Middas, 2nd of Sun's Dusk, 4E 202

As soon as Vilkas entered the Ratway, some puny idiot and his designated meat shield tried to mug him.

He sidestepped the meat shield's uncoordinated swing. A white-hot surge of impatience propelled his returning right hook. The meat shield staggered, toppling into the wall, slumping bonelessly to the ground.

Vilkas shifted attention to the bug-eyed idiot. When he grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him off his feet, the idiot started shaking.

Vilkas spat, "Did you see a blonde girl come through here?"

The idiot rapidly shook his head. "I h-haven't seen anyone b-but you!"

Vilkas drew him closer.

The idiot squeezed his eyes shut with a whimper. "I s-swear! I swear!"

Vilkas's lip curled. But the idiot was scared enough to be telling the truth, so there was no point intimidating him further. Tossing him into the stream running alongside the pathway, Vilkas hastened onward to the sound of his splashes and sputters.

He arrived in a room where a couple of prostitutes were loitering. One was a particularly pale woman slouched against the wall with a pipe to her lips, the other a leggy brunette working on braiding a ribbon into her hair. He barked the same question at them.

Their eyes ran up and down his body in perfect unison. Smirking, the pale one pushed off the wall and folded her free arm beneath her bust to emphasize her assets.

"That depends," she drawled. "How much you paying for information?"

Vilkas reached for the handle of the greatsword on his back.

"Not a damn thing."

The woman blanched. The brunette drew close to her and pointed toward the far exit.

"We saw a girl in a hood go that way, toward the Ragged Flagon."

Vilkas stalked on.

He ran into a handful of grimy men on their way to the entrance, of all different races, passing coins and a single large bottle between themselves as they laughed and roughhoused with each other. He took a stance to block their path and delivered his question.

"I ain't seen no girl, have you?"

"Not me."

"Yer girl up and leave ya, laddie? I been there."

"Maybe we'll find her first."

A couple of them cackled, while a man near the front took one look at Vilkas and gulped. He smacked the front of his friend's chest.

"He din' mean it," he said in a rush. "He's jus' jokin'. Aren't ya, lad? Aren't ya?"

He emphasized his insistence with a hard jab to his friend's ribs. The friend clutched at his side, about to retort, when he caught sight of Vilkas's face. He recoiled against the wall.

"Yeah, yeah. We won't touch your girl. It's a joke."

Vilkas, with a frustrated growl, shoved them out of his way and kept going. This place was like a damn maze; Deirdre could be anywhere. He was taking his chances that she'd followed the signs to the tavern, but at any point she could have diverted from the marked path. Encountered a pack of drunkards. Been dragged off to some dark corner where he'd never find her again, screaming and pleading to no avail.

His stomach clenched. His thoughts were racing with dark imagery, flooded with the picture of Deirdre's terrified face and the sound of Deirdre's frightened voice. He couldn't remember the last time something had made him sick with dread like this. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt such—

There was a body on the ground. He rushed to examine it, confirming that the skinny Nord woman was, indeed, dead, and lying in a small pool of her own blood. Half-trapped beneath the body was a familiar cloak.

Vilkas tugged the cloak free, and something in his chest constricted. It was definitely Deirdre's. The clasp was broken, and there was a good amount of blood on it. Hopefully just the dead woman's.

A sweeping glance told him there was more blood spatter in this part of the hall. His gaze ran along the floor, past the woman, and caught on something. He moved closer and bent to examine the mark: a partial footprint in a smear of blood. Small. Deirdre-sized.

So she'd been alive and moving after losing her cloak. He found tiny drops of blood every several feet as he continued down the hall, and prayed it wasn't because she was actively bleeding.

And if she is?

He didn't answer himself.

Soon enough he came upon a second body, in a big room with clay lanterns hanging from the ceiling, a few of them broken. He grimaced at the state of the male corpse—badly burned, with open, unseeing eyes. He wouldn't normally have thought much of it, except that Deirdre had apparently passed through here. Had she seen the corpse too? After some struggle where she'd lost her cloak and possibly been bleeding, had she been further shocked by such a gruesome sight? Was she crying?

