A/N: Sorry for the short chapter. Next one will be much longer, I promise. :)

I exist here on an acre of nature,
In the diminutive.
But I'll be thinking of you,
My favorite hypocrite.
Of your last words to me I am thinking,
And of the depth of your eyes...

- "This, My Porcelain Life," Rasputina

Gaella was really getting tired of this 'being kidnapped' thing; that was her first thought when she was unceremoniously dropped onto the ground, and jarred back into consciousness.

"...It is! It's the Jarl's missing fiancee! The woman from the posters!"

"That's right," said Mercer Frey, "Now pay up."

….In that moment, she decided that Mercer Frey would not live much longer.

Gaella's eyes were still closed, and she had a colossal headache. She heard the jingling of coins, before some brave soul asked,

"...Why aren't you selling her to the Imperial army, again?"

"It's none of your business." The sound of footsteps retreating away.

Gaella opened her eyes as best she could, to take in which way Mercer Frey went. She would be following him as soon as she was able. She felt rope around her wrists- rope? Really? What a stupid man. Or maybe he just didn't care enough to ensure the safety of...whoever it was he'd sold her to.

"She sure is pretty. Even with her face all scratched up. Just look at those tits."

...Bandits. She could tell by the way they talked. Stupid bandits, really. How would they be able to sell her to the Imperial Army without being arrested on murder charges? And how many were there? She opened her eyes fully and looked up at her current targets. Six. ...Well, that was a bit much.

"Awww. She's awake! You sleep good, Princess?" One of the bandits nudged her in the ribs with the toe of his boot. He smelled gods-awful, like he hadn't bathed in weeks. He probably hadn't. "Don't worry. We're gonna take wonderful care of you before selling you to the Imperials.

"Okay," She murmured. "But will you at least untie my hands?"

The bandits looked between each other and laughed.

Gaella heaved a great sigh. "...Look at me, and look at you," She said matter-of-factly, sitting up very slowly. "Do I look like I have the strength to take on all six of you? Or even one of you? Come now...surely not."

"...Well..." Their apparent leader hesitated. "Isn't you a captain in the Stormcloaks?"

Impeccable speech, this one. "If I was, why would Ulfric remove such a valuable soldier from his army and take her, instead, to his bed? It's counter-productive. No. I'm just a woman."

The leader begrudgingly undid her bindings. In truth, Gaella could have burned the bindings off easily, but...truth be told, she enjoyed toying with idiots. "Oh, what's to become of me?" She asked with a dramatic sigh, placing her hand on her forehead in true 'perish-the-thought!' form.

"We're about to have some fun with you..then we'll be taking you to the Imperial camp not too far from here."

"Well, alright," Gaella said, standing. It was truly hard to keep from bursting into laughter at the baffled looks on the bandits' faces. Clearly, this was not the behavior they were used to from their 'victims.' And they were all men, of course; the stereotypical swarthy Nord types, all muscle, no brain. She belatedly wondered if they were too stupid to get a better job than killing people and stealing their things.

She surveyed the landscape for something she could use. Ah! There, in the distance! There was a mammoth camp. And, generally, where there were mammoths...there were giants. If she could lure these fools into the giants' camp, the situation would take care of itself. Trying to take out six bandits at close-range was not necessarily a good idea. True, she could wrap herself in a flame cloak, but there were some of them with bows- and she was wearing her green dress from the palace, still. It was thin, torn, stained, and filthy, and even if it had been in perfect condition, it would still not have saved her from arrows.

"What're you lookin' at, Princess?" The bandit leader grabbed her face painfully, digging his dirty nails in, and turned her back to look at him. "Ain't no one around here to hear you scream, if that's what you're lookin' for..."

There! She saw, over his shoulder, by the chest-where, presumably, they laid their things- there was a rather large coin purse. Their last victims must have been wealthy- and Mercer's timing must have been exactly in her favor. If he had waited even a few minutes longer to drop her here, the coin purse would have been stowed away, and this situation could have gone off much worse than a few simple bruises on her chin.

