A/N: I know I've taken a while to update this time. To be honest, I'm thinking of not finishing this story, just 'cause I have another idea for a possible Dark Brotherhood questline fic. Also, since this one uses original characters, but doesn't follow a questline, I reckon it isn't as interesting as either NPCs doing original stuff or an OC doing in-game stuff. I'd love to hear what you think – now on with the chapter!
Cyrodil, Heartfire 3E 432
It took a surprisingly short amount of time to clear up after the attack. Spurred on by Marc's insistence that enough time had been wasted, Florrie set to work healing the horse, him being the most magicka literate of the group. Dovyn had staggered to his feet despite the still raw cuts on his face and his own muttered admissions that he was 'getting too old for this.'
In Lettie's eyes, the cart was as near to destroyed as a cart could be while retaining all four wheels, but she was assured by the guys that it would last them until they got to Anvil. Erica ran her hand over the gashes in the canvas.
"Why did they do that?" she said almost to herself, "They'd have to fix it themselves."
"My guess is they wouldn't have used the cart, least not for travelling," Dovyn noted, "They'd have taken the horse, though."
"Ah, that's why they jus' burned the feet. I'd've just shot it." Erica checked herself.
Dovyn grinned, "You mean you'd have got the Bosmer to do it."
Erica punched him on the arm playfully, "Yeah, and then I'd've come in with an axe!" She mimed slashing through invisible enemies. Dovyn chuckled to himself.
---
Marc disposed of the Altmer's body, explaining that he'd made the mess so he might as well clean it up. Lettie hadn't laughed, but not because she found the death particularly shocking –after all, both Erica and her were huge Arena fans – but because she couldn't stop imagining Hamlof's face bloodied up like the Altmers.
Not that she cared about some good for nothing shop-owner with enough spare cash to live pretty and have a skooma habit, she told herself. She just...she just wanted to know if Marc would've done the same to Hamlof if he'd have woken up.
A phrase Marc had uttered over and over again, back when they first came to the Waterfront, kept replaying itself at the back of her mind. 'I will do anything to stop either of you from getting hurt again.' At the time the word 'anything' had filled her with great pride in her big brother, and a sense of security. Now it had an altogether different ring to it.
---
She didn't manage to ask him until they were nearly at Anvil. Marc had offered, for once, to steer the horse instead of Florrie. Lettie sat by his side for almost the whole journey, telling herself she was about to ask him about it. Telling herself over and over, like a water-phobic child telling themselves they were about to jump in.
Only when she saw the gate to the city in the distance did she say anything.
"Um, Marc?"
"Yeah?"
She paused momentarily, unsure whether to plough on or to tread lightly.
"Um, Marc?" Oh wait, she'd already said that. "You know that Altmer?"
"What about him?"
"Well, you know Hamlof, the other night?"
Marc looked at her quizzically, unable to make the connection, or possibly unwilling to.
"Well, the thing is...what would you have done, if he'd woken up?"
No answer.
"Would you have hit him?"
"Yes." he said without hesitation.
"Like you did that Altmer?"
"If I had too, yes."
"An' if he had kept fighting, if you had to, would you have killed him?"
There was another uncomfortable pause.
"Yes."
Like the final piece of a dam being lifted away, Lettie felt a surge of some strong feeling she couldn't quite place, because she wasn't angry and she wasn't scared and she didn't think worry could overwhelm you like that.
"But, Armand would've kicked you out!"
Marc's features flickered between annoyance and resignation; he pulled on the reigns so he could look at her properly.
"Do you think, if that bear had woken up and sent you flying, that I'd think 'Well, thank the Nine I'm still in the guild.'?"
"But Armand always said we musn't kill anyone. That we aren't the Dark Brotherhood…"
"You shouldn't listen to everything Armand says."
"But-"
"'But' nothin'! Armand is too rigid-minded for his own good. If I was Doyen, things would be altogether more flexible." He groaned, both at the way that last sentence had come out and his little sister's incomprehensive reaction. "There's a difference between mindless killing and self defence. You have to learn that."
She opened her mouth to argue back, but then Marc spoke up again, bringing up the very thing she'd prayed he wouldn't:
"I didn't get you guys away from Bravil for you to get yourself killed."
He knew he shouldn't have brought it up. He knew it would stop any counter-argument she had dead. That was exactly why he'd said it. It wasn't cruel exactly, just against the rules. The old life they had run away from, one which for Lettie was compiled of half-forgotten memories and Akaviri whispers, belonged in jokes and jokes alone, because in arguments it cut sharper than any insult.
She wanted to say as much, even if she knew from experience that her thoughts would never truly map themselves onto her spoken words, but before she could they were interrupted by Florrie emerging from the back wanting to know why they'd stopped.
"Lettie felt sick." Marc said with a sense of finality Lettie realised was best to agree with.
"Yeah."
Florrie jumped back automatically.
