If you've made it this far then you've probably seen enough not to need a gore warning, but yeah. This chapter gets graphic.

Killer

8˂

Irkngthand.

Once, a home to the Dwarves. Then, after their disappearance, it had been shared by what the Dwemer had left behind. The Falmer, at war with the Dwarven machines. More recently, a gang of bandits had taken over the upper levels of the ruin, turning it into their hideout.

None of those called Irkngthand their home now, because they were all dead.

Brynjolf, Karliah and L'laarzen made their way through scene after scene of total devastation. Everyone and everything the Nightingales encountered had been butchered; blood, oil, dismembered limbs, cracked chitin and loose metal were all that was left.

The Skeleton Key, it seemed, was just as formidable as it had been the last time they had encountered it.

They progressed deeper and deeper into the ruin, until they eventually found themselves outside one last archway.

The Thieves Guild shadowmark for 'danger' was drawn in blood on the door.

"Ten septims say he's crouched right above the door on the other side." Brynjolf muttered.

"Too proud to try something like that." Karliah replied. "He'll be sat by a cooking pot waiting for us."

"Simply remember the plan." L'laarzen said, rolling her wrists. "Khajiit will confront him, the two of you will support. Brynjolf, try to get behind him. Karliah, do what you do best. Do not shoot at L'laarzen again."

"Will you ever let that go?"

"If we pull this off, Khajiit will consider it. Ready?"

The two of them nodded.

L'laarzen steeled herself, then reached out and forcefully shoved the double doors open, walking out into the room within.

The doors creaked as the trio rushed in, and clanged against the stone walls.

After which there was a long, long silence.

"...Y'know." Brynjolf said. "We probably should have expected this."

The Snow Elf statue sat before them, beautiful and majestic, except for one issue.

It's eyes were gone from it's sockets.

Mercer Frey was nowhere to be seen.

"...He's gone." Karliah breathed, but her voice quickly grew louder. "We were too slow. He's won! He's bloody WON!"

"Come on, lass-" Brynjolf reached for her shoulder, but she yanked it out of his grip and then slammed a fist into the wall for good measure. "GAH! What in Oblivion do we do now?"

Ignoring her irate companion, and Brynjolf's continued attempts to calm her down, L'laarzen walked forwards. The statue loomed over her, so large that she could have stood on its shoulder and her head would barely have reached its ear. Nowhere near as massive as the shrine to Azura, of course, but the detail...the love and attention that had clearly been poured into every square inch of the surface...

"Blinded again, it seems." She mused. "And once again, due to the greed of another. Is that irony? Or just...sad?"

She leaned back, taking the whole thing in.

"L'laarzen will inform Calcelmo of this." She decided, letting the statue know. "With the ruins cleared, perhaps this area can be excavated just as Nzchuand-Zel was. The world deserves to see this, Khajiit thinks. Perhaps it will instil some genuine curiosity in the people of Skyrim. Cannot be a bad thing." Her brows furrowed. "But L'laarzen will not allow the eyes of the Falmer to be sold for profit. This she promises."

She turned and clapped her hands together, silencing the row that had blossomed between Brynjolf and Karliah. "Enough! This is not over yet."

"Of course it's over!" Karliah shot back. "He's already won!"

"Not until we give up." L'laarzen replied, climbing back up to them and then walking straight past. "Come. Perhaps he is already reclining on a pile of gold, but Khajiit will not stop chasing while there is still a chance we might catch him."

"But we don't even know where he's going!" Brynjolf protested, following her.

"Of course we do. His journal said he was leaving the country." L'laarzen explained. "If he aims to sell the Eyes he must be in a civilised country (as distasteful it is to say) meaning he won't go to Solstheim, Morrowind, Black Marsh or Elsweyr. That makes Windhelm's port a waste of time. If I had to guess, he'd make for High Rock, Summerset Isle, or Cyrodiil. Land routes take him back through the Rift, he wouldn't risk that, meaning his only option is Solitude harbour. These corpses we've passed are perhaps a day old, meaning his lead isn't as great as it seems. We have horses. If we're fast enough, we may be able to catch him before he can hire passage or stow away."

She turned around, meeting their gonsmacked faces. "Well? Hurry, hurry! There's a few hundred thousand septims in gemstones, Daedric artefacts and bounties waiting for us, let's go!"

̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶̶ ̶{o

Alexander didn't think he'd ever felt as strongly about anything in his life as he was now about Sky Haven Temple. He'd never been this excited in his life, he'd never been this ecstatic in this life, and he'd never been this enraged in his life because why in the name of Akatosh had nobody told him this place existed?

First Era Akaviri architecture!

Centuries-old Blades equipment and records!

A thrice-damned blood seal that only let the Dragonborn in!