The thought enraged him. At Deirdre or the Ratway, he wasn't sure.

Beyond the corpse, above a doorway, was the biggest sign he'd seen yet for the Ratway's one and only tavern. He threw open the door, Deirdre's cloak still in hand. The sounds of chatter and lapping water met his ears amidst a menagerie of other noises. The round area he entered was a dark reflection of the marketplace above; he noticed a clanking smithy, an alchemy shop spilling out of an alcove in the wall, a smelly leatherworker, and others.

Paying the vendors no mind, he stormed along the path until he found a signpost for the Ragged Flagon. He proceeded past the sign onto a wooden bridge that arched over a huge cistern of water, which he assumed had to be filled from the lake.

A big Nord with a droopy, sour face stood with his arms crossed in the middle of the bridge.

Vilkas stopped and they sized each other up. Vilkas had the advantage in both height and armor.

"You got business in the Flagon?" the man grumbled.

Vilkas's voice lashed like a whip. "I'm looking for a blonde girl. About this tall."

He held up a hand at the appropriate height.

The Nord, assessing him a second time, puffed out his chest. "The Guildmaster's got her," he said, jerking his chin toward the well-lit area behind him.

Shock hit Vilkas like ice water.

He barreled past the guard, crossed the bridge, and burst into the middle of an average-looking tavern, to the startlement of some of its patrons. He grabbed the handle of his greatsword, Deirdre's cloak tight in his other hand as his body thrummed with bloodlust and his eyes searched frantically for that blonde head—

There. Wearing a wine-colored cloak, sitting on a barstool next to a bearded, red-haired man. Intimately close to him. The man was pressing her much smaller hand to his cheek as he took hold of her chin, intention clear as day. Deirdre was tilting her face up in invitation.

Every gear in Vilkas's brain ground to a halt.

He watched Deirdre's eyes slide shut, as if unable to resist the heaviness of her lashes. The red-haired man began to close the gap.

Vilkas screamed, "DEIRDRE!"

She jumped. Her eyes flew open and her head swiveled toward him. Her face lit up.

"Vilkas!"

She—sounded so happy. Not frightened. Not distressed. She was smiling.

She may as well have ripped the floor out from under him.

Deirdre freed her hand from the red-haired man's grasp. The man let her, but a flicker of displeasure bent his brow. His eyes met Vilkas's with unmistakable annoyance.

Vilkas saw red.

He charged across the tavern, seized the man by his leather coat, and slammed him into the bar counter.

"The hell do you think you're doing?" he snarled. He slammed the man into the counter again, blood pounding hot in his temples.

"Vilkas, stop!" Deirdre cried, in the frightened tone he'd been expecting. She leapt off her stool and tried to push him back. "What are you doing?!"

Vilkas released the man to seize her by the wrist. He yanked her away, swinging her around a table to put a safe distance between her and the red-haired man. He rounded on her.

"What are you doing kissing some piece of shit in the godsdamned Ratway!"

She quailed for all of a second. Then she drew herself up ramrod straight, and her expressive face transformed into something hard and flinty. She attempted to tug her wrist from him. Vilkas held fast.

"First of all, you need to calm down!" she snapped.

Vilkas couldn't believe his ears.

"Calm down?" he bellowed, looming over her. "Did you just tell me to calm down?"

She did not so much as flinch. "Yes! Calm down! What are you even doing here?"

Vilkas's jaw dropped. His grip slackened, and she wrenched free. She glared daggers at him, waiting for an answer.

Did she honestly not know why he was there? She had expected him to read her note and—what? Just go to bed? Shrug and hope she made it past the rapists and drug addicts and thieves? Had it not occurred to her that her note would scare the living shit out of him?

"Are you actually insane?" he yelled. "I came to save your ass! You could have died just coming here! What in Oblivion were you thinking?"

