"Food!" was her "good morning," hailed from the Elven soldier who slid two bowls filled with what looked like vomit under the jail door.
Isobel's Nord cell mate startled her as he bolted for their ration of sustenance, not hesitating to lift his bowl and bring his lips to the thick, chunky mixture. Her body still stiff and dazed, Isobel painstakingly pushed herself up so she could try to look more into her own bowl, then finally started to crawl over to examine what was actually being fed to them.
She guessed it was just table scraps that was boiled down with some broth. That or actual vomit. She could see pieces of bone along with chunks of potato and grape skins, moldy carrots and bread. Little beads of oil blobbed across the watery surface of the slop, and even her habit to eat her stress away couldn't give her the guts to try it. And with the way the Nord was chugging his down, she thought he might want it more than she did. When Isobel pushed her bowl towards him he gave her a look of upmost gratitude, the chunky slop trickling down his unkempt beard.
"Gods damn it all!" Rulindil cursed as he looked into the cell on their left, Isobel straining to see what was going on. "She was our most reliable source to find that blasted shrine! Now we're back to nothing!" He slammed the iron bars before he took off, still rambling to himself about the lack of possible other informants as two soldiers unlocked and entered the still vibrating jail door.
"Stay back." Isobel heard one of them command, followed by a 'oof' as someone was knocked to the ground. She hastily slid over to the wall, pressing her ear against it and trying to make sense of the shuffling coming from the other side.
When what she heard was inconclusive Isobel crawled back to their gate, just in time to see a soldier carrying a limp woman out of the mysterious cell, her arm swaying with the High Elf's steps.
"Talos guide you..." The Nord cellmate whispered, pausing his breakfast to watch one Thalmor soldier open a trap door directly across from them and the other throw down the skeleton of a body and push it with his foot into the depths. The sound of it hitting the ground below made Isobel cover her mouth, she was barely able to see the woman but there was no doubt she was dead.
"Oh gods..." Isobel whimpered behind her hands.
"She was strong... No doubt in Sovngarde." The Nord grunted, sad but not shocked like Isobel was. "It's just you, me and your friend in here now."
"What did they want? Why was she captured?" Isobel's breath was starting to grow hitched, she was near panicking. No matter the master restoration the Thalmor gave, there was still a way someone could die suddenly and silently in the night. "What did they do to her!? Why did she-"
"Shut up!" The Nord hissed harshly, cupping a bony hand over Isobel's mouth. "You want to get shocked!? You're not allowed to talk!" Isobel nodded her head frantically, looking at the Nord fearfully before he let go and continued to speak quietly. "She was a Priestess of Talos, they wanted to know where she had erected a shrine and who her fellow worshipers were."
"Was she actually a priestess?" Isobel whispered.
"She had a tattoo of Talos' symbol over her heart...Well, she did. Until they cut it out." The Nord shrugged, as if to keep any emotions he had at bay. "She's in a better place now, I envy her new found peace." Isobel's could see dull, brown eyes wishing for death. They found a spot on the floor and flooded themselves with ambivalent, conflicting visions.
"You... want to die?" Isobel muttered softly.
"I'm a Stormcloak. They captured me at Helgen when the dragon attacked." He murmured, and Isobel's jaw dropped. He was at Helgen, facing the headman's block after the ambush that dragged Isobel in with them. She had managed to escape with Ralof, but apparently not all Stormcloaks were as lucky. "They wanted to know information... Anything I could've told them about hidden camps, or names, or information on Ulfric, or about that stupid gods damned dragon... It's been one hundred and fifteen days since I arrived here, and they still haven't gotten a word from me..." The Nord stopped to take a few hearty mouthfuls of the pitiful slop. "There were five of us, and I'm the only one left. Some died from the torture, some spilled information and were killed anyway... I've accepted that my death will be within these walls. I will never betray my brothers and sisters, I just can't help but pray my journey to Sovngarde will be soon... Suicide is not how I want to go."
There was a small silence between them, both pausing from their whispered discussion as they looked back out beyond their bars, looking for any sign of what was to come for the day.