And then, of course, the icing on the cake:

"It's the Dragonborn prophecy!" Xander squealed, running from one side of the enormous stone mural to the other. "It has to be!"

"It is!" Shouted Esbern, running right alongside him. "Look, there at the start, it's the Dragon War! From the Merethic Era!"

"Oh sweet Divines it is!" Xander moved closer, inspecting. "And look! That figure matches traditional Nordic representations of Kyne, their interpretation of Kynareth! She's the one that gave Men the power to learn Shouts!"

"She's teaching the ancient Nord heroes! Look, they're banishing Alduin!"

"Well they obviously didn't do a very good job, he's back at the end of the mural. Oh, look over there! That's a stick broken into eight pieces! It has to be-"

"The staff of Chaos, yes! And just next to it, that's-"

Stood slightly further back, Delphine looked across at the Dragonborn.

"Yours always like this?" She asked.

"Aye. Yours too?"

"Aye."

"Hmph." The Man walked up, and put a hand on each of the scholars' shoulders. "Not to interrupt your moment, but is any of this actually useful?"

"Actually useful?" Both of them exclaimed, at once.

Xander sighed, brushed the Dragonborn's hand off, and gestured across the wall. "This is an artistic depiction of...basically the entire history of Tamriel, D. They predicted all of this millennia ago, with a ruddy Elder Scroll most likely!" He stabbed a finger at the big black dragon in the centre. "That right there is Alduin, the World-Eater, and that?" He pointed at a piddly little figure in the far right corner. "That's you! They even got your nose right!"

The Dragonborn knelt down, looking at the man in Akivirian armour holding up a shield against a torrent of flame. "...You can't see his nose."

"Yeah I know, I was trying to be funny, it-" Xander sighed, as Delphine snickered. "Just. Please take a second to soak in the fact that you are a prophesied hero thousands of years in the making."

"Okay." The Dragonborn waited one second. "So this Alduin. If I kill him the Dragons will stop?"

"Oh, sweet Mara-" Xander put his head in his hands and wandered off.

Esbern filled in the rest. "Alduin is the great black dragon resurrecting the others, as you saw with Delphine. If you can slay him, that should halt."

"Hmph. Good to know." The Dragonborn stood. "So are we done here?"

"Actually, there is another thing." Esbern directed his torchlight to the central image. "Look here. The three heroes using the power of their voice to defeat Alduin. Do you know of this? Any Shouting that can knock a Dragon from the sky?"

The Dovahkiin's brow furrowed. "That's a very tentative connection."

Esbern blinked. "You mean-"

"All it shows is them Shouting at Alduin." The Dovahkiin crossed his arms. "That could just be symbolic. It doesn't even show Alduin dying, just his head around lots of swirly lines. How do you figure that they're using one specific shout that forces a Dragon to fall from the sky?"

"Um."

"Because I'd love one, but it sounds like you're just hoping for some magic pull-chain that solves all your problems."

"W-well, I-" Esbern floundered under the demigod's implacable stare.

"Hah!" Delphine barked. "Guess even the scholar has stupid moments."

"You suspected the Thalmor of resurrecting the dragons after we had just watched Alduin resurrect a dragon." The Dragonborn deadpanned right back at her.

"Uh."

"Hey, friends!" Xander poked his head out from around one corner. "They've only got anti-dragon enchantments on some of their gear! Can I take these and work on them? I promise to make you a better one later!"

"If there's a sword, leave it to me. I find mine insufficient." The Dragonborn turned away from the wall and sighed (the first time the man had shown any trace of exhaustion around Xander). "I can return to the Greybeards and ask. They may know a miracle shout that can help, or something of how I might find Alduin. At the very least, I can request that they share more of their knowledge of Shouts with me." His eyes narrowed. "I understand wanting me to gain the knowledge a less 'cheap' way, but the fate of Tamriel is at stake here."

"Awesome! I'll come!" Xander held up a hand as if to volunteer...then winced, and brought it down. "Actually..."

He really wanted to go see the Greybeards. He might be supposed to go see the Greybeards, having learned a Shout outside their teaching. But...

Patches of blood on the floor. Implements of torture. Elenwen's empty smile.

"If this isn't something I'll be much help with, I might have to sit it out." He leaned back against a wall, grimacing. "I have responsibilities I've been neglecting. Obviously saving the world is the most important thing, I get that. But I have family to check up on, and a school to run, and a haunted Jarl I should probably do something about, and my aunt is a monster and I don't even know what to do about that-"

"Alright."

"and-. Uh." Xander blinked. "Really?"

"Go." The Dragonborn nodded. "I will find you if I need you again."