"I had to get Gerdur and Hod's rings back!" she yelled just as loudly, unrepentant.

Vilkas held up her abandoned cloak and brandished it violently, practically quaking with rage. "I ran all the way down here, out of my damn mind, thinking something had happened to you! Look at this! What was I supposed to think when I found this?"

He threw the cloak to the ground. Deirdre didn't even look at it.

"You weren't supposed to find it, because you weren't supposed to follow me!"

He could have shaken her. Grabbed her by her little shoulders and rattled her until her head fell off.

"Did you seriously expect me not to?"

"I left you a note so you wouldn't wonder where I was! Not so you could come and scream at me!"

"I thought you were in trouble!" he roared. "I thought you'd been attacked or something!"

"I was attacked!"

Vilkas stopped short. Deirdre, too, paused, as if realizing what she'd said.

He examined her. There was blood on the neckline of her dress where the red cloak didn't cover. And there had been the bodies, the bloody cloak, the partial footprint, the tiny red drops marking her trail.

Vilkas snatched both her wrists, lifting them to either side to part her cloak and get a better look at her. There was a big bloodstain on her skirt. He turned her hands over, but found no scuffs or scrapes.

She ripped her hands away. "Someone's already healed me."

The full meaning of the words struck him. She'd needed healing. She had been attacked. And hurt badly enough to warrant treatment, even in this Aedra-forsaken place.

He took her face between his hands, not really gentle, forcing her to look at him, trying to process several things. Among them, a slowly emerging guilt.

"How bad was it?" he demanded.

She couldn't turn her head, but her eyes avoided him.

"How bad was it?" he pressed.

She pursed her lips.

"It was bad," said a new voice.

The red-haired man had left his stool and approached them. Wisely, he kept a few feet away. Unwisely, his words were laced with vitriol, and there was a subtle, threatening authority in his body language. He was not only unafraid of Vilkas, but silently daring him to try something.

Vilkas glanced at their surroundings. The tavern was unusually quiet, and several faces were directing open hostility toward him. There was a shaved-bald Breton with a prominent square jaw standing behind the red-haired man, with a deadly glint in his eyes. Vilkas immediately recognized the gaze of a killer.

Vilkas shifted his hands to Deirdre's shoulders and drew her closer.

The red-haired man nodded toward her. "Her face was scratched bloody, she was strangled to bruising, and burned to the point of blistering. Blood all over her face and hands, and in a lot of pain. You should've seen it."

Vilkas's stomach bottomed out. He stared at Deirdre, all too easily imagining the injuries, gruesome and painful on her delicate skin, and waited for her to correct the other man's assessment. She didn't. She crossed her arms and looked off to the side, curling in on herself. As if in embarrassment.

It made no sense.

She was embarrassed? Why? Because she'd been hurt? Because she hadn't been prepared to face the vilest scum Skyrim had to offer? By herself? Who did she think she was?

"How are you still alive?" he blurted.

She scowled with her face still turned away. To Vilkas's irritation, the red-haired man spoke for her again.

"She took out three skooma addicts, single-handedly. Shivved one, set another on fire. Apparently she blinded an orc. With more fire."

Vilkas drew back. The way Deirdre winced, and her jaw clenched, was all he needed to see the red-haired man was telling the truth. But that meant … Deirdre had been the one to stab the woman. She'd been the one to set that corpse on fire. She'd been mangled, but she'd beaten them.

Her. Tiny, sensitive, helpless Deirdre.

Or—not so helpless Deirdre?

Vilkas's head spun. She must have used some of the fire magic Athis had been teaching her; and she'd stabbed someone—with her dagger? He couldn't even picture it.

But, helpless or not, Deirdre was still—small. And going into the Ratway was still monumentally stupid. She could have died so easily. This was just like what had happened with the frostbite spiders; she ran heedlessly into the open arms of death, and miraculously survived anyway. Against all logic and common sense. Mindless of the panic—the fear—she caused the people looking out for her.

