A/N: This chapter has undergone minor revisions since the last chapter of this story was released. Keep in mind, revised chapters may be inconsistent with reviews and with author's notes from unrevised chapters.

Sun's Height 5, 4E1

(Fights-up-close): Leyawiin

The fog had cleared up, and light was shining down on the town, making it look a lot more colorful and lively, as well as casting a pleasant warmth over me. Still, the hardest part of the day had only begun.

Though it had taken me quite a while to think of the plan for the kill, the spark of enlightenment had eventually come during my walks around Leyawiin. I just needed to listen closely enough to make out when the soldiers were eating, then enter as soon as they all left. Right now, I could hear the clanging of silverware and voices muffled and mixed into one indistinct blob of chatter. My eyes were on the garden adjacent to one of the towering courtyard walls, my hands were on the stone-wall that encased it, but my mind was on those eating behind me.

Right now, I was just waiting near the guard tower, looking into a section garden and trying not to make eye contact with anyone, hoping I'd remain unnoticed. I had a cover-story, though: I had a friend in the town guard I needed to talk to. Being covered in scales didn't really help the believability of that kind of story here in Leyawiin, but it was the best I could think of. Thankfully, there were no guards stationed near the castle. The people who would usually be guarding the castle entrance from within were now outside the city gates, guarding the town from foreign threats.

An ache was building up in my neck from looking down so much, trying to avoid eye contact. I threw my head back, causing some subtle cracks, but somewhat to my frustration there was not much relief.

I reckoned I'd been standing in one spot, leaning on the stone wall for over an hour. But that didn't bore me. Already I had plenty I needed to think about. I was still trying to polish up my plan. Trying, unfortunately, was the key word. Any progress I'd made in my plan came slowly. Other, excess, thoughts seemed to be moving through my head much more rapidly.

Though it seemed possible to get in and out of the barracks undetected, I knew it would be difficult. Now that the soldiers were actually eating in there, meaning they'd soon leave and I'd need to go in and find Philida, I was beginning to feel hints of fear. Still, I knew I had to get on with this plan eventually. After all, I didn't want to lose track of the shifts, and we didn't know how long Philida would be conducting operations in Leyawiin.

I heard the door behind me open, releasing a storm of clanging silverware and conversation into the air outside, then close. Foot steps and the jingling of chain-mail followed as one soldier exited the barracks. Soon enough, his foot steps began mixing with the hustle and bustle of the civilian areas to the West.

I tried to harden myself and push fear aside as I knew I would soon infiltrate the barracks and begin my mission. I recalled their names: Sergius, Soran, Maria. They all risked their lives to put fear in the hearts of Tamriel's cowards and were slain by a man who pretended to be fighting for the same cause. My breathing got heavy.

His legion had stomped on the land of other provinces for centuries, with only the Argonian Royal Court brave enough to stand against them from the beginning, even if it was in secret. My tail twitched at the thought.

I was starting to feel hotter. The rage at Philida was returning. A new energy was fueling me. Fear was fading. I was about to put an end to Philida, employing my art in one of the most important works ever.

I could hear the door open and close once more as another soldier I could only imagine walked out of the barracks. I was getting closer to my chance to unleash the fury and power of Sithis onto Philida. And closer to the potential of my own pain and death.

There was a battle in my head between fear and anger, and the frontline was moving unpredictably.

I hated his Legion's arbitrary laws and bullying of the other provinces. Yet at the same time, this assignment required me to enter a single room that house who-knew how many soldiers with virtually no chance of escape if I was spotted.

My mind seemed to be receiving more reasons why this assignment would be a bad idea. I was inside enemy territory with only two exits, both of which were well-guarded, and my target would among countless, albeit sleeping, soldiers. A subtle exit out of Leyawiin was outright impossible, and if I woke up anyone in the barracks, I'd have to deal with a huge portion of the town guard. Did this plan need further thought to be reasonably safe? Rushing never did an assassin any good. Maybe I should continue to think about this plan and come up with greater precision and more failsafes.

The door opened once again, only this time I heard less chatter, less clanging silverware, and more footsteps. I kept my eyes on the garden, hoping not to be noticed, but carefully tried to figure out how many soldiers had just exited the barracks.

Four ultimately passed by me before they faded into the crowd.

It was happening faster than I expected.

For the first time, I glanced back at the section of the city perimeter behind me. The Legion archers were still stationed behind the turrets of the castle walls. They still weren't facing me, but they'd certainly make escape more difficult. The tension inside me was slowly coming back now, even as my numb and motivated self tried to swat it away. I began feeling oddly figety as fear began to wrap itself tightly around me.

I could hear the door open again, but this time the noise of the door opening wasn't accompanied with chatter and clanging silverware.