"We will make our base here." Esbern called, from over by the wall. "It is long-past time the Blades made a fresh start. We will attempt to recruit more fighters to aid you, Dragonborn. And Alexander?" He leaned around the large demigod's form. "Please do return at some point. I fear I will have nothing but meatheads for company for the foreseeable future."

"Will do." Xander smiled. Then looked around, and coughed awkwardly. "So. I'm going to loot everything of value in this place, and then I'm going to Solitude."

8˂

Three horses came to a stop, in the muck at the edge of Morthal's swamps. Their three riders, dark figures barely made visible by the moon, looked out across the Karth river to Solitude's port.

"Too many boats." Said Brynjolf, scanning across the lively harbour. "More than a dozen that I can see from here. We can't check all that."

"We don't need to." L'laarzen said, nodding to one of the buildings. "That is the East Empire Company Warehouse. L'laarzen visited it last time she was in town, they monopolise this port. The head office there will contain a manifest of every ship entering and leaving. We find out which ships leave are leaving when, and search them as they make their way out to sea. Mercer will have no hope of escape, if he has not already done so. If he is, of course, we're...what's the word?"

"Buggered?"

"Yes."

"Seems sound to me." Karliah agreed. "But unless your horse can walk on water, we're going to have to get a little soggy."

"Are you alright getting across there, lass?" Brynjolf asked, glancing at L'laarzen.

"Was that a remark about L'laarzen's race? Based on cats' dislike for water?"

"Uh. No, I didn't-"

"L'laarzen quite enjoys swimming, in fact."

"No, no, that wasn't what I meant, I promise."

L'laarzen flashed him a smile to let him know she was joking. Then unhooked her feet from her stirrups and slid off her horse, wading into the water.

The Nightingales barely disturbed the waves. The northern waters were chilly, especially at night, but the armour L'laarzen wore seemed to be dampening the worst effects of the cold. The effects of the magical garments were difficult to describe; she felt like her senses were being heightened, yet simultaneously dulled. Like the colour was being sapped from the world, while the detail was sharpened.

She wasn't sure if she'd want to wear it permanently, but for a mission like this, it would more than do.

The water fell straight off them like their armour was made of ink, and they crept across the wooden boards with a supernatural silence.

"The door is over there." L'laarzen directed. "Khajiit will scout the docks."

They nodded, and then separated. L'laarzen watched as they calmly and quietly choked a guardsman unconscious and slipped inside, then turned away, slipping through the night.

This part of her work was always one she enjoyed. The port was alive, even at this time, and the torches flickered like fireflies in the night as people moved around, talking, working, living. She could quite happily perch on a roof and just experience it for hours.

Of course, right then, she didn't have hours.

She cleared half the port in a few minutes, and considered heading back to the EEC warehouse, but one of the ships in the harbour caught her eye. Not for its appearance, for the fact that it was moving.

Her eyes narrowed, and she straightened from her position on the roof of the dockmaster's office. Leaving? At this time of night? Does that happen?

Someone else was clearly as confused as she was, as an angry voice shouted out from just below her. A familiar voice.

"What? It's leaving now?"

"Officially, it pulled up anchor seven minutes ago." Replied a tired-sounding Argonian. "The VIP passenger demanded they set off early. Erikur got on the wrong side of the Jarl, is what I hear. Apparently she's really not doing so hot-"

"I don't care for court politics!" The voice was burning with rage. "Where is it? That one?" A gauntleted arm pointed outwards, and L'laarzen was able to glimpse it over the overhang of the roof.

"That one, aye. Why do you-"

"Because I'm supposed to be on it!" The man stepped backwards with a frustrated groan, looking up to the sky...where he saw L'laarzen, silhouetted against the moon.

"Hello, Mercer Frey." She said, grinning down at him. "Can you imagine the odds of me coming across you just now? How...lucky."

Mercer turned tail and ran.

L'laarzen pulled up her scarf and followed.

Mercer Frey barrelled through pedestrians like the civil war barrelled through Skyrim's economic prospects. L'laarzen was hot on his heels.

The man was fast, she'd give him that. The Skeleton Key increasing the strength in his legs or just good physical training, it made no difference to her. The problem was, had to push through everyone in his path, whereas she could lightly dart along in his wake. And he had a much more prominent problem: He was running out of pier. At this rate he was going to have to either make a sharp left into Solitude, or get himself very wet. L'laarzen looked across at Mercer's target, the brig that was making its way out of the harbour.

He doesn't have a way to it. Not unless the key lets him out-swim a boat-

Mercer jumped.

It took L'laarzen a second to process what was happening, as the man cleared a solid three metres of water with his long-jump. But then he slammed onto the deck of a fishing boat, one that was still moored in the dock, and began sprinting across to its bowsprit.