All Vilkas's anxiety imploded in a burst of furious disbelief.

"What is wrong with you?" he thundered, grip tightening. Her shoulders were so frail. "Are you suicidal? Do you have a quota?"

Confused, finally turning her head toward him, she asked, "A what?"

"A quota! Do you get off on danger? Is that it? You have to put yourself in mortal peril at least once a month, or you get bored?"

Her mouth popped open. She batted his hands off her shoulders, backing out of reach.

"No, I do not have a quota, Vilkas! But what else was I supposed to do? You know how important those rings are!"

"You were supposed to wait for me!" he cried, throwing his hands into the air. "Not traipse down here like an idiot with no sense of self-preservation!"

Deirdre blinked. She stood taller and pointed a finger straight into his face.

"Wait for you?" she shrieked. "What do you mean, 'wait for you?' You said you wouldn't help me if someone picked my pocket! You said that!"

Vilkas stilled. His thoughts raced backward, trying to remember what she was talking about. And it came to him. That first day in the carriage, when he'd been making up ground rules so she wouldn't get eaten alive in Riften. He'd added something snarky at the end, because she hadn't appeared to be taking him seriously. Something about her having to hire him if she got her pocket picked and wanted his help.

Vilkas ran a hand down his face and held it over his mouth. She wasn't supposed to have actually believed him. She was supposed to feel entitled to his help, despite his blustering to the contrary.

But there she stood. Glaring at him. She hadn't even considered calling his bluff, because she hadn't thought him capable of bluffing. She'd almost died because she'd taken him at his word.

"Did you forget you said that?" Deirdre asked, incredulous. She gave him a moment to speak, and when he didn't, she let her accusing finger fall to her side. "You did. I … can't believe you."

The mounting guilt he'd felt just moments ago grew suddenly crushing—an anchor tied around his neck. Deirdre looked up at him with such profound disappointment, such resentment, she may as well have been looking down at him.

"I never said you should go chasing a thief," Vilkas defended. "I never expected you to put yourself in danger."

Deirdre sucked in a breath and released it sharply. "You said you wouldn't help me. So I went after the rings myself. And I did it without your help. So—So you don't get to come down here, and yell at me."

And oh, shit. There it was. Her voice cracked. The stone and fire in her face began to waver.

Before he could do or say anything, the red-haired man had materialized beside Deirdre and run the back of his forefinger down her cheek.

"I have to agree with the lass. She certainly exceeded my expectations. You should be commending her."

Vilkas focused on the man's hand. His ire flared, then flared hotter as he realized Deirdre's impending breakdown had been completely diverted. She glanced up at her new friend as if in gratitude, with an unmistakable pink tinge to her cheeks. The man returned the look with something decidedly not innocent in his eyes, and a proud smirk.

The hell?

"Who in the bloody Oblivion is this asshole?"

Immediately upon asking, Vilkas remembered what the Nord on the bridge had said. "The Guildmaster's got her."

Deirdre startled back to attention. "Oh. This is Brynjolf. He, um …"

"He's Thieves Guild," Vilkas bit out, leveling an icy glower at the man.

Brynjolf smiled derisively. "Ladies and gentleman, he's not as stupid as he looks."

Vilkas's hackles rose. He took a step as Deirdre leapt forward to stand between them, hands braced against his breastplate.

"Stop it. He's been nice to me since I got here."

"I can see that," Vilkas spat. "And you're letting him put his hands all over you."

She tried to shove him back as her face went completely red. "I am not letting him put his hands all over me!"

Vilkas jabbed a finger toward Brynjolf. "I'm not blind! What were you about to do when I came in here?"

Speechless, either from anger or chagrin, Deirdre made an aggravated little noise and futilely tried to shove him again. She gave up and stumbled back, closer to Brynjolf, crossing her arms beneath her red cloak. Where had she gotten that, by the way? From the "Guildmaster?"