"I was at Helgen too..." Isobel mumbled under her breath, still saddened at the Stormcloak's secret longing to die. "I'm not a Stormcloak but... I got wrapped up in the ambush and the Imperials were going to execute me anyways." The Nord shifted at her words, grabbing her by the chin and forcing her to look at him.
"I remember you!" He exclaimed quietly. "The mysterious Breton girl... What did you say your name was?"
"It was Heidi. Heidi Moorhart. But that was an alias, my real name is Isobel."
"So it's not Abigail Gaercroft?" The Nord chuckled softly. "Rulindil rarely has to start hacking off body parts on the first night."
"Don't tell them my name." Isobel spoke lowly, making sure the Stormcloak heard the gravity in her tone. "It carries weight in Cyrodiil, I can't go back there." She figured they were both prisoners that shared an enemy in the Thalmor, saying she was wanted could hardly be held against her by a war rebel.
"This is strange..." The Nord grumbled. "Your friend? He told them your name was Isobel Woodwing."
"What?!" Isobel hissed. "And they didn't believe him!?"
"Mhm." The Nord nodded his head slowly. "You do know they're not after you specifically, right?" The news blew Isobel away, it made her mind go as empty as her stomach, searching desperately for any possible motive the Thalmor had for capturing her and Etienne. "They wanted two Thieves Guild thieves, I've heard them talk about it. They want to find some old geezer in the sewers where you lot shack up."
Isobel didn't know how to respond. The Thalmor were looking for a man, a man she has no idea exists no less, and that they had no interest in finding one of the Emperor's most wanted. They didn't even know who Isobel Woodwing was.
"Shit..." She swore to herself and hit her head against the iron bars. Trying to think of how she could possibly get Etienne and herself out if they had no clue what they were being held for.
"Hey... do you think they think you're name is Heidi?" The Nord Stormcloak whispered. "They were at Helgen too."
"Bring out the Breton thieves! Both of them!" Rulindil's distant voice boomed from his far away desk and Isobel's entire body started to spasm. She shuffled desperately towards the back of their cell, as if they couldn't see her if she wasn't within five feet of the barred door.
"Hey, calm down!" The Nord spat. "Just do what you did yesterday! And tell them your name is Heidi Moorhart!" Isobel still sat shaking, hearing the approaching footsteps of an elven soldier and the sounds of Etienne being snatched from the cell beside them. "Hey, look at me!" The Stormcloak gripped her chin again, looking into her panicked eyes earnestly. "I'm Yorrick. I'll be here when you're done."
Those were the last words he spoke before an armoured High Elf filled out the threshold of their jail door, the warm amber-colour of his eyes somehow seeming cold and frozen. When he entered and grabbed Isobel's arm to drag her up she struggled to hold in a scream, being wretched out of her cell and away from Yorrick.
"Ah, there she is." Rulindil gave her a joyless smile as he sat at his desk, Etienne already finished being chained to Isobel's previous chair that was still stained with her blood. "We'll make things fairly quick today, I promise. The information we want of you two is of upmost importance, and our Ambassador Elewen is already impatient." The High Elf flipped through a log book, presumably Isobel's, as he looked back up at her. "Position her in front of the boy, please."
The Thalmor soldier guided her in front Etienne in his chair. A meek static shock was administered to her as a parting warning as he let go of her and backed away, leaving her standing alone and facing her fellow-thief.
"Isobel Woodwing, eh?" Rulindil laughed as he made notes in his log book. "I must admit I didn't expect your cohort here to be in on your gimmick." Etienne looked at Isobel, confusion etched into the lines of his frown as she tried to shake her head subtly at him.
"What is he talking-"
Isobel's blood suddenly reached boiling point, it bubbled in her veins as her skin grew hot and her teeth ground together. Looking at Etienne's scared face, the only thing she wanted to do in the entire world was bash it in. She wanted bury her fingernails so deep in his face it would make tiny crescent-moon shaped punctures in his flesh, she wanted to bury her foot in his stomach over and over again until she felt the skin break against her toes.
Without thinking she punched Etienne square in the jaw, she could feel the crack of it the against her knuckles, and all at once the rage was uplifted.