Oh, you have got to be kidding Khajiit-

Her eyes tracked ahead of him, and she grit her teeth as she realised that if he timed it perfectly, he could jump from the parked ship, to the just beside it, then to the fleeing one.

Son of Ban Daar! This is ridiculous!

She looked left, to the doors of the East Empire warehouse and her friends.

No time. If he sets sail now, we'll never catch him!

Growling, she built up speed. Reaching the edge of the pier, she planted both her feet down on the wood and leapt.

Whatever Mercer's muscles were doing, hers couldn't do the same. Where he had landed clear on the deck of the ship, she slammed bodily into its side with a cry of pain. There are L'laarzen's first big bruises after the repair...

She was able to get her hands over the ledge, though, and haul herself up. Loud, confused crewmates were now demanding to know what the fuss was about, but she ignored them, sprinting after her quarry.

He was fast, but she was nimble. She ran along the full length of the bowsprit, perfectly balanced, then threw herself forwards, clearing the back end of the next ship and vaulting over onto the main deck. Mercer was already jumping onto the escaping ship, and though she was only seconds behind, that was still enough for the ship to start to pass her.

Come on, come on...

She sprinted, charging up to the stern of her current vessel even as Mercer's started to pull away, and jumped.

The gap between her and her target shrunk, the water stretched out beneath her, her height began to drop-

And then one claw snagged onto the lantern hanging from the back of the ship.

The fingers ached, and for the second time she slammed flat into the back of the ship before getting a grip and pulling herself up.

It stung like a wasp. But the look on Mercer's scarred face as she climbed up onto the deck was well worth it.

̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶̶ ̶ ̶͜͡| ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ Ϫ

Octavia Meteuse was very glad she wasn't currently fighting in her official capacity as a captain of the Penitus Oculatus. A very significant chunk of Falkreath's farmable woodland was about to be destroyed, and she really didn't want to have to explain to her superiors why that was her fault. To the family, either. This is such a Xander thing to have done...

Festus Krex was a damn good mage, that much was clear. Octavia threw herself over a burning log and rolled as another fireball went whizzing over her head. I can't believe he's not out of juice yet. I didn't expect an old man to have such impressive reserves...and now this train of thought is starting to sound dirty. Point is I can't maintain invisibility in these conditions, the heat and the flickering ruins the illusion. Need to restrategise...

She snapped her fingers, and a flame atronach appeared in front of her, catching the next fireball with minimal damage.

Festus laughed, and switched to a lightning bolt that crashed into the daedra and instantly vapourised it. Emerging from behind it, however, was Octavia.

Twelve of her.

The copies fanned out into a semicircle, and all sprinted towards Festus with bound swords in their hands.

"Hah! Do you think I'm a child?" He gathered fire in his hands, then twisted on the spot, launching a veritable storm of flames that washed out to hit each of the duplicates, even as he prepared another lightning bolt to strike whichever turned out to be real.

The fire washed over the Octavias, and one by one each shattered into light and magic until there was only one left.

And then that one vanished too.

"...What?" Said Festus, and then Octavia clamped her right hand over the back of his head.

"I wouldn't call you a child, but still. Overreliance on magic." She told him, having simply sent out the distraction and then walked around behind him. "They beat that mistake out of me years ago."

He didn't get a chance to reply, because immediately after speaking she blasted an illusion right into his skull. He stiffened, and went limp.

"Right then..." Octavia looked around, and resisted the urge to cough. The smoke was starting to become a serious hazard, and the heat wasn't helping much. Everything around her was burning. Can't exactly fly, not looking forwards to going any cardinal direction...they say you're supposed to go to ground in situations like this, right?

"Mind helping me out? Put those magicka reserves to work, there's a dear." She tapped Festus on the cheek, altering what he was currently experiencing, and stepped backwards. His arms came up, wreathed in flames, and he promptly blasted a fireball right at the ground at his feet.

Then did it again, and again, and again, until the earth started to buckle-

Margret almost wished she was back in Markarth.

Almost.

She jumped backwards as the assassin Gabriella thrust at her with the thin silver sword, before darting back in, catching the blade on one of her daggers and pushing closer. The Dunmer, much like the Argonian Margret had fought earlier, was really rather good at fighting. She slapped Margret's other wrist away before she could bring the dagger to bear, elbowed her in the stomach, then twisted free, stabbing with the sword again and forcing Margret to duck desperately underneath it.

"You're fast." Gabriella acknowledged. "Afraid of getting hurt? Or did you just conclude that the sword is poisoned? Because yes, it is."

"Why would you tell me that?" Margret asked, eyeing the tip of the blade warily.

Gabriella smirked. "So I can control how you react to it, obviously."

Oh, daughter of a-

The assassin attacked again, and Margret backpedalled, now very afraid to try and parry the sword when one small slip down to her fingers might kill her.

