A/N: I'm Aliiiiive! I'm so sorry I haven't posted anything in over a year. Life got the better of me and I haven't had the motivation to write anything. For all you readers still out there I hope this sates your appetite and please review. Alright, cheers all and I hope there are still some that want me to continue this piece of fickle form we all call art.

Chapter 6 - Drunkards, Tramps and Thieves

I shivered as another gust blew through the cave mouth, my small fire quivering as if it sympathised with my predicament. I had barely left Helgen before the winds strengthened and as night fell, so did the snow.

Water began to steam in the bowl over the fire. I took a swig of wine and breathed out harshly, the burn from the liquid quickly warming my insides. I was not looking forward to this next part and downed another few gulps to still my nerves.

The arrow was still in my shoulder, I had distracted myself from the pain by continuing my trek until the blizzard had truly set in, forcing me to shelter. Now, I sat by a dwindling fire, my tunic ripped on the left sleave and the sodden leathers draped across the stones. I placed a cloth in the bowl and took the dagger that balanced upon my knee. Biting down on the hilt, I grasped the end of the shaft that stuck out from my back. Feathers tickled my fingers and the tingle of pain trembled through my shoulder, break it or keep it Jimmy, my thoughts provoking me as I began to bend the tail.

The agony doubled and I bit down harder until finally, the arrow had snapped. I gazed at the feathers intricately spliced for mere seconds, tossing it away in contempt as I remembered the rest was still jutting out the front of my shoulder. I held the now steaming and drenched cloth in my left and clasped the arrowhead. Taking deep and slow breaths, I readied myself for the onslaught. I motioned my body, rocking back and forth for the momentum of what I was about to do. Three! The arrow jerked at first causing the knife to drop from my mouth as the wave of hurt flared with unbelievable force. As it began to slide, I cried out all the anguish I had been holding. Gritting my teeth, I continued pulling. Blood ran fresh from the wound and stained the wood as I saw more of it removed.

With another grunt, the arrow was ultimately free from my shoulder. I gasped and moaned as my hand shook violently with the broken projectile. My anger took over from seeing it and I threw it into the burning embers, sparks flickering outwards of the cave. Eyeing the blood dripping onto the stones, I quickly covered the wound with the cloth I still held, hissing as the pressure caused me more discomfort.

I sat there gazing at the fire. All my energy had been drained more from pulling the arrow than the fight I had had only hours earlier. Where's the magic now when I'm awake? I glowered and pressed further onto the wound, memories resurfacing of being struck by lightning and then waking to find 'her' gone and my arm miraculously healed. "I'm not leaving you behind." Léna's words almost sang back to me and those clear, blue eyes burning into mine.

"Then where are you now?" I yelled, kicking another log to the fire in frustration. I keeled over as another surge from the wound emerged from my outburst. "Suppose I deserve that," I groaned and leant up against the cave wall. Looking out to the raging blizzard, I sighed knowing I'd be here for at least the rest of the night. I would not sleep this time, the dreams scared me of what I might see and the pain made it hard to get comfortable.

The embers of my fire began to die. I peered out of the cave mouth, white, I thought. The storm had died in the early hours before dawn, leaving everything a glistening and brilliant white. Strapping on the leathers, I made ready to leave. My right shoulder hung low with the weight, the other still injured, not even capable of holding my axe. The cloth now soiled a deep burgundy was encrusted to my shoulder, the cuirass pinning it in position. Crude and uncomfortable, but effective I had thought.

I trudged downwards through the steep valley, jagged cliffs pressing on both sides and the sun glaringly bright as it rose in front of me. Shielding my eyes, I saw the land before me. Trees began to scatter on both sides of the path and grass came in clumps as it levelled out. I was nearing the end of the snowy paths. Ivarstead would be north of me if I recalled the map correctly, but I had already lost too much time with the blizzard. My destination was east.

I followed the road, not daring to venture off the well-worn track in case the inhabitants of this region gave interest to me as a meal. At the thought of food, my stomach ached but I continued to press on, nothing else mattered besides getting to Riften and finding the thief. My hand clenched tighter on the straps of my pack as I remembered that night in the tavern. I had seen him enter, heard him speak, seen him observing and watching me leave. "Not my problem," I had told myself and now I was chasing him half way across the countryside, hunting him. I had my chance that night and I let it slip. I would not hesitate again, this time I would make sure when I found this thief, my hand would crush his throat.

