I do not own Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Well. Guess we'll have to see what this is all about, won't we? Ziris will return to the Guild, and from there...

Read on to find out, I suppose.

Reviewer Responses:

Guest: Sorry that I couldn't give you more before now, friendship. College is a busy time, especially since it's the first week, and I literally moved into my dorm a week ago. Bear with me.

Guest: Indeed, she does in fact know the real Mercer, and we'll have to see how the rest of the Guild reacts to knowing the real Mercer.
Hopefully, it won't take too long for Ziris to convince them that she isn't like him. We'll see.

Manu: Thank you for the encouragement, friend. I really appreciate it, and I need it right now. If I completely fail at college, at least I know that my writing might manage to pan out, if I actually ever get to publish my original novel.

mia78: I'm sure Brynjolf's gonna be pissed, if nothing else. He might not even believe Ziris when she tells him that she had no idea Mercer was such an a-hole. And he's probably not happy that he's having the deal with all this shortly after having the best night of his life.
Thank you for reviewing, lovely. I appreciate each and every one!

Chapter 15: Taking a Step

Nothing was apparently different about Riften. The marketplace was still bustling with business. There were still shouts of the merchants, and the sounds of haggling. There was still the smell of the fishery and the sewers beneath the city.

Despite all that remained the same, however, Ziris knew that things had definitely changed. There was a different air about the city, and as she passed by Riftweald Manor, she didn't miss the odd emptiness that seemed to radiate from it, different from everything else in Riften.

And, as she climbed into the Ratway, she felt that homeliness she'd always felt there was missing.

So, she knew, even before reaching the Flagon, that Mercer was almost definitely already gone.

In a way, she was relieved, but in another, she wasn't. Part of her wanted to confront him, to demand to know why, and how, he could've tried to kill her. She wanted to see his face when he realized she was still alive.

Apparently, however, that would have to wait.

She pushed open the door leading into the tavern, and found Karliah first, leaning against the wall, as though she'd known Ziris would forgo waiting at the Bee and Barb for her signal.

She straightened up when Ziris appeared, and crossed over to her.

"Brynjolf is waiting to speak with you," the Dunmer said quietly. "I told him what happened, but I don't know how much he believes."

Ziris nodded, not at all surprised. "He's known something else to be true for a quarter of a century," she said lowly. "I won't be surprised if he still doesn't entirely believe us, even after hearing it from me."

Nonetheless, she started to make her way towards the Flagon. She passed by the merchants' cubby holes as she went, and found them staring at her with unreadable expressions. That same expression was settled on Dirge's face, and it didn't falter even when Ziris offered him a smile.

Vekel, however, looked her over with something similar to pity when she paused beside the bar.

"You really are alive," he said. "We'd been told, but we didn't believe it, not even after Mercer hightailed it out of here."

"So he is gone?" Ziris asked, and Vekel nodded. She exhaled. "All right. I need to go see Brynjolf."

"Be careful about what you say, Ziris," Vekel warned. Ziris glanced back at him in confusion, and he tilted his head. "Mercer said some pretty incriminating things about you before he left. I don't doubt that Brynjolf is curious to see if they're true or not."

Ziris tried to mask her concern. "What did he say?"

"He mentioned somethings about how you'd known something was odd for a long time, but that you'd never mentioned it. He was also adamant that you had wanted nothing more than to take Brynjolf's job since he got it." Vekel offered her a shrug. "I don't know too much. Just be wary."

Ziris gazed at him for a moment, and then she nodded. She should have guessed that Mercer would take advantage of their closeness, to partially blame her for what had happened. He really was a bastard.

She moved away from the bar, aware that Karliah was following behind her. At least she had the dark elf on her side, if no one else believed her.

They made their way into the cistern. Almost as soon as the door closing echoed around the room, the thieves inside looked up and over at them.

Ziris stiffened against their accusatory gazes, and glanced around for Brynjolf. He was already walking towards her, and though he still had that easy going look about him, she could sense that there was a different type of energy backing it.

He paused in front of her, and glanced her over. Ziris stood still, waiting for him to speak first.

"Did you have a key?"

She blinked, and glanced up to meet his eyes. "What?"

"A key," Brynjolf repeated, his voice tight. "Did you have a key to the vault?"

Ziris's hand instinctively went to the pouch on her belt where she'd kept the key hidden. She didn't feel it, and she saw the pained expression cross Brynjolf's face.

"He said that… that he gave you one, because you promised to help him take from the vault," the redheaded thief said through clenched teeth. "I didn't want to believe it."

"You shouldn't!" Ziris said quickly, dropping her hand. She took a step forward, and Brynjolf took a step back. Ziris stopped, and she tried to meet his eyes. "Brynjolf, you know I would never."