"Look at me, bitch!"

She brought her eyes back to his- looked deep into the ugly, shit-colored irises.

"You're not even cowering? ...No matter. You'll cower when we get started here."

"...Will you at least let me remove my own dress?"

"Is this some kind of trick?" The bandit's grip tightened painfully, drawing blood from his nails.

"What kind of a question is that? I love this dress. Even as beat up as it is, I'd prefer it to be in this condition when I go to meet the Imperials, and go to..." ...Where did Nords go? Right!

"Sovngarde, rather than worse."

"Fine. But no tricks, bitch!" The bandit leader finally let go of her face, and she rubbed her chin softly. What was it with Nord men and hurting her face? Was hitting her somewhere else not masculine enough, or something?

She reached to the back of her dress, pretending to go for the zipper. But instead...she murmured a conjuration softly to herself, and, from her outstretched, obscured palm, conjured a spectral wolf.

Steal the coin purse by the chest. Lead them to the mammoths: straight forward, my friend.

The spirit beast obeyed, bounding out from behind her.

"Hey! What in the..."

The wolf grabbed the coin purse in its spectral teeth and took off, quick as lightning. The bandits immediately grabbed their weapons and took off after it, completely forgetting about their current quarry in pursuit of the spectral beast and their very last bit of gold.

Gaella smirked. Too easy.

The bandits were quickly gaining on the beast, and she worried that the wolf would fade or be banished by the bandits' arrows before it reached the intended destination. Her specialty lay in fire, not conjuration, and her wolf would not last very long.

She looked around the camp and grabbed a shield, struggling with the weight. If they were going to come back, she would use this to try and block any arrows and send spells at them long-distance. She wasn't stupid enough to think she could outrun them. She didn't know this area, or where they were...oh, who was she kidding.

She wanted them to die. And if the giants didn't kill the bandits, she would.

Gaella needn't have worried, however. The wolf did finally disappear at the very edge of the camp- but the loud yelp it let out alerted the giants, who were not happy about a bunch of ugly bandits rushing their camp.

Gaella dropped the shield, relieved both to not have to hold the heavy thing anymore. She grinned wickedly, happy have something funny to watch to lighten her spirits. "Yessss...!"

The giants – of which there were two – quickly approached the bandits. The bandits started yelling and scrambled over each other in a mad dash to get away from their impending deaths. But every one step of a giant was ten steps of a man, and so the bandits all met a very swift and hilarious death, as the giants flattened them as though they were nothing more than burnt sweetrolls.

"Thank you," Gaella said softly. "If I could come up there and hug you, I would." She bowed her head in reverence to the giants. In truth, she'd always wanted to sit down and have a conversation with one, but she knew that now was not the right place or time.

She looked around the now-abandoned camp. Six tents, a roaring fire, and some miscellaneous weapons. What else did they have here? She strode forward, lifting the hem of her dress, and knelt in front of the chest. It was locked. Of course. She studied it- flicking it a few times, pressing her ear to the metal. It wasn't a complicated lock, and she should be able to break it fairly easily, should she find some picks lying around.

She searched through the tents and found more supplies- books, a few potions, some arrows. Spare clothes. Several lockpicks, which she pocketed. A few herbs. All these things were generally useful, but she would have to figure out her plan of action first, before she decided what to bring.

She carefully took a leg of goat off of the cooking spit and sat in front of the fire, eating it slowly. It was plain without any spice- simply salt. But she was starving, and wasn't really picky about her food anymore, anyway.