The road twisted towards a running river and carried on along its bank. The wine now finished, I filled the skin with ice cool water, revelling as I drank from my hands and it dribbled down my chin. I knew I was close now. I could see the river widening towards a lake and on the other side would be Riften, the home of thieves. The sun dipped low behind me, its warmth ebbing away with the light. As night grew, I dragged my feet up to the main gate of the city. Guards posted on either side watched my approach as cumbersome and slow as I was.

"Halt," one of the guards loomed over me. "To enter the city, you must pay the toll," his hand held out expectantly.

My pack slumped to the ground and I inched my axe slightly from my belt. "I'll pay in blood," I growled, my annoyance seething from the greed of this city.

The guards turned to look at each other, their helmets taking all personification away. I could kill them, I thought. The eye slits were small, obscuring all peripheral vision making it easy to attack them now without noticing until too late. I stayed my hand and waited as the other shrugged and they turned to face me once more. "Alright, we'll let you in," the guard groused, "but you stay out of trouble while you're here or you'll pay more than just blood."

I grinned and released my axe. Slouching my pack back over my shoulder, I brushed past them both and shoved my elbow against the nearest of the two guards. Turning as I pushed open the gate, I glared at them one last time and whispered vehemently, "No promises."

I made my way quickly to the inn. The stench of the canals overpowering my nostrils and making me dry reach with every breath. As I entered into the warmth, I was bombarded by boisterous laughter coming from the bar. A burly man sat on a stool holding his stomach as his chortling subsided. Black plates of steel covered his arms and legs and atop his head, an open-faced helm with horns protruding from the sides curving down and towards the man's shaved chin.

I took a seat by the fire, resting my belongings beside me and began massaging my shoulder. As I looked up an Argonian approached me, my hand instinctively going to my belt. "How may I help you landstrider?" He hissed, the sound putting me even more on edge as I looked for signs of hostility.

I do not know how long I stared at the reptilian, all my focus trained on him. Green scales glistening from the fire and those yellow, slitted eyes looking back at me and then down to my hand still holding the blade. He stepped back a few paces, just far enough so he was out of my reach. Raising his hands, I saw the look of fear and the small discreet glance he made to the other of his kind behind the bar. I steadily released my fingers from the hilt and splayed them on my knees. "Sorry," I said giving a half smile, "thought you were somebody else."

I watched as a flicker of anger washed over the bartender's features. The slight contraction of the pupils, neck muscles tensing under the ripple of bony plates and the clenching of his fists. "You Nords are all the same," he hissed, the hint of vehemence in his tone. "We came here to be rid of the shunning of our kind."

My hands instinctively went above my head as I realised what I had done. "My apologies barkeeper, I've never met any of your kind before." I tried to placate him, "I only know of a thief that I'm here to hunt for." I pulled forth my pouch of gold and offered a few drakes on to the table. "I hope I can at the least get a drink and maybe a meal, I've been on the road for most of the day." Tipping more coins onto the table and pushing them towards him.

"Argh, be off with ya scalehide," The Nord I had seen on entering slapped the Argonian across the shoulders, taking the seat opposite me. "And bring back a barrel o' mead and some o' that smoked veal." He waved him off and I watched as the barman quickly backtracked, almost fearful of this great hulk of a man.

I watched this man before me. Scars riddled his arms where his armour did not conceal. A fighter, I mused, an honourable warrior, I began to judge his choice of breastplate. Rust had begun to encrust along the edges of metal and blood still stained its black surface. He took his final swig from his tankard and stared back at me, pale blue eyes piercing past my armour and into my very soul. I grew nervous and reached for my dagger, my other hand tensed upon the table.

"If yer gonna hold it, yer better be willin' te use it." His eyes twitched towards my arm poised with the hand on the knife. "Or are ya as yella' as that scalehide?" He crossed his arms as he leant back in his chair. I didn't speak as my fingers clenched on the shaft, anger rising from this warrior's taunting. The smirk on his face began to infuriate me as I sat there, whether to punch him or submit and lower my hand from my weapon. "Maybe yer just stupi-"

"Ragh!" My hand brought forth the axe from my belt, flying high and the shaft sliding up through my hand until the pommel rested on my wrist. I brought the wedge down with speed and embedded it in the table between us. I stared him in the eye as my muscles flexed in my forearm, I would not be made to look like a coward. "Don't insult me." I growled the fervour in my voice as that I had used against the vagrants back in Helgen.

The Nord smiled and leant forward, fingers pressing on the edge of the table. "Do yer know who ah am, boy?" His thick accent -Scottish I thought- grating now across the sudden silence.