Brynjolf leaned down to speak into Deirdre's ear, eyes on Vilkas.

"You forgot to mention your 'friend' was the jealous type," he said in a low voice, but loudly enough for Vilkas to hear.

Deirdre's eyes lost focus. Again. Just a few words from this scumbag, and she faltered completely. What the shit.

An unbidden growl rumbled in Vilkas's throat. This was unacceptable. She was confused. She was in a vulnerable state, and this womanizer was manipulating her. Why he wanted Deirdre, Vilkas wasn't sure—it was one thing for a kid like Leif to chase after her, but it was quite another for someone older to show interest—but it was clear she was falling for his tricks, hook, line and sinker.

This, at least, he had arrived in time to protect her from. He held out a hand.

"This is bullshit. Let's just get out of here."

To his intense consternation, Deirdre turned to Brynjolf. Without missing a beat, Brynjolf slid his hand under hers and lifted it, cheekily kissing her fingers.

"You'd be better off letting me lead you out of here, sweetheart. I know a safe shortcut up to the surface."

Vilkas stood there, dumbfounded. Deirdre's eyes darted between his proffered hand and the one Brynjolf held aloft, with her hand already in its possession.

Sweetheart?

The audacity of this lowlife. The sheer, ballsy, ass-headed, insolent—

Deirdre's fingers clasped Brynjolf's, lowering their hands to their sides.

"Let's follow Brynjolf to the shortcut," she said, not looking at Vilkas.

Brynjolf smirked again, directing it at Vilkas. Keeping hold of Deirdre's hand, he led her around a table and promptly started away with her.

A vein near Vilkas's eye twitched. He ground his teeth, curling his outstretched hand into a fist. He became aware, again, of the rest of the people in the bar. Watching him. The bald Breton's stare had turned mocking. The bartender was slowly polishing an already sparkling shot glass, staring brazenly.

Vilkas trudged after Deirdre and her thief, to where they'd just opened a door behind the bar. He followed them, catching the door as it attempted to swing shut, and slammed it closed behind himself.

It took considerable self-control, as they walked, for Vilkas not to yank the smarmy bastard around and break his nose. He stared at the back of his red head and imagined punching the smirk off his face. He would relish the crunch of his nose, the gush of blood. The way he would fall on his ass.

"You shouldn't antagonize him," Deirdre was saying, with a poor attempt at a frown for Brynjolf.

"Antagonize? Me?"

"You know you are. Don't push him."

"I'm right here," Vilkas barked. "How do we know you're not leading us into some sort of ambush, Thieves Guild?"

"Because I've taken a liking to her," Brynjolf said breezily. "And I suspect it would upset her if I let anything happen to you, Dog of Whiterun."

Vilkas's hands tingled with the desire to maim him. Apparently, Brynjolf knew he was a Companion. How long had Deirdre been sitting with him at the bar, chatting carelessly away? While Vilkas had been sick from thinking about what could have happened to her?

But something did happen to her, he thought. Because she thought I was such an asshole I wouldn't help.

He vacillated between guilt and rage. Every glance at Deirdre's petite frame drew him toward guilt, and every flirtatious smile Brynjolf flashed at her brought him back toward rage.

They came to a ladder that stretched up to a manhole cover high in the ceiling. Brynjolf, still holding Deirdre's hand, guided her to the foot of the ladder.

"Ladies first?"

She observed the whole height of the ladder and drew her hand from Brynjolf's. "Can I even lift that, up there? And …" She cleared her throat. "I mean, I'm wearing a skirt. I don't want you standing below me."

Brynjolf rubbed his chin. "You've got a point, there. Is your dog not gentleman enough to stand back while you climb?"

Vilkas's blood leapt to a boil.

"Do you want me to break your—"

"Vilkas is a perfect gentleman," Deirdre interrupted, holding a warning finger up toward Vilkas. "It's you I don't trust."

Vilkas bit his tongue as Brynjolf laid a hand on his heart, adopting a wounded expression.

