Disclaimer: I don't own Morrowind. No harm intended.
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Dak's eyes were open and followed him as he stepped back into the chapel. Jiub crouched down beside her where she lay still stretched out on the floor. The bruises on her face were rapidly fading to a sickly yellow. By morning tomorrow, they would be gone except for the ones that blossomed over her cheekbone. It must have been broken, but the healer had restored it to its proper place around the eye socket. The Nord woman was lucky she hadn't gone blind.
"Why're you here?" Dak asked, her voice raspy and weak. She tried to sit up, but he shoved her back down. Ygfa hadn't said anything about her staying still, but it didn't take a genius to realize that the last thing Dak needed right now was to strain herself. "I thought you'd be to Balmora right now."
"What? You thought I was going to leave you to die?" he asked, smiling. "I couldn't do that. Besides, you would have done the same for me."
But she wouldn't have—they both knew that. And a week ago, he wouldn't have either. She was surly, violent drunk, and the Three knew he wasn't much better. Maybe that's why the guards had thrown them together on the prison ship. Maybe that's why he couldn't walk away when she lay on the cusp of life and death.
"Yeah…sure," she murmured, her pale eyes turning away from his face so he wouldn't see the lie in them.
"Listen, I found a bowl in that cave we were in. I was planning on returning it to its owner. You want to come with?"
Dak rolled her head back in his direction. "What kind of thief are you?"
His smile widened. "Not a very good one. What kind of murderer are you?"
"A very good one."
"Well, then, I'm sure we'll find someway to work this arrangement out. Partners?" He held his hand out to her.
She clasped it with a strength he didn't know she had at the moment. "Partners, then, until something better comes along."
He really couldn't ask for more.
finis