I glanced at the fellow attendees in the bar. Their faces riddled in concern and trepidation for this oncoming brawl, ready to flee if it escalated further. I let go of my axe and cracked my neck joints and knuckles, letting the popping sounds pressurise against the silence. "A name can give a thousand faces," I voiced barely above a whisper, "an axe can take a face and never know the name."

"Hargh!" The Nord slapped his belly, a smile broadening across his face. "Well spoken lad, there migh' be some Nord in you yet." I glanced at the patrons again and found them all staring in bewilderment before going back to their drinks and conversation. I wrenched my weapon free, depositing it back to my belt as my eyes never left the warrior, his guise one of content as his arms folded across his broad chest.

The Argonian returned hefting a barrel of mead on to the chair beside me only looking at both of us after sighting the wound in the wooden table that my hands now occupied. "Ah," my hands flustered back to my knees as I looked back at him, "I'll pay for the damage."

A fist slammed on the table averting our gaze back to the warrior before me. "No, he won't, scalehide." A growl if ever I heard one escaped the Nord's lips, "he's with me, I'll make sure te give ye a few jewels to put aroon tha' pretty neck o' yer mate." A glint in his eye and a maleficent grin breached from him to the flustered bartender. "And where be tha' meat?" He crowed as we saw the back of him for a second time.

We sat in silence for a time. I fingered my axe blade as I looked at this warrior, what does he want? My mind coming up with all sorts of scenarios, I hope he's not gay, I admonished that thought as quickly as my imaginings got the best of me. I shuddered and gripped across the sharp edge of my axe to be rid of that visualisation, feeling as the blade bit into my fingers.

A tankard slopped in front of me, the hand drawing back to the other and raising it. "Drink," the Nord insisted, downing his own. I hefted the cup in my good hand and sniffed the brew, cautious man is a living man. Considering it sufficient I sculled the contents and thumped the cup back to the table. The alcohol rushed to my head, oh shit. I hadn't eaten at all today and now I was paying the price. Eh, bugger it. I shrugged inwardly, not every day I'm shouted a drink. The Nord took my cup and began to refill it, "so wha' does a lone hunter wan' with a thief?" He enquired handing the cup back.

I took another swig before I spoke and went with the simplest answer, "he took something that didn't belong to him."

The Nord scoffed at me, "Tha's wha' thieves do."

I shook my head, his brows arching for my explanation. I set my mug down and clasped my hands upon the table, "I had a chance to stop him before he committed the crime and…" my mouth turned down to a sneer at my past inadequacy.

"Ye let 'im go." It was not a question or an accusation. He said them as fact. I nodded, sinking into my cup and finishing it once more. That little fact plagued my mind now, "ye let 'im go," I did let him go when he had committed no crime, "not my problem," I told myself to be rid of the suspicions I felt at the time. And now what Jimmy? I screamed at myself, this ain't like a car you can just leave for the night and fix in the morning.

I push my cup forward for the Nord to fill again. "So how do I find the Thieves' Guild?" I asked, sharp eyes turn towards me from all directions even those from the darkest corner. The Nord did a quick glance around the room as well and then began to fill my mug.

Eyes focussed on pouring the drink he replied, "Dead, if ye plan on goin in cock headed like ye are."

I swiped the mug back once he was done, "then give me what I need!" I bellowed, the patrons now ignoring us.

The Nord rubs the back of his head in dismay, "there no' be much I can tell ya aboot them," he sighed. Resting his arms across the table, his eyes looked into mine once more. "Bu' ah can see yer no' gonna le' this go."

I took a long drink and slammed the mug bare inches from his fingers. "And what can you see?" I roared, not caring for how loud I was. "Answer me what no man has been able to answer!"

He sighed again, I began to chafe from his gestures. "Yer like a man ah once knew," He breathed, "he was a hunter as well and when his hunt ended…"

I scoffed at this, "and don't tell me, when his hunt ended he took his life?"

His fist slammed into the table, splinters freeing themselves from the axe wound I had made earlier. "No!" he shouted, the words reverberating around the inn. "He followed his path with a Nord's heart, determined to come home"

Home, I don't have a home. I almost wanted to shout it back to this man I barely knew. Instead my temperament was stolen by my isolation of where I was. I am alone, I have no one. "So… Did he come home?" I look at the warrior, his blue eyes staring back at mine, their hardness forming from my words burning my tongue from such a blunder of questions. "No then." I answer, "either that or he never had one."

His stern gaze consolidated with the scowl of his lips, posture changing to one of protection. "Skyrim was his home lad," He whispered and clenched his fists ever tighter against his powerful biceps. "The same as all true Nords, like ye an' me."

