Resh POV

When Resh woke he found himself lying down in a grimy puddle on the cold stone floor of a jail cell. He groaned when he stood up holding his head in his hands, 'What did I do last night?'

He barely remembered any of it. He could just about recall a celebration with those friendly wolves and then drinking lots of the Nordic drink, which he reminded himself that he should really stop drinking it if this is what happened. There was also that annoying Redguard man that kept talking about Cloud districts. He didn't even know what they were. But the man's tone annoyed him, so he knocked him out. He was so condescending Resh doubted that he would have done anything different if sober instead. Hopefully that was all he did and he would be let out soon. If he had somehow accumulated a life sentence of some kind, he didn't know what he would do. He would probably have to break out, lest he be stuck in a jail cell for eternity because he had no age limit.

He glanced over to see a female guard sitting at a table trying to hold back laughter at him, obviously realising that he was the Thane of the city, but still in a cell. Her mocking looked irked him to no end. He had to resist the urge to set her on fire. Thankfully the assault was the only thing he had done, so within the hour the guardswoman came to the door to let him out and return his equipment. It was still quite early in the morning, so he would probably have to wake up Lydia and Brelyna. Making his way back to the tavern, Resh laughed when he say the Redguard he had punched look at him and start walking the other way hastily, served him right for being rude.

The tavern itself was seemingly empty, bar Hulda, the owner of the tavern, standing at the counter. Resh concluded that Lydia and the mage-elf must have somehow acquired a room and still be asleep.

"Are you looking for someone?" Hulda asked when she noticed him scanning the room.

"Yes, do you know someone called Lydia? Dark brown hair with a braid, light blue eyes, pale skin, wears iron armour, about this tall?" Resh gestured to where her height would be on him to get the point across.

"I remember. Your elf friend took a shine to the Redguard barmaid Saadia and she gave them free rooms. Your wife's is in that one," she said pointing to the one to his left and tossed him a ring of keys.

"She not my wife," Resh replied, voice laden with confusion at why she would possibly think he would be married to a Nord.

She seemed shocked at this, but then quickly corrected herself, "Girlfriend?"

"No... She's just a friend," he explained. Resh was worried now, what if everyone thought that they were in a relationship?

"Huh, I just assumed you were together. Most people don't remember friends' eye colour, and you only seemed intent on finding her and not the other one." She smirked while she was saying it, obviously noticing how it was affecting him.

Resh scoffed, 'Of course I remember other people's attributes, Brelyna's hair was… well that was different, she always wore a hood. He knew her eye colour though. He was pretty sure if was some shade of red.' Resh shook his head. He didn't know why he was getting so defensive about it, just because he knew one friend more than the other didn't mean people should assume they were in a relationship. He would never stoop to being with a human.

He quickly opened the door and slipped inside to avoid the bar woman's' mocking gaze. Resh turned to see Lydia smirking at him like the other woman was. 'What is it with mocking glares and women today?'

"Have fun in jail last night?" she asked sweetly, a blatantly fake display of innocence plastered on her face. Resh didn't know how but he could tell just from looking at her that it was somehow was her fault.

"No, not really. I woke up face down in a pool of scummy water, with a hangover. I'm assuming by the look on your face you had something to do with it," he ground out, un-amused by her idea of a joke.

"I wasn't the reason you were in jail. Although you are aware if you had just told them you were Thane they would have let you go?" she wondered if it was something she should have told him when they first met. Oh well, this way was funnier.

"No, I wasn't aware. But I was unconscious anyway so it wouldn't have mattered. I drank too much of that Black Briar stuff. Remind me to hug whoever made that drink," Resh told her. He had made a promise in his head. Albeit he was drunk, but either way Resh stayed true to promises.

"I wouldn't suggest it. Maven would probably hire someone to kill you if you even tried to go near her. Although, if it matter that much to you if you ever go to Riften and see her, you could always try risking death." Lydia felt a pang of jealousy at the turn in conversation. There was no way the first person Resh gives any form of willing body contact to was going to be Maven. If she didn't hire goons to kill him, Lydia would herself.

