"My beginning." Brynjolf took a sharp intake of breath before laughing lowly to himself. "I suppose it's too late to back out now, isn't it, lass?" He looked away. "My life before the Guild was nothing to brag about. I was a whelp on the street, hadn't seen my thirteenth winter. I... don't think I need to tell you much about it before that, so I'll settle with this. I stole to try and survive the winter, and most of the time, I got away with it." He again smiled disingenuously. "I was pretty good at thievery even back then, some fifteen years ago. Anyway, I ended up stealing from the wrong person." If possible, Brynjolf grew even more somber. "I suppose you could say I stole from the right person, too."

"Did you steal from Gallus?" I queried softly, rocking back and forth.

"Sharp as a whip, lass." The familiar compliment put me at ease. "Yes, I stole from Gallus. I'd expected him to tear me a new one, but instead, he took me in and showed me a new world beneath the streets of Riften. Sure, I wasn't the best thief in the cistern at the time, but I was undoubtedly the most eager to learn.

"The Guild was glorious. Our vault was teeming with riches. At least, it was the few times I got to see it. We had merchants of every kind in the Flagon, the highest quality tapestries hung on the walls, and no one went hungry. The richest mead flowed from countless barrels... and it didn't stink of rotten fish back then." His reference to the current stench that rose from the canals would have brought a smile to my face if it wasn't said in such a melancholy way. "After a few years, I'd worked my way up. Young as I was, I was still one of the best thieves under Gallus' tutelage. No one suspects an innocent little lad to rob you blind."

"I'll bet you were adorable then, weren't you?" I teased, enjoying the flare of red on his cheeks. He rolled his eyes.

"Oh, shut up, lass... but I suppose I had to be, to fool so many people so well." I again saw a hint of the regular, carefree Brynjolf before it disappeared under the layers of wistful melancholy. "Under Gallus' leadership, the poor were our eyes and ears. Before, you mentioned that we should protect the despondent and not take advantage of them." I nodded. "Punishments were dealt out to any thief who dared steal from a pauper. I believe that's part of why the Guild flourished with Gallus at its head. We focused on those who had too much and protected those who had too little.

"Not long after I turned sixteen, Karliah joined the Guild. Gallus was immediately smitten. She was a lovely thing, and she knew it." His gaze flicked to me. "I've got different tastes." While my face burned, his own darkened. "Besides that, Karliah was probably one of the best thieves the Thieves Guild has ever seen. She brought in more gold in a month than many thieves earn in a year." If that claim was valid, then it was damn impressive. "Sorry to tell you this, lass, but she was a better thief than you." I gave the depressed Brynjolf an exaggerated pout. He rolled his eyes and kept going. "I started seeing Gallus less and less... he was always with Karliah. He called her his 'little nightingale.' I'd noticed it irritated Mercer as well, but I don't think it affected him the same way it affected me." He put his head in his hands. "Especially since he seemed to have become part of their group, however much of a... how do I put this, a 'third wheel' he seemed."

I pondered his words in the following silence. "You were jealous, weren't you?" I realized, speaking quietly. I held no judgment for Brynjolf, especially since he'd been a boy back then whose friend and mentor had seemingly turned his back for a woman.

To my surprise, Brynjolf didn't try to hide it. "Aye, I was." He scowled at the floor. "I felt like she stole him away from me even before she..." He nearly choked on his words. "Gallus and Mercer left on a mission one day, and Karliah followed not long after. I waited for Gallus to return. I'd turned seventeen a week later, and I just wanted..." He trailed off, visibly fighting with himself to find the words. "It's ridiculous, I know."

I shook my head quickly, hating the self-deprecation he was displaying. "No, no! It's not ridiculous." I found myself reaching for his face and tucked a few strands of his hair behind his ear. "It's okay."

Brynjolf sighed heavily, catching my hand as I pulled away. "I waited for Gallus for weeks. He'd left on that job..."

"And never returned," I finished, trying to swallow the lump in my throat as Bryn's grip on my hand tightened before releasing. I could almost feel the agony Brynjolf had gone through, and an image of a distraught seventeen-year-old Brynjolf appeared in my mind's eye.

"Mercer came back after two weeks, looking half-dead. He gave the announcement... that Gallus was dead. Karliah had murdered him in cold blood, intending to steal the leadership of the Guild. Mercer had barely managed to fend her off, but of course, it was too late. I'm a bit ashamed to admit the first thing I did was run off into the woods and..." He turned his head away from me, but I heard his unspoken words as loudly as though he'd shouted them. And I cried.

"Mercer took over then, didn't he?" I queried quietly, and Brynjolf slowly nodded in confirmation.

"As Gallus' second-in-command, it was his right. He made some pretty big changes almost immediately, including removing the ban on robbing the peasants of Skyrim. He was focused on catching Karliah for a while, but a year or two passed, and he gave up. It looked to us like she'd vanished into thin air. Mercer eventually said that we had more important things to do than chase her down, like trying to save the Guild. It wasn't very noticeable at first, but our operation started to break down. Gold intake went down, merchants left, and word spread that we'd become little more than petty thieves without a code. We lost our glory, our contacts, and our respect, all because we lost Gallus."

Brynjolf's chest heaved. "Losing Gallus was... he was like a father to me, and all at once, he was just... gone." He put his head in his hands again, and I made the decision to shift from the chair to beside him on the bed. The mattress creaked under our combined weight, but I was more concerned with comforting the distraught Brynjolf than potentially broken furniture. He shivered as he looked my way, an indiscernible emotion swirling in his gleaming green eyes. The Nord wrapped his arm around my side, and I slowly rested my head on his shoulder. A few minutes passed, and the only sound was his irregular breathing. His voice was barely more than a whisper when he finally spoke again. "I don't know why I'm even telling you," he murmured. I started to stroke his hair, lost for words. "I didn't mean to say this much. It's not something I... I never said a word to anyone else." Brynjolf took a deep breath. "Why are you different, lass?"

I shrugged, wishing I knew what to say. Chest swelling with sympathy, I squeezed my eyes shut and held him close. A few seconds passed before I drew away, remaining wordless as I held out my left hand to caress his face. After a moment of hesitation, he leaned into my comfort. When I started to pull my hand off, he grasped my wrist and kept it still. He shivered for a moment, speaking so lowly I had to strain to hear his words. "Don't leave... please don't leave, lass." I didn't think about my actions; I simply acted on what my heart told me to do.

I pressed my lips to his cheek, his stubble scraping my mouth. Instead of the heat that had coursed through my body the last time I'd kissed him, it was something else I couldn't quite identify. It was gentle, and it was right.

"It'll be okay," I whispered softly, cradling his chin. "I'm here. I'll always be here for you."

Brynjolf was still, and for a second, I wondered if I'd said the wrong thing. When he looked up, his eyes held a sheen. "Swear to me," he breathed, voice gaining an edge of urgency I'd never heard from him before. He held me at arm's length and watched me intensely. "Swear it."

Not missing a beat, I answered without hesitation. "I swear."

Brynjolf's eyes closed, a relieved and familiar smile finally returning. Wrapping his arms around me, he pulled me into a warm embrace and held the back of my neck gingerly as though I might shatter into glass. Following with the gentlest of movements, he pressed his lips to the top of my head. "Then I swear to you, Russet... I promise, I'll always be there for you, too."