yet without considering other options.

"I guess it's not all that weird... I've never been to High Hrothgar myself... but I've heard that the Greybeards living up there can do the same thing..." He paused then, glancing over at Allen in curiosity. Maybe...

"Hey, Snowy! This father guy you mentioned, he wasn't a Greybeard or something, was he?"

Allen shook his head, glancing at the sky, "he was their friend," he mused, "they are really weird though! Did you know that their voices are so mighty they make the mountain rumble? The one time my father made one laugh the people from the village beneath the Throat had to run away because of the avalanches!"
He kept on talking, his excitement not diminishing even despite the angry growls Kanda was emitting every time Allen poked him with his elbow as he gesticulated.

"-and then he taught me how to play that game where you need to push a marble into a hole." he finished with a wide grin. Kanda had no more eye rolls and headshakes to spare at that point, and looked positively happy that the storytelling time was finally over.

Lavi was sort of listening, but he was thinking as well. Maybe Allen was just crazy about all of his dragon-talk... or maybe he was a little less so than he'd first been assuming. He considered a few possibilities, and as strange as the claim was, he wasn't entirely willing to overlook the possibility that something of what Allen was saying was the truth...

If so, he might know how to turn it around to his favor... but that might require going to Riverwood, which was out-of-the-way of their decided path, even if it was quite close to Helgen, where they'd be passing through.

Still, whether or not it'd be worth it depended on a lot of factors. First and foremost was where they were going.

"Ah - so! You said this place we're going for the scroll is near Whiterun, right?" Allen wouldn't tell him specifics, but maybe he could at least get a better idea. `Near Whiterun` was rather vague. "What direction from Whiterun though?"

He'd already figured it wasn't south, since that's where they were already traveling through. Likely it wasn't west either. That left either east or north, and north was the most likely.

"I ask because if we're going north then we're going to need to plan a little better for what sort of gear we need to bring, ya know? Winterhold and The Pale are really treacherous areas. The beasts are way bigger and more aggressive, it's all mountainous and jagged, not to mention it'd be way too easy to freeze to death up there, where even the oceans freeze solid. That said though, it does make it the perfect place to hide something like that, so that its very unlikely anyone would find it." Plus knowing where would make it a lot easier to make some additional arrangements with a few extra connections.

Allen took a second to look around, turning his head like an owl, and Lavi indulged him with silence until he stopped to stare wistfully at the Throat before he pointed a little bit to the left.

"That way," he said, "in the mountains."

Kanda made an acknowledging sound and sighed, "Redguards," he murmured with distaste which earned him a questioning look from his passenger.

Lavi quirked an eyebrow. Was that comment meant for him? The only thing Redguard-esque about his appearance was his physique - fair enough, he was mixed, after all - but everything else about him didn't look that way. At least he didn't think so. His skin wasn't dark enough and his hair far too fair.

"If I look like a Redguard, then you look like a girl." Oh, he was going to suffer for that one, he was sure. Oh well, couldn't be unsaid now. "If anything I pass more as an Imperial or a Nord." He wasn't really short enough to pass as being a Breton, even if there was a little of that in there too.

Kanda stopped his protesting nightmare horse and turned to glare at the redhead with a frown so scary, it made the hair on Allen's neck stand. He wiggled in the saddle, tugging at Kanda's sleeve as if he was trying to communicate some silent plea to calm the man down - unfortunately, without any success.

Then suddenly, Kanda took a deep breath and shouted his previously ineffective dragon word right at the babbling thief.

Lavi wore a sheepish smile as Kanda growled and instinctively leaned away(and veered his horse a little more towards the other side of the road). The yell in his direction made him help and almost fall sideways out of the saddle, even though nothing actually happened.

"Don't go aiming that thing at me!"

Kanda scrunched his nose in disgust and spurred his horse into a trot in attempt to leave the redhead behind. Unsuccessfully, since Lavi was hard to get rid of once you get him on your back, but Kanda was not in the mood to get down, take out his sword and start a never-ending chase after him.
Allen tried to make himself as small as possible in his seat, avoiding Kanda's wrath while shooting Lavi little worried glances. After a while, Kanda cooled down enough for Allen to start a little conversation about books which lead to an exciting recounting of some of the places Lavi visited.

Just when Kanda began to eye the gathering clouds above their heads with distaste and lament the incoming bad turn of weather - the only thing he ever laments (and Lavi thought it's because of the hair), they came across a lonely hut with even lonelier lady living inside. Lavi wouldn't have minded the stay, Allen could not have cared less, but Kanda has cared a lot so they ended up shivering in the rain on the backs of their horses, listening to Lavi's incessant grumbling.

They endured, however, and a few hours later, they were rewarded with the sight of Helgen's towers in the distance. Kanda silently whispered his thanks to the Nightmother as he urged his horse to walk a little bit faster.

While shelter from the rain was a nice relief, what was really alluring was the promise of food at the inn. He could already smell it from outside as they found a spot off to the side to tether their horses. Warm food and some good drink would do well for all of their spirits(and Kanda's temper).

Unfortunately, there was still the matter of Allen's appetite in-question. He was going to need to risk a lot more chances of getting caught for thievery if they didn't figure out how to plug whatever hole the kid had in his stomach some time soon.

He was just pondering where the best place in the inn to take coin from was, innocently drinking down some ale, when someone came up behind him and barked "Woof" in his ear.

The redhead half-sprayed his drink and half-screamed all at once, and it was unclear if he fell sideways off his feet or flung himself, but in the blink of an eye he was crouched behind the other side of the table between Kanda and Allen with his eye and eye-patch barely peeking over the lip.

"Y-you stay away from me!" he yelped at the tall Dark Elf with gold eyes and curly black hair that had snuck up on him, flanked by two others who were all getting far too much amusement from his reaction.