Gaella chewed, wincing at the pain from her cheeks it caused, and stared into the fire. Assuming the mammoth camp was north, then Mercer had gone southwest. What was he after? Why had he decided to pawn her off on some idiot bandits, instead of taking her straight to the Imperial Army? It was obvious he and Brynjolf were not in agreement about how to proceed with...whatever the plans were. Brynjolf hadn't been anywhere around when Mercer dropped her off, and furthermore, Brynjolf had promised to free her. Mercer hadn't consulted with him, or anyone else, before he'd taken the deal with Ulfric's steward. She had heard faint shouting between the two leaders over the subject, and that had been what had awoken her the day she first met Brynjolf. Mercer had put all of them in danger without any consultation from his officers whatsoever.

Who else had she met while imprisoned? The girl that had undid her binds and slipped her a dagger in case anyone 'tried anything funny', that was Sapphire, a beautiful woman with black hair and melancholy eyes. The fat, bald Breton that she had instantly disliked for some reason...his name was Delvin. There was a rather moody woman named Vex, who was also beautiful, in a dark way. Vex hadn't said a thing to her, but she didn't have to. She could tell the woman completely disapproved of the situation and wasn't happy to be there.

Almost all of them, when they either thought she wasn't listening, or didn't care, would mutter among themselves and wonder where the honor of the thieves' guild had gone.

A group of thieves with honor...but with the honorless Mercer as a leader. Her nose turned up at the thought. She hated everything about Mercer, down to his very smell, the vapid stench of selfishness, of which she'd forced to partake of when he was lugging her around like a sack of potatoes. It clung to her like a mist when she was inches from awareness.

Tomorrow, lass, I'll come for you. I'll get you out of Riften, so long as you promise not to bring back any soldiers on us. Deal?

Oh, that red-haired man...his voice came to her even now, through the snow.

Was Brynjolf okay? She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed, tossing the meat bone into the fire (she was hungrier than she'd thought, and consumed every last piece of meat upon it). She had no way of knowing where Brynjolf was now. But Mercer couldn't have gotten too far. If she followed Mercer, and killed him, she'd be able to stop him before he brought any more harm onto the guild. A person that selfish...who knew what he was capable of?

With that, she stood, and went to pick the lock on the chest. She vaguely remembered some mutterings from Mercer as she had floated in and out of consciousness, something about plans, falmer eyes, and fools.

...Plans. Falmer eyes. Fools.

Was he planning to go into a dwarven ruin? Despite herself, she grew excited as the possibility of entering another one. She had always been fascinated with the dwarves; had even done some research in her time in Skyrim, and become friends with the foremost export on Dwemer lore: Calcemo, in Markarth.

Think, Lucy, think. Did Calcemo ever mention anything about falmer eyes? The falmer are blind. Could there be a small group that still has eyes? No...the falmer were betrayed by the dwemer and lost their sight long ago. They can't possibly have...wait...!

Calcemo had spoken of one of the only true treasures that were left from back when the falmer had still been "Snow Elves:" The only known visual representation left of a Snow Elf, a giant statue. Within its eye sockets, it contained giant, flawlessly cut gems for eyes. Gems that were pricelessly valuable, and, honestly, an anomaly. They were said to be cut with impossible precision for the time in which they were made.

So that's where he's going. Irkngthand.

Gaella finally managed to open the chest. There should have been gold in there, but there was absolutely none; she assumed it was because Mercer had taken all but the very last coin purse they had in exchange for her.

No matter. That gold would belong to her when she killed Mercer.

Instead, there was armor, quite a bit of armor, and a few more potions. She pulled out a few potions, and then hesitated at the remaining contents. There was only heavy and studded armor; she had never worn anything but cloth. Could she move in this? She knew she was young- even if she didn't know her exact age- and had the strength that came with youth, but undoubtedly, the weight would slow her down. However, if she was going to be in a giant cave full of blood-thirsty mutants, wouldn't it be better to have something more protective than a shredded cloth gown?

She sighed, and decided to pull out and don the studded armor. It stunk, it was heavy, and it felt grimy against her skin. But some protection was better than no protection, and she had to admit that it was far better defense against the cold than the thin fabric of her gown had been.

With that, she headed in the direction of Mercer, making a mental note of where the camp had been.