"Feel like talking now?" Marcurio asked as Esil crawled out from under the bed.
"No."
"What do you feel like doing?" Marcurio asked.
"Raiding bandit camps." Esil said, getting up, dumping the sheets on the bed, and taking her knife, bow and quiver. She slung the bow and arrows on her back and sheathed her knife, and walked out the door.
"There's the Esil I know and despise." Marcurio said.
—
Marcurio decided to just let Esil hum those three irritating notes for as long as she wanted. He hadn't argued about the money, and he didn't feel like telling her to stop making noise. He decided that Esil just did her own thing and he was going to be dragged along for the ride whether he wanted to or not.
She was, however, slightly scary when she was depressed and homicidal.
"Everyone just die already!" She screamed as she shot arrows into bandits' heads. Marcurio hid in one of the tents, rifling through drawers and chests in search of valuables. When it was silent once more he poked his head out of the tent. Esil was swapping bows again, this time for an elven one. She also grabbed more arrows.
"So, now what?" He asked.
"We go back to Riften."
"Don't you have a home?"
"No." Esil said. She was wearing steel plate armour now, and had dropped her iron armour on the ground.
"So how do you store everything you own?"
"I sell everything." She told him.
"You don't have anything that you'd keep?"
"My knife." She held up her elven dagger.
"I see." Marcurio knew he'd regret offering, but he was feeling sorry for the elf right then.
"If I offered to let you use one of the chests I have in my room… would you use it?" He asked. Esil cocked her head, thinking.
"I could store extra arrows in there."
"I'm not just talking about the extra arrows. I'm talking about jewels and armour and clothes you might wear sometimes." Marcurio said. "A place so you don't have to sell everything you come across."
"What's in it for you?" She frowned. The elf was so damn suspicious. Marcurio shook his head.
"Absolutely nothing."
"Fine." Esil told him.
Marcurio watched as Esil dropped iron arrows and Alik'r clothes in the chest.
"I don't even want to know how you got those." He said.
"Good. Because I'm not saying." Esil said.
—
Esil was singing again. This time it was The Dragonborn Comes, which she had heard in one of the taverns. She was grinning as she sang, and Marcurio tried to ignore her. It was hard, however, as her voice would change from being fairly good to breaking and squeaking depending on the verse.
"Would you stop singing about yourself and take some dinner?" Marcurio asked. They were in a cave, crouched around a fire. Esil stopped singing and took some of the soup he had made.
"Finally." Marcurio said.
—
As they went to sleep they didn't notice the shadows on the walls were strangely human-shaped. Or the people that slid down from the corners of the cave and crept towards them.
"Take them both. They'll be useful." A woman said. The others grabbed them and silently took them deeper into the cave.