"After all my hospitality, you would suspect me of such licentiousness? I'm hurt."

He leaned in close to her ear and dropped his voice to a whisper, this time obviously not intending for Vilkas to hear. Unfortunately for both of them, Vilkas's hearing was better than a human's.

"I wouldn't do anything so forward until I had your permission."

Vilkas went rigid. Deirdre went crimson. She jerked back from Brynjolf with a pointed glare. He had the gall to smile as he turned toward the ladder and put his foot on the first rung.

"I'll head up first then. Just to put you at ease."

And the piece of shit actually winked.

Vilkas's pulse was ringing in his ears. He was consumed by the thought of bashing Brynjolf's teeth into one of the ladder rungs.

After Brynjolf had pushed open the manhole cover and disappeared into the world above, Vilkas put a hand on Deirdre's shoulder. He didn't like the thought of her being alone with Brynjolf for even the few seconds it would take him to climb up after them. And for all he knew, the bastard would drop the cover on him.

"You go last. I will help you up once you get to the top."

She nodded. Vilkas climbed the ladder and emerged into a quiet, dark alleyway, facing a metal fence across the street. Behind the fence was a grassy yard filled with barren fruit trees, and a large building on the other side. A second survey told him the building was the back of the Temple of Mara.

He turned to call down to Deirdre, and offered her a hand once her head popped up out of the ground. She took the hand and let him hoist her into the alleyway. She squinted in the dark, probably not able to make out much.

"We're near the Temple of Mara," Brynjolf said. "I take it you're staying at the Bee and Barb? It's not too bad a walk from here."

"We are," Deirdre confirmed.

Vilkas wished she hadn't. He would have preferred Brynjolf didn't know where to find them.

He kept hold of Deirdre's hand as they followed Brynjolf to the end of the alley, where a sheet of moonlight had slanted into the narrow space at an angle, painting a bright triangle onto the ground. He exited the alley and tried to keep going. Deirdre tugged at him to stop.

"Just a minute."

She wriggled free and turned back. Her thief leaned back against the shadowed wall of the alley, while Deirdre stepped into the moonlit side opposite him. Itching with impatience, Vilkas swallowed a protest.

"I'm not going to thank you for giving me my things back," Deirdre said to Brynjolf. "It was only what you owed me."

Brynjolf shrugged. "Fair, I suppose. Though, that's not how I normally do business."

"I will thank you for healing me, since I didn't expect that. I wouldn't have been able to afford a healing potion."

Vilkas scowled. Deirdre shouldn't have thanked him for anything. It was a Guild thief who'd stolen her rings and her money, therefore, it was the Guild, and this clown by extension, who'd gotten her hurt.

And me.

"To be honest," Brynjolf said, voice quiet, "I never imagined you'd come into the Ratway either."

His shadowed gaze flicked to and away from Vilkas.

Deirdre raised her chin. "You both underestimated me, then. Anyway, this is yours."

She opened her red cloak, throwing it back off her shoulders, and started to undo the clasp. Brynjolf stopped her, taking her hands.

"Keep it. Your reward."

Deirdre cocked her head. "I thought that's what the healing and the drinks were for? This cloak is too fine for me."

Vilkas stiffened. Drinks? Had he been trying to get her drunk, on top of everything else?

"I did say that, didn't I?" Brynjolf mused, twining their fingers, holding their hands between their bodies. "But I don't think it's too fine for you. How about you just owe me for it?"

Deirdre scoffed. "I don't want to owe you."

Good, Vilkas thought firmly. Take the cloak and let's go.

Brynjolf considered her. He drew Deirdre's hands to his heart.

"We could discharge the debt right now if you'd prefer."

She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "Meaning?"

Brynjolf released her hands. He took her face between his palms, simultaneously tilting her face up, as he bent down and kissed her.

Vilkas watched in horror.