Across the room, Sindig was still whining. The werewolf had barely managed to get up on all fours, but was shaking in place, and hacking up great globules of blood with every other breath.

Gabriella looked over, and her eyes narrowed. "Stubborn thing, isn't he..." She grumbled, before raising her voice. "Lis! Dinnertime!"

There's more of them? Margret looked around frantically to spot who Gabriella was talking about, and her jaw dropped when a damned frostbite spider clambered through one of the adjacent corridors. The creature was the biggest of its kind she'd ever seen (though admittedly, she'd not spent long in Skyrim), almost the size of Sindig. Its mandibles clicked angrily, before it jumped down to their level and rapidly scuttled towards its prey. Sindig barely turned his head around before the monster latched onto his throat, bowling him over backwards.

"NO!" Margret turned and ran towards them, narrowly avoiding Gabriella's swipe at the back of her head. Barely thinking, she jumped on top of the spider, jabbing both of her daggers right into its ridiculous amount of eyes. It screeched, and she stabbed again and again, rapidly losing her balance as it skittered away from Sindig. It bucked its head, and she went crashing down to the floor, only to watch it unhinge its jaw and grab her about the waist. Now it was her turn to scream, as Lis' mandibles bit through her armour and dug through her skin. She lost her grip on one dagger but didn't stop stabbing with the other, driving it into Lis' head again and again. Dark blood went everywhere, and eventually it dropped her, reeling back, blind and hissing-

Only for Sindig to clamp his jaws into the side of its head and rip, pulling off a substantial chunk of it as he did so.

Lis collapsed onto its side, legs curling up, as Sindig roared. Obviously in incredible pain, barely standing, he still rounded on the other threat in the room, baring his fangs and stumbling into another charge with his claws pulling back to attack.

Gabriella calmly avoided his first desperate swing, and then drove her sword up through the bottom of his throat.

Margret's eyes went wide, seeing the tip of the weapon emerging from the back of the werewolf's neck. Gabriella twisted it once, and then withdrew it, leaving Sindig to take two steps backwards and then crash to the ground.

"If you're going to kill my pet, I'm going to kill yours." Gabriella said, as though it was obvious. She wiped the blood from her weapon, reached into her robes, and pulled out a small resin of some type, rubbing it up and down the length of the sword. "Don't mind me, just reapplying..."

Margret, for her part, shakily managed to stand. The wounds weren't deep, but her abdomen was going numb, and the effect was spreading down to her legs. Frostbite venom. Damnit...

"Ah, there it is." Gabriella purred, walking towards her. "Can you feel it? Not the venom, though that's there too. I'm talking about the fear. It's really one of my favourite things about this job: Watching it slowly dawn on someone that they're about to die." She raised her sword. "Would you like to try running? I love it when they run. I promise I'll let you at least make it to the stairs~"

Margret grit her teeth. This arrogant, egotistical...She brought up her dagger, and advanced.

"Oh? Well, suit yourself." Gabriella stood, and waited.

Margret feinted forwards with a swipe. The assassin didn't buy it. Then she fully attacked, throwing her weight forwards.

Gabriella thrust out her sword, forcing Margret to either abort the attack or get impaled.

Margret chose the latter.

The thin blade stabbed in right into Margret's gut, but she just kept moving, actually thankful for the numbing effects of the frostbite venom as she forced herself up the length of the blade and grabbed Gabriella about the waist.

The flabbergasted Dunmer didn't even have time to react before Margret's dagger buried itself in her throat.

"You think I'm afraid of death?" Margret hissed. "I'm Penitus Oculatus, bitch. It's in the job description."

Gabriella's eyes rolled up in her head, and both of them collapsed together.

That was when the ceiling exploded.

It was when the first boulder crashed down in the western doorway that Hjar realised she was panicking.

Up ahead, Dulurza had almost singlehandedly taken on the role of fighting the deadly assassin boss because Hjar was A) not wearing armour and B) trying frantically to stay in the centre of the room. This Astrid woman was an absolute menace with that monstrosity of a 'knife'; she'd already put one large gash into Hjar's forearm that was now dripping blood all over the floor, and that was with her focusing on Dulurza! The Orc herself was visibly at maximum effort, having shifted to a much shorter grip on her axe to try and wield it effectively in the close quarters. She'd given Astrid a bloody nose and a cut above her left thigh, and in return Astrid had given her slit cheek and a rapidly leaking hole in her unprotected abdomen.

Hjar knew she needed to get involved, but she just could not get her head in the game. The rumbling of the cave around her was pounding a hole in her skull, and it took every last vestige of her focus to keep herself convinced that she wasn't back in that tunnel beneath Markarth, no air to breath as she helplessly fell deeper and deeper into the-

NO! ENOUGH!

