As always, thank you for reading, reviewing, etc! I have writer's block I guess...this is the best I could do.
They had returned to her house first, dropping off a few things and then heading straight for the guild. The cistern was fairly empty and quiet, so they went on through to the Flagon. It was surprisingly dead as well, with a few small scattered groups talking in low voices. Delvin and Vex were at the bar, actually having a civil conversation, from the looks of it. At least, Vex hadn't drawn her weapon and no one was bleeding, so it was civil enough, even if they were arguing.
Vex saw them first as they walked up, and punched Delvin's arm to catch his attention. "Finally, you two are back. You can clean up your own mess, then. Good." She turned and walked away, leaving them confused and Delvin frustrated.
"I think I almost got her that time, Bryn!" he grumbled. "You have crappy timing."
"What mess was she talking about?" she interrupted his complaints.
"Maven, mainly. She's been looking for both of you, won't say why, but she's pissed. Glad I'm not you, that's for damn sure," he scoffed.
"Anything else?" she quizzed him.
"Nope, not really."
"I'm going to sleep then," she announced, giving Brynjolf a kiss good night. She went back to the cistern to sleep, rather than going back to her house. The very thing she had loved about the house was the reason she didn't feel too safe there now-the door out of Riften. After her time trapped in that cell, she wasn't going to take any chances. She was exhausted from riding so much, her throat tickled and her body was starting to ache again. She couldn't get the sleep she needed if she was worrying about someone walking in and grabbing her, and the thieves were quiet anyway.
As usual, her dreams were anything but restful. Flashes of the past few weeks played through her head, good and bad, but mostly bad. She woke up at some point to find Brynjolf curled up holding her, one of his hands covering her stomach, and she snuggled into him. Her dreams quieted after that, or at least she couldn't remember them.
She still wasn't fully rested when she woke up and her throat and head hurt, but she wasn't about to keep Maven waiting in a bad mood. Brynjolf had found her some guild master's armor the night before while she was sleeping, to replace what she'd lost to the Thalmor. It was a little loose, but she was going to be getting bigger, anyway. The thing she missed the most was her mask, Krosis. She had other masks, but that one was her favorite.
They found Maven in Mistveil Keep, Hemming sitting next to her as always. Her stony eyes followed them as they walked up to her throne. "It's about time you showed up. No, I don't want to hear your excuses. I want my message, now."
"That's the problem," she began. Maven's eyes widened and her eyebrows lifted, her nostrils flaring as she opened her mouth to deliver a scathing reprimand. "The Thalmor took it when they captured me." Brynjolf slipped his hand onto her lower back, rubbing it soothingly.
"Then why are you here instead of retrieving it?" Maven berated her, her eyes flicking to the arm around her before continuing. "I don't know what you were thinking. You shouldn't have even come back without it. Now leave me, and I don't want to see your face again until you have it in your hands."
"I'm sure General Tullius would be fine with writing another..." she started to say.
"As far as the general knows, I have everything under control. I don't care how you get it, but you will not tell him otherwise. Do I have to spell everything out for you? Now go," Maven barked at her. She felt her eyes starting to burn, so she spun and stalked out of the Keep, Brynjolf hurrying to catch up to her. The last thing she wanted was to start bawling in front of Maven. She would never live it down if she had; what kind of a guild master cried, anyway? Especially in front of Maven. But she didn't want to go anywhere near the Thalmor again, not if she could avoid it, not for anything.
...
As always after a lecture from Maven, Brynjolf felt like strangling something, and as usual, he pushed that feeling to the back of his mind. He wasn't sure how they were going to go about retrieving the letter. Everywhere they'd been would now be even more closely guarded. How utterly typical of Maven to send people to risk their lives just so she could save a little face. Still, business was business, and they had little choice but to do whatever she wanted.
Once they were outside and well away from the Keep, he stopped her. "Any ideas?" She turned to him, face pale and eyes suspiciously shiny. "Are you okay?"
"I think I'm just getting sick again," she answered, blinking. "We either need to find out where the Thalmor have it, or we need to get a copy of the original intel without the general's knowledge." She looked sicker with every passing second, and he was starting to think he should've just handled Maven himself. He stroked her cheek, confirming that she was once again running a fever. Hadn't she just been cured of that in Solitude?
"You're hot," he told her. She started giggling and he realized his poor phrasing. "You have a fever, lass. Let's go find a priest or something." She kept giggling as she followed him. There was that priestess that was always out by the Shrine of Talos. One of the Snow-Shods, if he remembered right, the one whose daughter had been a Stormcloak.
As he'd guessed, the priestess was by the shrine and more than willing to help. Once she realized she was pregnant, she started fussing over her. "Now, you need to slow down. You can't just go off killing dragons anymore. Don't travel much, and by Talos, no more horses! Go home, rest, and eat while you're at it. You're too thin."
At least she had stopped giggling by now and had a little more color in her face, but now she looked chagrined. Maybe it wouldn't be as hard as he'd thought to get her to relax and let him take care of things, especially Maven's task.