"Oh gods, Etienne I'm so sorry!" Isobel cried as she saw what she had done. Etienne's features were twisted in pain as he tried to move his jaw, spitting out the blood pooling in his mouth. Instinctively Isobel latched a healing hand onto his face, what she was met with then was the feeling her bones were shaking apart. Vibrations that ripped through her body and made her marrow fizz. She collapsed screaming onto the floor, enable to hold herself up as her body seizured and writhed with magic.
"See? It's no fun doing my job." Rulindil shouted over Isobel's convulsing weeping, her skin still crawling with tiny blue bolts that made her muscles twitch. "I have to do this all day every day, I even missed the last gala because some Nord didn't want to tell me his sister's location. Can you imagine?"
"Etienne, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to!" Isobel continued laying on the ground, not wanting to get up lest they make her strike him again. He looked hurt and confused, but it slowly dawned on him that it was Illusion magic that caused her devastating blow to his jaw.
"It's okay, Issy... Just-"
"Now that you have a small taste of what I had to do last night for a pathetically simple question, I'll ask it again now that I have your empathy." Rulindil spoke as he gestured to the Thalmor soldier to lift Isobel to her feet, positioning her in front of the bloody Etienne again, only this time he placed an elven dagger in the palm of her hand and closed her red ringed fingers around it. Keeping Isobel's hand gripping the knife, the soldier slowly and deliberately situated the point onto Etienne's shaking chest, right over his heart.
"No no no no..." Isobel chanted over herself as she tried to brace herself for any other magic that might cause her to stab her friend. Thinking of flutes and sweets and long nights of drinking with friends, she turned her head away and shut her eyes tightly, blinding herself to Etienne's bloody, weeping face.
"We only need one thief after all... no need keeping two around."
"No no no no!"
"What is your name?"
"It's Heidi! It's Heidi!" Isobel shrieked, repeating the name over and over.
"Heidi what?"
"Heidi Moorhart! It's Heidi Moorhart!"
"Ahhh, that wasn't so hard was it?" Rulindil smiled, scribbling in his log book. "And where were you born?"
"Wayrest, High Rock!"
"And your birthdate?"
"Twenty-Eighth of Sun's Dawn!"
"And your reason for being in Skyrim?"
"I'm a thief, sir! My family was killed and I joined the Thieves Guild!"
"Marvelous work!" Rulindil praised boisterously as he gestured for the Guard to remove the hysteric Isobel from her position. "Now that we've got that all figured out, we're one step closer to your release!" Isobel recalled Yorrick saying how some Stormcloaks were still killed even after they coughed up information and let out a shaky exhale. She had to be strong, to try to make it through so Etienne and her could get out, or at least to give him hope.
"I trust you've heard about the dragons returning? Hm? You were at Helgen after all." Rulindil gave Isobel a firm, knowing look as he motioned for a chair to be brought for her. As she seated herself beside the still blood-spitting Etienne the High Elf continued. "Skyrim is delicate enough as it is... What with the civil war going on, the High King's throne empty, not to mention winter is in full force. The last thing such a vulnerable province needs are legendary monsters returning from the dead."
"And how convenient it was, for the first dragon anyone has seen since the last age, to disrupt the execution of a rebel leader, and thus allowing his escape. Wouldn't you agree? The war was almost done, peace was within our grasp, and we just missed it! We have spent so many months, so many months, trying to gain information of the dragons from the Stormcloaks, but we have learned nothing. Nothing! Can you imagine?!" Rulindil might as well have been telling a tavern story, a silly anecdote.
"But, my superior, the great First Emissary Elewen, brought up the Blades. Of course!" Rulindil slapped his forehead in dramatic exasperation. "How could we have been so daft?! Of course! We were so focused on the Stormcloaks that we forgot about the group of people who would know more about dragons than anyone!"
Isobel knew who the Blades were. They'd be the ones she'd be running from if the Empire would've won the Great War. Protectors of the Emperor, before they were replaced by the Penitus Oculatus. She had no idea they knew anything of dragons though. And she knew even less on what they had to do with Guild thieves.
"Now, we Thalmor were quite successful when it came to wiping out the Blades, too successful. Now that we want one we don't know where to find one." Rulindil continued. "But, after another stroke of genius on Elewen's part, we caught wind that a Blade might actually be living in the same sewers you two do." Rulindil's dark eyes moved slowly between the two Bretons, a small smile starting to curl his thin lips. "And we want to know if this is true, and where in the sewers he would be."