"Oh. Well, that will just have to be a risk I have to take. When I promise something, I do it. Even if it's a drunk promise." He glanced over to Lydia and noticed that her armour was on the floor and that she was probably naked under her blanket. "Anyway… I'm going to go find Brelyna, and leave you to get ready. Which room is she in?"

"Next one along," she replied half asleep, so not really thinking about her response. It was only after a few moments did she realise her mistake.

Just as he was about to step into the room he could hear Lydia's frantic yelling, "No! Don't go in there!" Resh shrugged and wondered what she was talking about. He turned back from the noise Lydia was making to see Brelyna and a Redguard woman both tucked into the same bed and desperately trying to cover as much of their bodies as possible. And glaring daggers at him as if they were both going to kill him.

'Shit.'

Resh was not expecting that. That must have been what Lydia was shouting at him about. He was about to leave before he looked at the woman Brelyna was with. It was the barmaid the tavern owner had spoken about. He glanced one more time at the position they were in, no wonder they got free rooms.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by the unmistakably painful feeling of having a ball of fire thrown at his face. It wasn't even a spell that should be very powerful but the agony of his face burning and blistering said otherwise. It was excruciatingly hard to hold back a cry of pain and he could taste himself bite hard into his tongue, drawing blood to stifle it.

"Resh, if you don't leave this room right now, I'm going to kill you!" Brelyna hissed, her voice acidic. The burning in her eyes and that in her hands were definitely supporting her words.

He didn't need to be told twice and quickly backed out clutching his smoking face in pain, if he wasn't in so much agony he would have laughed. This was only the second most painful injury he had gotten for walking into someone's 'special moments'. He would have appreciated the joke a bit more if he couldn't feel his skin melting.

Lydia POV

Although Lydia couldn't actually see what was happening, she couldn't help but laugh upon hearing the commotion. She didn't know exactly what had happened, but she hoped that Resh had left immediately at the warning tone in Brelyna's voice. He had already been in the room longer than he should have. Lydia was halfway through changing when Resh stumbled through her door clutching his face in his hands. She scrambled to cover the still nude parts of herself but realised his attention wasn't focused on her. She wasn't sure whether to be glad or disappointed.

He looked up at her and she immediately saw the why he was so distressed, "Gods, what happened to your face?"

"Let's just say I should have listened to you when you shouted," Resh said, trying to ignore the waves of pain crashing upon him.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "It looks painful."

"Your skills of observation continue to amaze me," he drawled. "Of course it's painful. I've scorched half my face!"

She snorted with amusement, "Now you know how I felt when you set fire to my hand."

Resh glared at her, 'How dare she compare the two? This is far worse.' Regardless of his thoughts, he still felt a small pang of guilt when she reminded of that. It was not one of his better moments.

He was about to speak up and voice his opinion when Lydia began speaking again, "Resh, I'm still getting dressed, so can you please leave?" Her tone was quite awkward and Resh realised that now was probably not the right time to burst into her room. When he left the room, Lydia started to change again. 'He is very bad when it comes to picking moments to walk into rooms. He isn't too great at realising when to leave either.'

Brelyna POV

"That seemed a little harsh don't you think?" Saadia said to her newest lover after watching her set fire to someone's face.

"It wasn't meant to be that powerful but I must have put more emotion into it than I thought. It's not my fault I haven't gotten laid in years at that damn College. He did linger a bit too long, though. He should have just left as soon as he saw what was happening," Brelyna explained, trying desperately to not make sure Saadia did not think ill of her by trying to shift the blame off her.

Saadia laughed at that but carried on serious again, "You can't really blame him for that. Name one other guy who wouldn't have 'lingered.'"

Brelyna thought back to other men she knew, but the only person she could think of would be J'zargo. And he would have tried to join in. Which in turn would have got him burnt even more so.

"Okay, so I overreacted a bit. No harm done," she replied, quickly amending her statement at the look on Redguard's face, "…not that much harm done."

"You should apologise to him… and fix his face," Saadia told her. The Dunmer was about to protest about how it was his fault but the glare the Redguard shot her quickly shot that down.