Part of the wolf was screaming to be let out, but she held onto that thing like a vice, because no way in hell was she going to almost double in size when the walls around her were almost literally closing in on her-

The roof cracked. The supports of the tunnel to the east gave way, dirt piling down and burying the only other exit to the room.

"Alright, enough of this!" Dulurza shouted. She dropped her axe entirely and surged forwards, using Astrid's surprise as an opportunity to punch her right in the face, punch her again, and then drive an Orachicalcum boot into her stomach.

Astrid went flying backwards. Right into the mosaic of Sithis. The window (it was a window) cracked, and then shattered completely when Dulurza picked her axe back up and slammed the butt of it into Astrid's chest, sending her tumbling head over heels in a shower of red glass.

"Come on!" Dulurza grabbed Hjar's arm, snapping her out of her reverie. "We need to move! Now!"

Hjar didn't protest, running towards the opening and looking out into the chamber ahead. It was the large room they'd left their companions in, she realised, only now it was in ruin. There was a giant hole in the roof through which a worrying red light was emanating. Flopping down the great pile of rubble beneath the hole was some old man with a purple arrow in his throat, and following him down was Octavia, who took one look at what she saw and swore loudly.

Hjar looked around too, and it was only then she saw the group of bodies that had almost been buried in the dirt and stone. One spider, one Dark Elf, and-

"MARGRET!" She screamed.

Everything else stopped mattering. She jumped through the aperture, rolling on the ground below, and Astrid was standing again in front of her but Hjar literally could not care less, swinging the Mace of Molag Bal with a roar into the assassin's temple before she could regain her bearings.

Astrid crumpled, bleeding, and Hjar sprinted past her, dropping to her knees next to her two allies.

Old Gods, I can't even tell whose blood is whose...

Sindig was in the worse state, and she forced herself to check him first. He had reverted to his human form, with his skin deathly pale, his lips blue, and a very noticeable hole through his throat.

But when he looked up at her, he smiled. "Did...my best." He rasped. "Thank you. At least this...is on my terms."

"Sindig." She gulped. "Don't-"

"Hunting Grounds, eh?" He rolled onto his back, and looked up at the ceiling. "Let's see...what Hircine thinks of me now..."

It might have been callous, but Hjar didn't even wait for him to go still. She turned, and grabbed her other target in both arms, pulling her up into her lap. "Margret." She snarled. "Don't you dare do what he just did, you hear me?"

"Not p-planning on it." The redhead shared a lot of features with Sindig (besides, fortunately, the hole in the throat). She took a hand away from her abdomen, which was stained very, very red. "Poison. I d-d-don't know what. But...I'm on two Dark-k Brotherhood kills now. Yaay..."

Octavia slid down the pile of rubble to land next to them, and Dulurza ran over as well.

"Divines above." The witch growled. "Not good. I only know some fundamental healing magic-" Another section of the roof collapsed, and she grit her teeth. "Orc, if you can carry her out, I might be able to stabilise her until we get to Falkreath."

"On it." Dulurza moved immediately, sheathing her axe and picking Margret up. Hjar stood as well, helplessly, looking up at the slope and their exit.

First we have to get her up, and the forest outside's on fire. Then we've got to try and navigate it, hope that Falkreath even has anything that can help her...odds aren't good. Hircine, what do I-

Hircine!

"Wait!" She called, moving over and grabbing Margret's hand. "I might be able to help!"

"Not sure now's a good time for love and comfort-" Dulurza warned.

"Oh shut up!" Inhaling, Hjar yanked the ring of Hircine off her finger. "Now I'm aware that giving rings has connotations, but if we could ignore those and focus for a moment-"

"Hjar, w-what are you-" Hjar shut her girlfriend up with a kiss, and while she was doing so, slipped the Ring onto Margret's finger.

Please, Hircine. This isn't me begging a higher power to solve my problems, this is me relying on the laws of consistent enchantments and the fact that I earned this bloody thing and if it suddenly stops doing what its done every other time I am going to tear Oblivion apart to get to you and feed you your left testicle are we clear?

She took her lips off Margret's and stepped back.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then,

Hmph. Alright, mardy-pants, have it your way.

Wait, really, I wasn't expecting you to answer-

Margret gasped and curled up on herself, then started shaking violently as her hair started to grow and-

"Dulurza!" Hjar shouted. "You might want to put her down! And get out of her way!"

Dulurza plainly had no idea what was going on, but complied, and Octavia gave Hjar a knowing look before tugging on the Orc's arm and starting her escape.

Hjar made a snap decision, reached inside herself, and called on the wolf.

Two minutes later, the whole forest up to the edge of Lake Illinalta was on fire. Emerging from the inferno, an Orc and an Imperial didn't hesitate to jump clear of the treeline and land with twin splashes in the water.