"I'm not gonna be sick," she said adamantly, adding reproachfully as she got up "And I'll feel a lot better once I'm in the back."
---
The sun had set by the time the weary group arrived to Anvil, and after leaving both the horse and the battered cart at the stables, decided it was best to put off trekking up to the castle to sell their goods until tomorrow, in favour of looking for a place to stay.
Lettie had liked the idea of staying at a place called The Fo'c's'le, but was assured by Dovyn that it was reserved 'just as a boarding house for sailors', to which her brothers had sniggered, saying things like "Some boarding house," and "The sailors certainly leave satisfied." Lettie pretended to know what they were on about, then asked Erica about it while they ate at The Flowing Bowl. She almost choked on her bread and cheese.
While back in the Imperial City the summer was in its decline and the good weather going with it, the warmer climate of Anvil meant that the next day brought a warm breeze and bright sunlight in a cloudless sky. Lettie, Erica and Florrie abandoned meeting up with the Orrin, which Marc said was probably a good idea, since the guild fence was bad with kids and worse with teenagers, apparently not trusting them not to blab about his rather questionable purchases.
"Then again, with Orrin's sense of trust he's either in the perfect business for him or the worst. I can never tell." Dovyn quipped as he and Marc headed away, in the infuriating tone of one telling an in-joke.
The three of them meandered along the docks, sleepy from the heat and the journey. Florrie spotted two Redguard girls, presumably sisters, and immediately perked up.
"Hey, they're looking for exotic sailors!" Lettie teased as he hastily excused himself and made a bee-lined for the two girls.
"Yeah, not some skinny Breton." Erica added with a hearty laugh.
They left Florrie to his unsuccessful flirtation, and, after making a couple of dips into sun-weary visitors' money pouches, bought some apples for lunch. By the time they were done it was almost mid-day, and the sun was blazing up above. Lettie took this as her cue to strip down to her pants and dive-bomb into the bay, splashing several passersby. Erica, her pale skin more suited to permanently snowy mountains already getting burnt, sat in the shade of a docked ship and dabbled her feet in the water.
The thick blanket of heat seemed to subdue everyone around, so when a grimy, stinking group of what could only be sailors came blundering out of a nearby tavern, all heads were turning in the direction of the noise. There were five of them, all human except for the scrappy Bosmer talking nineteen to the dozen about his itchy clothing, his mother and fish.
"How are they drunk at mid-day?" Lettie commented as she trod water. Erica didn't reply; she had apparently been spotted by one of the sailors, a Nord like her, who was now nudging his friends and jabbing his thumb in her direction in a way he must have though very suave. She deliberately avoided his gaze, hoping he would get distracted, but he was already stumbling over to her.
"Well, what a lovely lass," he slurred. He cut her off as she got up to leave, leaning in until she could smell his putrid breath. "What's the hurry? Don't you wanna chat?"
"Not with you." she spat the words out, her face turning even redder from embarrassment and contained rage.
Unperturbed, he leered at her, saying "Why so frigid, huh? It's not Rain's Hand."
This was a reference to the age old Skyrim tradition among Nords to be celibate during the beginning of Spring. This was considered superstitious nonsense by many Nibeneans, but when you consider that weather in Skyrim during Morningstar – nine months after Rain's Hand - was cold enough to freeze a glass of water if it were placed outside for more than half an hour, this made sense. Even Nord babies generally aren't resistant enough to survive that, especially newborns.
However, if this particular sailor thought that he could get close to Erica by reminding her of their homeland, he had another thing coming. As he said these words, pressing one huge hand against her waist, something clicked in her, and with an almighty yell she brought one knee up rapidly, hitting him hard right between the legs. As he crumpled forward, sobered up in half a second and no sound but a whine escaping him, Erica gave him a shove with all the intensity of a strong and furious girl, and he crashed into the waters of the bay. He floated to the surface a few seconds later, gasping for air as he doggy-paddled to the shore, whimpering as his friends jeered and Lettie laughed herself pink.
"That was brilliant!" she hooted as she too swum back, but Erica seemed less excited. She sat down again, her eyes fixed on the water, disgust written all over her face.
"I'm fourteen." she muttered darkly.
Lettie sat down beside her, resting her head against her shoulder just like she had done on the cart before the bandits attacked. "It's just 'cause you're pretty."
"Not really. He just finks I'm old enough."
Lettie grimaced. "Ugh. I never want to be old enough."
"You will."
"No I won't!"
"Yeah you will. I bet this is your last summer you can run around like that."
"Well, if that's true, then I'll make myself as ugly as possible."
"What like cover yourself in mud?"
"Yeah, and get into a million fights so I have tons of scars."
"Yeah."
There was a moment of silence as the two girls sat and stared out at the open sea beyond the bay, at the thin line of the horizon.
"Come on," Lettie said, light-heartedness back intact, "let's go find Florrie."