I downed the dregs of my mead and readied my belongings to be away from here. Looking back at the warrior, his eyes glazed, seeing off to somewhere I could not. "I'm hunting this thief down, for better or worse." I sighed. Stepping towards the door I turned back to him and watched as his expression did not falter. "Name's Jarek by the way," I whispered to only him. "If I see ya again, next drink is on me."

I sauntered back into the cool, night chill. The reek of the canals did not make me gag this time so I was pleased my visit for drink had not been truly wasted. I still had no information on the whereabouts of this Thieves' Guild. I wandered about the streets, thinking how I would find them when I saw a woman with a curvaceous figure and a revealing dress stepped out from a dark doorway.

I slowly made my way to her, mulling over my predicament and how to approach the subject of thieves to her. "You looking for a bed handsome?"

I stopped dead in my tracks and glanced to either side then back to this busty woman. "Ey?" I exclaimed, pointing towards myself.

"Yes, you," she walked towards me, all grace I had never seen in a woman. Her hips swaying kept me in a hypnotizing state. "Needing a bed?" She purred, "handsome."

I faltered, my mind trying to work and coming up blank to this blonde goddess. "Ah, uhm, bed?" I stammered, trying to find my words instead of finding my eyes focusing to her exposed cleavage. A smile caught her thick lips as she crossed her arms behind her back and bent low to look me in the eye, giving me full view of her assets. Before I could do anything stupid, I fumbled for my coin purse. "H-how much for a bed for the night?" I said bringing it forward.

She chuckled lightly and came closer, drawing me towards the door with a gentle hand caressing my back. "Come inside and we'll talk payment," the woman now so close, seemed to tower over me as she opened to the entry and warmth within. Many occupants riddled the tables to my left, workers most of them judging by their drab attire. The Nord woman gestured to a seat next to a fidgeting Argonian then left me as she made her way sweeping up tankards and cups as a practised glasser in a pub of my own world.

I kept to myself, the squirming Argonian made me uneasy. I turned and found another maid walking towards us. Hair as bright as fire though her conduct towards me was one of defeat and solemnity. "Hail maid, could I get a drink?" I hollered, throwing several gold pieces in her direction. With a nod, she disappeared from my line of sight and left me to deliberate my options to find the thieves' hideout.

I hated to admit but that warrior was right. My impatient actions would kill me if I went after the thieves now. I had basically claimed myself as an enemy to them, warned them I was hunting one of their company. You idiot, Jim, I scolded. My ego had gotten the better of me when now, more than ever, I needed to tread carefully within the lion's den as it were.

The redhead maid rested a tankard of mead during my contemplation, withdrawing once again with neither a word between us. I sipped at the drink tentatively and pondered which drunk would be most willing to give information. Just when I was about to open my mouth, the buxom beauty that lured me in here slumped next to me. Her perfume stung my nostrils, overpoweringly sweet with lavender and clung to me as her arm rubbed against my shoulder.

"So, what brings a hunter out of the woods?" She asked, hair brushed back with a flick of her wrist.

I paused to compose myself, exhaling through my nose to be rid of the sharp fragrance that wafted around my head. "Thieves," I murmured and took another gulp of mead. The honeyed alcohol taking over my assaulted nostrils.

If there was a hint of shock, I didn't see it. The hostess nestled closer to me, an elegant hand touched my arm and she spoke soft and tenderly. "I may be able to help you, come and we'll talk privately." A dip of her lashes then she was on her feet ushering me away from the table and up a flight of stairs. The young redheaded maid watched us pass, incredulity in her eyes that quickly turned to disgust. I was perplexed, what had I done to harbor those looks if I was being helped in my endeavour for information.

I heard the door latch click behind me and was aware of only a bed in the small room. No tables or chairs, just a modest nightstand with a solitary candle in its candelabra that the hostess lit upon entering.

I let out an exaggerated sigh as I sat on the bed, sinking slightly into the straw mattress. I had not realised how exhausted I was until that moment. My eyes began to close of their own volition and my arms growing heavier as I tried to remove my bracers. The hostess moved into my line of site and interrupted my struggle, her dextral fingers replacing mine and swiftly unclasping the leather straps and freeing my forearm.

"What's your name, hunter?" She asked, moving on to the other bracer. "I like to know who's name I will be screaming tonight."

"Jarek," I sighed as the leather slackened from my wrist. I flexed my fingers, feeling the tension ebb away and setting me into a state of bliss. Wait, what?