"I guess so. It was quite a strong flame, I'm surprised it didn't carve through his head," Brelyna responded, boasting her magical prowess. She stayed there a little while longer before Saadia gave her a light jab in the side with her elbow, causing her to disdainfully get up and leave the bed. Just before leaving Brelyna looked back one last time to see if she could go back to bed but was met with another stern glare. Sighing, she passed through, only to see her former victim already outside glaring at her with his still slightly smouldering face.

Resh POV

"You're healing this," he growled, pointing to the blistering marks down the side of his face.

Brelyna sighed when she saw him. It wouldn't be hard to heal him, but she now doubted he would let her travel with him after this. And she would then have to go back to the College where she wouldn't ever be able to have fun like the night before.

"Fine. By the way, I'm sorry about the fireball. It wasn't meant to be so powerful, but I guess I'm a stronger mage than I thought," Brelyna apologised. She realised it probably wasn't such a great one because of the boasting of her magic. Regardless she still pooled her magicka and started to channel it into the wound, slowly but surely closing it.

"It's okay. It's not the worst injury I've seen happen to people in my position. I've even broken someone's arm for walking in on me and my old lover," he explained. Punishment through pain wasn't really an issue to the Tsaesci, so he didn't really care that much about her use of magic.

"Wow… that seems overly harsh. Much worse than what I did," she replied slowly. Breaking someone's arm could potentially kill someone or give permanent damage if not healed immediately.

"It was either that or the woman I was with doing a lot worse. So I think it was more of a mercy than anything else." Brelyna noticed a small look of sadness flash over his eyes, but it was quickly replaced with his normal expression.

Brelyna was also starting to wonder what kind of woman his old lover would have been like to do more than break someone's arm for interrupting. "What was she like to do worse than break someone's arm?" Brelyna inquired, bewildered.

"Let's just say she could be very vengeful. I was her best friend and she knocked me out for days."

"Why would she do that?" Brelyna asked with a shocked voice, this woman sounded horrible.

"In fairness, I kind of had it coming," Resh replied, he looked at the elf again who clearly wanted him to elaborate judging by the stunned look on her face. "I accidentally froze off her finger."

Brelyna was about to ask how, but decided it would be easier not to bother, "Yeah, you 'kind of had this coming' as well."

"I was stunned," Resh stated. It was true though, it was merely surprise when he walked through the door.

"It's alright. I understand the reason you lingered a bit, believe m-"

Resh growled, realising what she was getting at, "Don't flatter yourself."

It was now Brelyna's turn to growl in anger, "What?"

"It's not you personally. It's just you and your new friend aren't really my type." It was true. Neither of them were gold, nor did they have anything like a tail.

"How so?" she pressed, angry despite not even wanting his attention. It was more the insult of him not finding her attractive.

"It doesn't really matter does it? Anyway, you need to carry on fixing my face,"

Brelyna crushed down the anger at him and carried as best she could. "There will still be some scarring, but I've healed all I can. Again, I'm sorry about all that," Brelyna said after finishing all she could.

Resh smirked. Scarring didn't matter to him, he would just have to shed again and it would be fine. He would just go out when the two were still in the city, shed, and claim he made a miraculous recovery from permanent damage.

"It's not a problem. Why don't you stay here another night? That way you can be with her a bit longer," Resh asked her, gesturing towards Saadia's room.

"You're not going to just leave without me are you? Because then I'd have to go back to the College and not on whatever adventurous stuff you plan on doing."

"No, I was considering leaving town for a few hours without you or Lydia," he answered mysteriously, not giving much information to go on.

"Why?" she asked. He'd already earned some money off hunting. What reason could he have to leave?

Resh didn't really want to tell the elf the truth about what he was. He didn't even want to tell Lydia the truth and he had known her far longer. He didn't want to lie either. "For now we'll just say it's important, you'll notice it when I get back."

Also, it's late so I can't be bothered to check if I have already said this but another author by the pen name of "Niwen" has finished drawing a picture of Resh hatching (scene from my other story) for me.