Those were the last soldiers. Two of them. That totalled to eight, the same amount I'd seen enter that barracks. They would go back to patrolling the vast city unaware they'd just made way for the death of one Tamriel's most infamous people...or for me.

Now the path to Philida was clear.

Still, if they'd just left, wouldn't it mean I could take a bit more time to plan? I wondered if I should think until my plan was smart enough for the fear to fade? Or should I accept that this assignment needed to be intimidating, and simply break through my emotional barriers? That was a task I would need to get used to if I were to conduct myself like every Shadowscale should. Right now, as I was trying to decide between the two options, I was doing neither. I got a nagging sensation that each moment could be me violating the sacred code of unbroken loyalty to the cause I'd promised to, at least for now, live my life by. That would be, by extension, intentional wrong-doing.

I latched onto the idea that I should simply endure the fear, and turned around to face the door to the barracks.

I pushed myself forward almost robotically as my internal argument continued, trying to find some excuse to listen to my fear. But I found no excuse and needed to keep pushing forward.

I set foot on the stone steps.

Then that crushing feeling I'd felt at Summitmist manor came again. Working against this fear was heroism, and just like cold-hard logic told me I should, I hated it. Pain was a component of heroism. No seperation between the two was possible. I would be living this way, punished for anything noble, until I died, which I had to prevent at all cost. That truth stabbed me deeper than any blade could.

I put my hand on the handle of the barracks door and paused.

But what was I waiting for? A second of inspirational anger?

Many emotions were weighing me down or pushing me back, but I had to continue, and all I could do was hope for another epiphany to get rid of those emotions.

My superiors wouldn't send me on a mission they weren't confident I could confident I could come back from. They need me. That logic provided me with a moment of comfort.

Or would they? Three of your fellows died on this assignment.

Which soon was countered with another sinking sensation.

Did everyone in the Dark Brotherhood feel this way when they were called upon for a dangerous mission? Something inside me didn't want company. I didn't want to believe anyone else lived with this kind of natural injustice.

I noticed what was happening. I was questioning everything. The wound left by Goes-in-heavy's defection had been bandaged briefly, but had never healed. That bandaged had been ripped off by feelings of fear and now my confidence was bleeding out. Now I was enduring an endless volley of questions, each question harder to answer than the last. It was distracting me, and ripping the world I knew apart.

This is why you have to trust your superiours. You could never decide everything for yourself.

But what if I am uncovering something?

The questions continued to play in my mind, grinding at everything I'd ever come to believe.

I had to cease these thoughts, I'd already decided I was going to head into the barracks without hesitation. One more second would be damnable weakness.

I slowly opened the barracks door, a process which was relatively smooth and creakless. Slowly, a semi-circular room with a stair case and two doors ahead of me was being revealed. I could see the table where the soldiers had been eating out of the corner of my left eye.

I tried to keep my mind on my mission. I needed to think about the choices I'd make in order to remain undetected, not dissect every sane belief I'd ever held. So far, I'd gotten through the first door without waking the soldiers up, so I assumed I could get through the second door as well. But was focusing on this mission really more important than the debate of universally applicable philosophy in my head?

I hated all these thoughts. I couldn't contain them. I couldn't hold them. I was forced to question every iota of the world now. It seemed frustratingly ridiculous to ask if I should focus on mission I was conducting this very second, yet I couldn't think of a reason why I really should focus on killing Philida.

If you're not thinking about the mission, your life is at stake. No matter what you realize while thinking about anything else, it won't matter if you're dead.

That provided me with relief. I just had to hope that epiphany didn't find its inverse.

I noticed one door had a lock attached to it in a rather make-shift looking way. I had a feeling that was where Philida was. I unsheathed my dagger, withdrawing it slowly and carefully, paying attention to every iota of noise it might generate.

Then, paying careful attention to pressure and friction to make sure not to add to the noise of the snoring soldiers above me, I crept towards the locked door. So far, so good. I just had to keep focus.

The words of the Black Horse Courier article were starting to drip into my mind again, but I tried to fight them off. I tried to restate my mission again and again to do so.

I'm going to kill Philida. I'm going to kill Philida. I'm going to kill Philida.

I reached for a lock pick, careful to make sure it didn't scrape against anything unnecessarily. Then I stuck it in the key hole and began picking the lock with my left hand while my dagger remained in my right. Picking the lock with my left hand meant it didn't go as smoothly as usual, but I had to keep my weapon at bare because this could situation could transform from quiet and contained to loud and chaotic within a couple of second of a typical assassin's error.

I could hear Goes-in-heavy's words again briefly, but I tried to fight them off. I needed to focus on my mission.

I'm going to kill Philida. I'm going to kill Philida. I'm going to kill Philida.

Then the satisfying click came, and I slowly began to open the door, going numb as I made a silent prayer to Sithis the door wouldn't creak. It didn't, but there was a more unsettling sight. Philida was not in his bed.