Moments later, they were joined by two enormous wolves. One's fur was white, and the other's was a deep red.

8˂

The helmsman, to his credit, did draw his cutlass and advance on L'laarzen. She grabbed his wrist with one hand, delivered a chop to his throat with the other, and calmly walked past him as he gurgled and fell to the floor.

"A beautiful evening, is it not?" She called out, putting one hand on the wheel and idly steering the ship under Solitude's arch. "Mercer Frey. You have something that does not belong to you."

Mercer looked up at her from the maindeck, his breathing laboured but quickly coming under control.

"How many times do I have to kill you, cat?" He called. "It's nine lives, right? You must have worked through a few of those by now."

"Well, Khajiit started a new life in Skyrim." She answered, conversationally. "If you count both of your attempts, that makes three, so..."

"Five lives left, then. Since judging from that armour, you've already traded another one away." Mercer grinned, and drew two swords. They shone gold in the moonlight, likely obtained in Irkngthand. "That's perfectly fine. I've got all night to cleave through them."

The remaining crewmen on deck took that as their clue to get back inside.

"The Key. Where." L'laarzen demanded.

Mercer reached up to his neck, and pulled out a small, rusted metal key. It was an innocuous little thing; L'laarzen wouldn't normally have looked twice at it.

"Here." Mercer gestured, tapping it. "The Eyes are in a chest in my cabin. You'll need the Skeleton Key to get into it."

"Awfully forthcoming of you." L'laarzen tilted her head.

His smile widened. "May as well. I don't need it on me, you can't gain anything from it in the span of a fight, and I know for a fact that you won't try to snatch it and run."

"Hmph." He had her dead to rights there. "Very well. Shall we get started?"

She put one foot on the wheel and jumped.

Ordinarily he would have moved to where she would land and skewered her, and that would have been that. But in her jump she had sent the ship's wheel spinning, and in doing so made the entire vessel turn. Mercer was sent stumbling off-balance, and she was free to flip for style points, roll on the deck, and come up with her claws swinging.

Unlike last time, Mercer actually had his preferred weapons, and he swung them like a giant swinging toothpicks. There were many significant downsides to trying to dual-wield blades, and almost all of them were nullified when one had superstrength. Every strike was fast, and strong, and entirely capable of killing her in one stroke, while also designed to keep her at range. It seemed Mercer had (reasonably) concluded that swords were longer than claws, and if she was out of claw-range, she couldn't tear his throat out.

L'laarzen, however, was also going into this with a plan. She had had weeks with nothing to do besides think of ways to kill this man. And now she had a body capable of fighting him, and armour capable of deflecting glancing strikes from his weapons. She was ready.

She hovered just outside of his swords' strike range, feet practically dancing on the deck, darting in repeatedly to pressure him but otherwise baiting him to continue his ruthless assault.

She backed up to the stairs leading to the helm and (after a quick glance behind her that nearly got her beheaded), started to ascend, skipping up past swipes that tore through the steps beneath her feet.

"I see you've abandoned your hangers-on!" He shouted, between pants. "Afraid of them seeing you like this? Or have they already outlived their usefulness?"

"They are L'laarzen's friends!" She shot back, coming to a stop in the centre of the quarterdeck. "What, do Nords not make those?"

"Hah! Lie to yourself all you want." He sauntered up the stairs after her, twirling his blades. "But we both know you don't care about any of this. The Guild, the Nightingales...pointless constructs that mean nothing to people like us."

"L'laarzen has already made it clear that we are nothing alike." He's getting his breath back, we don't want that... "Case in point; she is feeling wonderful after our last scuffle. But those blisters look angry."

Mercer scowled. The skin around his eyes and nose was red, blotchy and peeling. A souvenir from the burn she'd given him in Riften Jail.

"Oh, they are. But you've just proved my point." He brought up his right sword, and then dug it into the wooden boards at his feet. "You don't give a damn about the Key, do you? You're only here to prove to yourself that you can beat me!"

Roaring out the last word, he dragged his sword forwards and up, sending a hail of splinters at her.

She brought her arms in front of her face to block the worst of it, leaving her ears to tell her when he was-NOW!

She rolled right, coming up next to the helm as his swords smashed into the deck where she'd just been stood. He turned and thrust one of them at her, and she jumped upwards, balancing precariously on the spokes of the wheel as his blade came to bury itself into the centre of it.

She jumped off to one side, once again sending the wheel spinning and making the ship turn. But this time, Mercer was ready for it. He kept his footing, swinging at her with his other sword, and when she tucked up her legs to avoid it, he simply let go of the weapon and grabbed one of her feet with his outstretched hand.

