Poison

The poison made its way out of my system completely in the next two hours. It had caused a fever, and nausea, so the first thing I did was slip from my room and go to make myself a bath. I burned the Dark Brotherhood note in the fire, staying long enough to watch it crumble to ash.

After I washed I found myself standing outside of Vilkas's room. I hadn't spoken to Farkas again so I didn't know what his brother's condition was or what he remembered from the night before. I wondered if he'd listened to my warning after the dart hit me and how far he got if he did.

Finally I worked up the courage to knock on his door. I heard some deep rumbling response I couldn't make out and then silence. I was still deciding whether I should knock again or turn away to leave when the door opened.

He looked awful. He was wearing loose black trousers and no shirt which allowed me to see all the impressions the silver chains had made along his arms and chest. His shoulders were hunched and he leaned against the door-frame heavily, seeming to need one hand to support himself. He was covered in sweat, the black hair falling around his face damp with it.

"Vilkas," I breathed in. I grabbed his arm, putting it around my shoulder before leading him back to his bed. He didn't even fight the gesture as he sat back down. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -"

"It's fine," he said. "What did you want?"

I sat down on the bench near his bed, my hands folded in my lap as I stared at them a moment before returning my gaze to him. The silver had left deep red impressions on his skin, burns that looked painful to the touch, which I assumed was why he wore no shirt. I felt my heart sink looking at him, those marks were my fault, I may as well have branded him myself.

Suddenly I wanted to confess everything. I wanted to tell him how my reason for coming to Skyrim to find out more about my father had twisted into the nightmare journey to discovering my birth mother was a guilded murderer. I wanted to tell him I had joined the Thieves Guild, that I had an aptitude for being sneaky that I didn't want. That sometimes my heart quickened the moment before I took a life, the seconds it took to swipe a blade over a neck or into a heart, that it made me feel alive in an exhilarating and horrifying way. I wanted to tell him that though it was his skin that burned when silver touched it, that I was the true monster.

But instead I said, "I'm sorry."

He watched me steadily, his sharp eyes looking over me. I thought he would ask me what I was sorry about, and I felt that if he did I truly wouldn't be able to stop myself from spilling all my secrets. Maybe there would be some way to stop the Dark Brotherhood and the Silver Hand before anything could happen.

He didn't ask why though.

"I couldn't leave you there," he said.

"How far did you get -"

"Not as far as I would like to have," he said. He looked away from me, staring at a tapestry on the wall for a moment before looking back to me. "I have no memory from the time I was carrying you away from them to waking up in this bed. Do you know what happened?"

I pursed my lips, shaking my head.

"That is strange," he said. "Why would someone would capture us and release us in the same night? Or perhaps it was another party that intervened. But that seems unlikely given that they left us announced outside the city without alerting anyone or calling for aid. Whoever left us here had something to hide."

I still said nothing.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice uncommonly gentle.

I looked up at him, realizing I had been looking at my hands again. I laughed hollowly. I took a deep breath, an old habit to deal with stressful situations. "Vilkas," and I almost told him everything again. "I'm just...I'm just scared." I breathed another shallow laugh. "I guess that makes me a milk drinker."

He didn't say anything and I smiled and stood up to leave saying, "I'm glad you're ok. Relatively speaking."

"Wait," he said. I turned back to him and he nodded to the bench and I sat. As though struggling with the words he said, "Why are you scared?"

"Well, some of us have this thing called fear and -" I began, trying to joke.

"I know what fear is," Vilkas said. "I am asking what is causing yours."

I shook my head. I hated lying and there were times I knew that Vilkas could see right through me.

"You could have died," I said. "And I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. Whoever took us out did so easily. And they must have had a reason and I fear what that reason is, of not knowing what it means."

It was true enough. Vilkas could have died and if I hadn't agreed to their offer I would have been forced to watch. While my – while Nadine – had given me her reason for wanting me to join the Dark Brotherhood, I had a feeling that there was more to it than some sort of bloodline calling. And I still had no idea what my joining would entail for me, what misery my future might hold. I was scared of my choice, of how easy it had been for them to manipulate me into making it. I was afraid of what else I might do.

"You are no more responsible for what happened than I am," he said. "The Circle is investigating what happened as we speak."

I wanted to argue with him, to tell him that it was my fault. The Dark Brotherhood claimed the Silver Hand had put out a contract on his life, on the Companion's lives, but I couldn't trust the truth of that. They could easily have lied to me and everything that had happened would be on my head alone.

Then I remembered that she had told me that Vilkas had been taking out Silver Hand bases when he'd been away. The truth of that would give Nadine's story weight.

"Where were you when you were gone? What is that you and Aela and Skjor were doing?" I asked.

Vilkas's face hardened. "That's Circle business, not yours."

"Is it? It didn't seem like you discussed it with your brother or Kodlak before leaving," I said.

"What we discuss is not always privy to you newcomer. It isn't your business."

"I think it is my business. I don't think it's a coincidence that whatever secret adventure you were on caused a several-hour meeting the night you came back and that we were kidnapped the day after on a quest over a chicken. I think the three of you are putting us in danger, and I think you in particular risked my life by gambling that whatever you did and whatever choices you made would have no consequences."

I knew it was wrong, to push him so hard. The anger in my voice was real, though I knew I wasn't really angry with him. That even if he had killed the Silver Hand, they were no better than bandits, that he could not have predicted that ridding the world of them would mean forcing me to join the Dark Brotherhood. But that's what it meant, and I was angry that I had been forced to do that. And I knew that, like me, guilt was an easy thing to trigger in him and that it might get me answers so that I wasn't going into the situation blind.

"That is a lot of assumptions for claiming to know nothing of what happened," Vilkas said.

"I have nothing to do but assume since you're choosing to keep your secrets despite the fact that we both know how doing that can get someone killed," I said.

I pressed the guilt down that welled up within me at those words. Vilkas had his secrets, but I had at least as many, and I didn't like the truth in what I had said, how saying it had made me a hypocrite.

Vilkas, however, didn't seem ready to divulge any information, just continued to glare at me.

"Whoever captured us used silver chains on you. Do you think that was a coincidence? How many people know about the nature of the Circle?" I asked.

Still he said nothing.

"Was it the Silver Hand again? Is that what you were doing when you went away?"

He said nothing, his face giving nothing away. But I saw the way his arm muscles tensed slightly.

"It is them. You're hunting the group whose one member had ties so powerful that he sent a small army to kill us, to kill me. And instead of being honest about it, you're risking all of us for some vendetta," I said.

"What we are doing is no concern of yours," he repeated.

"Right," I said, standing to leave.

With my back turned on him, standing at the door, he said, "Our fight against the Silver Hand is not some personal vendetta. Regardless of our history, they are thieves and murderers and we rid the world of them. That's what Companions do."

My hand rested on the door handle. For the first time since joining the Companions I felt as if I were not one of them. I had struggled with my abilities, my entrance into the Thieves Guild. But I had always felt like I was, at my core, a Companion. I had chosen them on my own, joined them first. Even now, having been forced to join the Dark Brotherhood, I wanted to be one of them.

But I was a thief. I was a murderer. I was what the Companions fought against, how could I be one of them and be those things?

We rid the world of them.

Did that include me?

I said nothing as I opened the door and left.