For a second, Deirdre's eyes were wide. All too readily, they drifted shut. She rose up onto her tiptoes and grasped the front of Brynjolf's coat to better reach him. Brynjolf's hand circled around the back of her head to curl his fingers in her hair, holding her in place.

Vilkas, struck dumb, could only gawk. In the moonlit side of the alley, in his enhanced night vision, Deirdre's hair gleamed against the smooth expanse of her face and neck, against the inky darkness of the red cloak that made her skin glow by comparison. And the shape of her—curving up toward Brynjolf while poised on the tips of her toes—was strikingly feminine.

It was—jarring. Worse than jarring. Unsettling. This was Deirdre, for Shor's sake.

An unwanted sensation squirmed in Vilkas's chest. But he just stood there. Mutely. Like a slack-jawed moron.

After a small eternity (a few seconds), Brynjolf pulled back. He slid the hand at the back of Deirdre's head to the side of her neck, stroking a thumb along the soft underside of her chin, down her throat.

Deirdre opened her eyes as if waking from a trance. She lowered herself onto flat feet as a flush of color worked its way up her neck to her cheeks. Her eyes were dreamy and dark with ardor.

"There then," Brynjolf said. "I was denied that, earlier."

"Oh," Deirdre said dazedly.

Vilkas needed to leave. Immediately. Everything about this was wrong. He needed to leave, with Deirdre, and probably not look at her for a while. But she was still framed by the slanted moonlight falling into the alley. Nature was against him.

Brynjolf pulled the cloak back over Deirdre's shoulders, smoothing the fabric more than was necessary. He grinned, a stupid, crooked grin that he probably thought was the epitome of charm.

"Red suits you, lass."

"It's Deirdre," she breathed.

Brynjolf made a noise of amusement. "Right. Deirdre."

And he leaned down, and pecked her on the cheek, and turned and strode back into the dark alley from whence he'd come.

Deirdre and Vilkas stood without moving, listening to the sound of the manhole clanking shut.

Deirdre lifted her hands to her rosy cheeks. She turned toward Vilkas, though her head was bent toward the ground.

"Um. Let's go."

She walked past him. Vilkas remained rooted to the spot until he shook himself and caught up.

They both kept their eyes on the street. He could just see the bottom of that red cloak, and her little feet intermittently peeking out from under her hems, in his peripheral vision. Of course she had to tiptoe just to kiss someone. She was short. Puny. Immature. What was she doing kissing someone like Brynjolf? Some scummy reprobate from the literal sewer? Leif was her type. Young and stupid like a kid.

He forced himself to glance at her. Her fair profile still shone in the moonlight, and was, he begrudgingly acknowledged, objectively pretty. Pretty and not like a kid's. Pretty and womanly and unsettling.

"Aedroth's anus," he swore under his breath.

"What?" Deirdre asked, not hearing him.

"Nothing."

His head filled with questions. What was that? Why did you let him do it? Why did it look like you enjoyed it? What is wrong with you? Since when were you capable of an expression like that? Since when …?

But he kept his mouth shut. He did not want the answers.

END OF PART TWO

Author's Note:

We've come to the end of Part Two!

One of the fun things about writing Improbable Stars is that while there is the "true" version of the story that I am currently posting, there are several places where my brain wants to break the story off, and write extra-self-indulgent fanfiction of my own self-indulgent fanfiction. For example, my brain asked, "What would have happened if Vilkas hadn't come down to the Ratway that night?"

I've actually written part of a oneshot answering that very question. If that's something anyone would be interested in reading, let me know. I might polish it up and post it? Though it's got a slightly different vibe from the "true" story here, or at least that's how it feels to me.

Speaking of posting, I'm afraid we have reached the point of me needing to go on hiatus. This is of course temporary; this story is completely planned out and I will eventually finish it. But we may go on hiatus more than once before we reach that ultimate finish line.

Thank you again to everyone who's joined me for this adventure thus far, and especially those leaving their thoughts in reviews. I can promise you I reread them often and smile every time!