L'laarzen winced, as all her momentum suddenly vanished. She twisted in midair, forcing Mercer to relinquish his grip before he could crush her ankle, but still crashed heavily onto the deck next to his fallen blade.

Mercer reached back to the wheel, grabbing the hilt of his buried sword with both hands and yanked-

And then screamed, fully screamed, in pain.

He stumbled away from the wheel as his sword dropped from nerveless fingers, one hand clutching the other even as L'laarzen grabbed his second sword, jumped to her feet, and ran at him.

Finally. The moment she had been waiting for.

Mercer's newfound abilities did have one critical weakness: There were some doors that should not be unlocked. In unlocking the full potential of his body, he was forced to bear the consequences of pushing that body past its limits. While L'laarzen had done her best to conserve her stamina throughout the fight, Mercer was exhausted. And now his muscles were starting to give out.

No matter how much it hurt him, Mercer was still able to bring his arms up in front of his face, assuming (sensibly) that she would be going for the exposed fleshy bits. So of course, she didn't.

Gripping his sword in both hands, she dragged it right up his chest with a hiss. His armour saved his life, but it was split in two like an unbuttoned shirt, revealing his chest and the thin line of red she'd just drawn into it.

Now, Mercer's arms may have been out of commission, but his legs worked just fine. Lacking any alternatives, he just threw himself into her, bearing her backwards with nothing but his body and slamming her back into the ship's wheel.

The sword went skittering away, and L'laarzen lit up a flame spell in her palms, but Mercer had learned from their last battle too. He kicked both of her arms sideways, damn near breaking them, and then stamped his foot right in the centre of her chest.

If she'd not had the Nightingale armour, her ribcage would have caved inwards like rotted wood. As it was, all the air was driven out of her lungs, and she gasped desperately as the pressure intensified. She wasn't sure what would happen first; her chest giving in, the wheel behind her breaking, or...

"Well well well. Here we are again." Mercer leered over her. "I suppose this is only fitting. I get to commemorate my last night in Skyrim by killing one last Nightingale."

"And-Ngh-Now L'laarzen sees...the real reason...the Thieves Guild floundered under you." L'laarzen grit out. "You...never see...the bigger picture."

Mercer looked confused for approximately half a second.

Then the ship hit the ice floe.

Forced off its course by two separate unplanned turns and completely out of control, the vessel ploughed through a field of thick ice and then beached itself on a small island in the mouth of the Karth River.

Mercer was thrown completely off-balance, releasing L'laarzen and crashing backwards, then downwards as the prow of the ship was forced upwards from the collision. L'laarzen didn't waste the chance, throwing herself after him, planting her feet on either side of him as he crashed into the barrier at the back of the ship. He tried to bring his arms up to defend himself, but the abused limbs simply couldn't move fast enough, as L'laarzen jabbed her claws right into the bottom of his exposed chest and dragged them up, then grabbed either side of the wound and tugged.

Blood splattered. The ship came to rest. It was over. And only then did L'laarzen realise she was smiling.

"Heh...heheheh...there she is." Mercer had been quite literally gutted, with a good deal of his insides fully exposed to the night air. But for now, he was still taking shallow, raspy breaths. "Took me too long...to figure you out. But your methods...your eyes...and now that armour. You're a killer, you animal. And you always will be."

L'laarzen's eyes narrowed. She smashed a fist into his guts, pulling another scream out of him.

"L'laarzen." She spat. "Is a hairdresser."

"...No." Mercer looked up at her with a blood-filled smile. "You're Morag Tong."

The cold northern wind whistled across the ice.

L'laarzen closed her eyes, and slowly breathed out. Then one hand snatched the Skeleton Key from Mercer's neck, the other slit his throat wide open, and then her foot booted him off the back of the ship.

Mercer hit the water with a splash, and quickly sank beneath the waves. Dull, cold eyes reopened, as L'laarzen mechanically drew a cloth from within her armour and wiped the worst of the blood off her paws. Then she went in search of her other prize.

...alright, hands up. Who guessed it?

More details to come on that revelation. I didn't make it too explicit last chapter to avoid giving it away, but L'laarzen's current dreads are basically the Morag Tong armour in Nightingale colours, dressed up a little and with a scarf on top. As for the fight itself, there's this technique in writing where you have a character succeed at the direct physical battle, but lose at a more metaphorical one. That's sorta what I was going for.

At the other end of the country, I just murdered Sindig. And I'm sorry about that. But hey, chin up. I could have done it to Margret. I don't know if it's a glitch or a feature that a non-werewolf can transform when they've got the cursed ring on, but I've used it before and I'll use it again. Something of an ignoble end for the DB in Falkreath, but at least they get a pretty kickass funeral pyre.

Next Time: Everyone goes to the same damn place.