He was at a desk very close to the door, sitting.

He quickly stood up, and I saw the chair he was sitting on fall back, crashing to the floor with a noise that was sure to wake all the soldiers up. It sent a surge of alarm through my body. I felt like my viens nearly burst.

I swiftly charged into the room. Philida, unarmed and unarmored, interrupted from his paper work, probably hadn't quite processed it all yet. What dregs of the element of surprise remained would be my life-saver here.

I heartily stabbed my knife into his chest. He released a blood curdling scream. On this rare occasion, that didn't matter. The troops were no doubt up already. I removed the knife.

I knew I was right about waking the soldiers up, because already I heard a set of feet pounding down the stairs.

When I turned to look at the doorway I saw there was a woman, unarmored, her hair frizzy making it evident she'd just woken, poised to attack with her sword.

I tucked my tail and did a forward role passed the guard while keeping my form as compact as possible.

The top of my head painfully pressing against the wooden floor for half a second, I managed to find myself once again on my feet, this time at the door to the barracks exit. I flung it opened.

Pushing every bit of energy into my legs I began running. I jumped over the stone wall that contained the garden and hit the ground with a roll. My scales and clothing immediately began mingling with the soft dirt, but I didn't mind at a time like this.

I lied flat, turning my head sideways to meet the cold dirt and nearly stopped breathing altogether as I pushed the Shadow's energy to the surface. I could hear the guards getting closer.

Then there was silence. As best I could guess the woman I'd evaded was curiously inspecting the garden I'd just dived into, wondering why she couldn't see me. The fact that I was a Shadow wouldn't be enough of an explaination for her, because few Shadows could pull of what a Shadowscale could. Maybe that would save me, but I didn't dare to so much as move my eyes which had, just by chance, managed to be focusing on an unusually long blade of grass.

I needed to stay as still as death, a task which was difficult for a lot of reasons. My abdomen was pressed against the ground but the urge to take a deep breath began building up as I waited. I tried to imagine what was happening up there and what she was thinking. What tactics might she use? If she decides to enter the garden to look for me, that will probably be my end. It made me sickeningly nervous.

I could feel my heart pound against the soft earth below.

Soon, however, she came to a silent decision. Well, she made the decision silently, but what she'd decided to do was far from silent. I could hear her running towards the gate and yelling "Help! Captain Philida has been killed!"

Accepting exactly how dirty this would make me, I rolled into a more comfortable position. I could hear the Eastern gate open, then heard another female voice, stern and professional, clearly a high-ranking member of the town guard, in the distance say "You! Alert the adjacent posts! Lavina, tell us what you saw!"

"Someone killed Philida! She was in the barracks! An Argonian woman! Its like she just dissapeared!" How much about me were the guards really able to notice? I had to hope she couldn't provide a more detailed description when things started to cool down.

There was some more chatter after that, but it was quiet and hard to understand. As hard as I tried to listen, I couldn't make it out.

Waves of dread came over me as I wracked my brain for some way that to ever come out this garden that wouldn't set the guards after me.

I had no idea what I should do now. I needed time to think, and better concealment to do so. Careful not to have any part of my body higher than the stone wall, I crawled to a place within the garden that could provide better concealment.

There were two bushes in the garden, which together formed a small half-tunnel between them I could use as a shelter from the Imperial eye. Crawling with my knees and elbows, touching my tail to the dirt, I made my way between the bushes.

I laid perfectly still in the odd little refuge Sithis had provided me and tried to imagine a solution. I would have to climb back over the garden wall to get out either way and chances were one of the countless troops out there would be facing my way and see me. I couldn't rely on my Shadow powers again, since I'd need a good night sleep to recharge the energy.

My heart was pounding as I pressed myself against the dirt. Had I been right all along? Had this assignment truly been too dangerous?

Just for a few seconds, I tried to imagine everything was alright for the high it would give me. There were a few seconds of bliss, but the truth hurt.

I could hear feet going in all different directions, followed by an older sounding male voice say "Alright, fan out, check the area." It sounded like they planned to split up to cover the whole town. I knew a world of strategy and determination was in the heads of my enemies at the moment; no doubt tracking down the person who killed Philida wasn't something they'd take lightly.

I knew where I went wrong. Maybe if I hadn't been so distracted and thought to use that mysticism spell I'd learned, I could have timed my entrance into Philida's office better. But it was too late to change that. I could only feel bitter about my failure to think of that idea before.

But I realized right now seemed like a good time for that spell too.

I cleared my mind and tried to focus on no particular object. The world began getting fuzzy. Small patches of colored shading began to emerge in my vision until they formed into distinct indications of life. Seeing their sheer numbers and intelligent placement, I knew I could only lie in wait and hope for a distraction if I were to escape.