Once they were back in the cistern, though, she was back to business. "Back to Solitude then. We should leave soon, I don't want Maven getting any angrier. You are coming with me, right?"
"Hold on lass, you're not going anywhere. You heard what the priestess said. No traveling and you need your rest," he told her firmly. And after what I did, we should probably stay far, far from Solitude, but she doesn't need to worry about that, too.
"She didn't say no travel, she said very little travel, and that I should stay off a horse. We must get that information, even if I have to ride in a damn wagon to get there," she insisted.
"And we can send someone from the guild to get it for us. You don't have to do everything yourself. I'm not letting you go, no." He was determined to stand his ground this time, and get it through her head that she needed to take care of herself or she'd lose the baby and maybe her own life as well.
"You're not letting me? Letting me? You dare think I'm going to wait for your permission to do my job?" She was livid, and he realized the cistern was suddenly empty but for the two of them. Apparently the other thieves had more sense than he did.
"I misspoke," he told her quietly. "I'm sorry. I just don't want to lose either of you." She looked a little calmer, so he put a hand on her shoulder. "Please, we can send someone else. Vex could do it; she was our best until you came along." He pulled her to him and kissed her. "I love you," he whispered in her ear. "Stay here with me." She pulled back from him a little, thinking wistfully, her eyes focused somewhere far below the ground at their feet. He wanted to take away the sadness in her gaze, and he wasn't sure how.
"I'm not used to this," she admitted, meeting his eyes. "I'm not used to having to worry about someone else living inside me. Sometimes...it's like I want to break free of my own body and fly away."
He hadn't considered that she might be having second thoughts about even having the baby. She had seemed happy when he told her, and he had assumed her feelings had remained the same. "Are you thinking about...about not going through with it?" he asked her gently.
Her eyes filled with unshed tears, and he felt sick with guilt and worry. "I don't know. I really don't know what I'll do. There are just so many things I have to do, all these places I'm supposed to be, and I don't know how I can do it if I'm sitting here on my ass resting. I want to-I want to have your baby, nothing would make me happier, but there's so much on my shoulders and some of it...most of it can't be set aside."
"Then let me take care of whatever I can," he begged her, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye with his thumb. "Anything you need."
She sighed. "There are some things you need to know." He took her hand and pulled her over to the table to sit down and eat, although all she did was pick at a piece of bread while she talked. "I still have a few secrets I haven't shared yet, and not without reason, but now...well, you should know now. Do you know anything about how the Brotherhood operates, internally I mean?"
"Not specifically. I know Delvin had a thing for the leader a while back, but that's it," he answered, shaking his head.
"Astrid's dead now, killed by her own insecurities..." She looked a little angry, but sad and regretful at the same time. He wondered about the story behind that look, although he didn't want to interrupt her to ask. "But that's not what I was getting at. When people pray to the Night Mother, she relays all of their prayers to us by speaking directly to one individual that she has selected for the task, for the rest of their life." He thought he saw where this was going, and he wasn't sure what to think. "That person is called the Listener, and that person is me. I have to see the Night Mother regularly to receive the contracts. I don't have to do any of them myself if I don't want to, just hear them and pass them on to be handed out."
"So you need to be in Dawnstar regularly?" he asked her, dreading the answer he knew was coming. Once upon a time he would've been freaked out by the whole thing, but after being spoken to by Nocturnal it seemed almost normal.
"Exactly. The old sanctuary was by Falkreath, but that was destroyed, so we had to move to Dawnstar," she explained. "I usually visit about once a month."
That wasn't as bad as he had thought, although it certainly wasn't good news. "Is there anything else?" he wondered.
"I once was a werewolf but now I'm not," she blurted out, giggling. He opened his mouth, but before he could even think of the right question to ask she had moved on. "About the papers I found-the Thalmor are quietly moving large amounts of their people into the cities and mapping their weaknesses. The letter I was carrying included the information specific to Riften. I think they're getting ready to make another move, maybe invade, I don't know, but that's what has Maven so angry."
Something horrible fell into place in his mind just then. He realized he'd walked right into a trap, been manipulated and played like a fool. When they had taken her, they had known who she was and what she was, and they had known that someone would come after her. And if that rescue hadn't been enough to provide a pretense for the Thalmor to take action against Skyrim, which it may have been, what he had done later at the embassy most definitely was. He wouldn't be surprised if they had contrived or at least anticipated some kind of extreme reaction from him, since they obviously knew their relationship. I can't just fuck up like normal people and end up in jail for a day, can I. I have to go and start a damn war.
"Bryn? What's wrong? Don't tell me you have morning sickness, too," she joked, then looked at him again and frowned. "What is it?"
"I've done something terribly stupid," he said, and he told her what had happened.
She was impassive through much of the story, although by the end she looked rather stunned. He did see her lips curve into a quick smile when he described how he had left Elenwen, however, but it faded quickly once she grasped the larger implications.