Etienne and Isobel remained silent, simply staring back at the High Elf with matching confused expressions.
"Neither of you have any idea where this Blade, this old, wizened man, could be?"
The two Bretons shook their heads before Rulindil exhaled a sigh of frustration.
"Bring me my blades and tourniquet. Something tells me more than fingers will be cut off today."
"Bryn, you know bloody well why I opted to keep that knowledge from ya!"
"Aye! Now let me go to have a few choice words with the bastard!"
"Brynjolf, I cannot let ya do that!"
The Second in Command was cut off from his swift march towards the Riften stables, the short body of a Breton stepping in his path and stopping him.
"Asking me to do the job of the monster that attacked my kith - nay, my kin- while I know where he sleeps is requesting quite a gods damned lot, Delvin."
It was true. Since Maul was moved out of the city until Isobel was dealt with, Delvin and Brynjolf had taken on his duties for Maven. As if knowing too late that Isobel and Vipir weren't the ones to attack first that momentous night wasn't painful enough, now being given the brute's job while he holed up somewhere for safety was just adding insult to injury. Seeing that the Guild was idle until Etienne, Thrynn and Isobel returned from Solitude, Bryn and Delvin were pretty much free all the time. And it wasn't like Maven was going to hire any of Isobel's posse to do her dirty work.
Intimidating clerks and patrons, extorting from those in Black-Briar debt, all while knowing the man who gave his lass a purple neck was safe and sound someplace where Brynjolf's hands couldn't reach him. It drove him near mad.
That was until Delvin let Maul's whereabouts slip.
"Brynjolf! You confront Maul and the last thread that's holdin' the Guild together will snap!"
Maul was at the Black-Briar Lodge, the family's vacation home only a day's journey away from where Brynjolf stood at Riften's gates. He was so close.
"What would you do, Delvin?!" Brynjolf spat back, quickly lowering his voice to a harsh whisper before any eavesdroppers could hear them. "You got to deal with the man that nearly killed Vex! You got justice for what he did!"
"It's different now, boy!" Delvin hissed back, steam pluming from his panting mouth in the cold air. "Takin' care of the thug that set up Vex didn't contribute to the complete obliteration of the Guild! And he sure as shite wasn't under Black-Briar protection!"
Brynjolf tore away from his stance against Delvin, running his hand through his hair as he paced furiously.
"He needs to pay, Delv."
"Aye, he bloody well does, just not now."
It was so easy for Delvin to say that, if he only knew the potency of the turmoil that was bubbling in Brynjolf's chest. It was so incomprehensible, that the man who injured Isobel so brutally, who would've committed the abominable act of rape on her had Vipir had not intervened, was sipping hot tea in a toasty mountain cottage to ward off the ever-growing chill in the air.
And if Isobel came back... if Isobel came back what would Maul's role in her punishment be? Mercer and Maven had divulged none of their plans for Isobel to anybody, the only clue was the crate Mercer kept by his desk, but Brynjolf had no idea how he intended to use it or what else would be included. Mercer had said her request for sanctuary was based on the agreement that if she broke any boundaries the Guild Master had permission to ship her back to the Imperial City in a crate of live skeevers. Brynjolf thought he was joking at first but it appeared Mercer was keeping the deal verbatim, and Brynjolf was having less and less of an idea how he could save the first lass he had ever admitted to loving.
"Is that what you're going to tell me while Mercer seals Isobel into a crate with skeevers, Delvin? Is it!?" Brynjolf's voice was tremoring, fighting to stay quiet despite wanting nothing more than to scream. " 'Not now Bryn, not now!' Is that what you'll tell me?!"
Maul had hurt someone who was dear to Brynjolf's heart, and the threat was not gone. As long as Maul had breath in his lungs Brynjolf would see him as a threat to Isobel, and he wasn't going to wait until she was in even more danger before taking action. He was going to start fighting for her now.
He owed her that much.
"Delvin, will you contact the Dark Brotherhood for me? Or will I have to use your body for the Black Sacrament?