"I thought I knew," Brynjolf responded softly. "I thought I knew a lot of things, Ziris." He shook his head. "Now I don't know what to think."

Ziris didn't know what to tell him, either. So, instead, she decided to show him.

"Brynjolf." He glanced at her, and she moved aside the shirt she'd put on, so that he could see the bandages. "He tried to kill me. Why would he have done that, if I'd been helping him?"

Brynjolf stared at the bandages for a moment, obviously seeing their location, and recognizing just how close to death she'd been.

After a minute of silence, he turned his gaze away. "I don't know," he admitted under his breath. "I want to believe you, Ziris, but… the two of you… you were thick as thieves."

Under normal circumstances, they probably would have shared a laugh over his wording, but neither of them were laughing now. Ziris instead took another pace forward. This time, Brynjolf didn't move backwards, and she was able to reach out and take his hands.

"Brynjolf." He glanced at her, and she squeezed his hands. "You know me, and you know how much I love the Guild. You know I would never do anything so horrible to it."

Brynjolf gazed at her, and Ziris gazed back, doing her best to convey her sincerity to him. She didn't know what she would do if he refused to believe her. If Brynjolf didn't trust her, then what was the point?

Finally, he dipped his head. "All right," he said softly. "We need to find out where Mercer's gone."

"Of course," Ziris said, relieved. "What do you need from me?"

Before Brynjolf could respond, Delvin appeared, and Ziris exhaled, letting go of Brynjolf's hand.

"Hi, Del," she greeted, turning to him.

"Are you all right?" Delvin asked her, and she nodded.

"As well as I can be."

"And… you weren't part of all Mercer's plans to bring down the Guild, were ya?"

"No," Ziris said. "Of course not."

Delvin looked relieved. "Thank the Divines," he said. "Y'know, I thought Mercer was lyin', but I didn't know -"

"I'm going to go poke around in Riftweald," Brynjolf announced, cutting Delvin off.

Ziris glanced at him. "You don't want me to go?"

"No," Brynjolf replied shortly. "You stay here, talk to everyone else, and get your head wrapped around what we're going to be doing once we figure out where Mercer's gone."

With that, he strode out of the cistern. Ziris watched him go, and then she turned back to Delvin.

"Don't worry about him, love," he said. "He's glad you're not dead, I promise. I don't think he ever really believed Mercer's claims. None of us did."

"I'm sure you're doing just fine speaking for yourself, Delvin," Ziris said, managing a grin. "I don't know about the others."

She could see that they were all still staring at her suspiciously. Only one other face looked as relieved as Delvin's, and, without hesitating, she hurried across the cistern.

Thrynn hugged her just as tightly as she hugged him, and only let her go when Ziris's let out a quiet whine when her injury started to hurt.

"Sodding Divines," he said, letting her go and gazing down at her. "I didn't think you'd go down that easily, but…"

Ziris smiled at him. "I'm fine," she assured, and then she realized how close she was still standing to him. She cleared her throat and slid backwards a bit. "I'm glad you're not mad at me."

"Why would I be mad?" Thrynn asked her. "Because of what Mercer told us? You don't think I'd be stupid enough to believe something like that, do you?"

"No, no," Ziris said quickly, "of course not. It's just that… Brynjolf believed it, and it seems like plenty of the others believed it, and… it is was kind of believable."

Thrynn shook his head. "No," he said, grinning a bit. "Not at all. I know you, Z. You wouldn't, ever, no matter how close you and Mercer were. You care about the Guild too much."

Ziris gazed at him, and she saw with surprise, and relief, that he was being completely honest. She returned his smile, and her shoulders slumped.

"Now I have to talk to everyone else."

"I don't think that it's going to take too long," Thrynn commented, glancing over her shoulder.

Ziris turned, and found that the other thieves were already gathering around them. Some wore guarded expressions, and a few of them looked down right furious.

"I know what you all must be thinking," Ziris said quietly, addressing them all, "but I can tell you right now that whatever Mercer told you was… all lies."

"Even the part about you having a key to the vault?" Vex inquired darkly, and Ziris glanced at her to see she had her arms crossed, and wasn't looking like she was beyond pulling her dagger.

"No," Ziris said with a bit of deflation. "No, I did have a key. He gave it to me a long time ago, and I never had cause to use it. He told me that it was just a precaution, in case one of the others went missing. I told him I didn't want it, but he insisted." She looked down. "I see now that it was a precaution, but only for him."

"Karliah wasn't lying, then, when she said that Mercer was the one that almost killed you?" Niruin asked.

Ziris pulled down her shirt to show off the bandages again, and a ripple went through the gathered thieves when they saw its location. It clearly didn't match the area Mercer had said Karliah had shot her, and Ziris had at least that going for her.

She put her shirt back in place. "Mercer wronged all of us," she said, "and I plan on seeing through whatever punishment the Guild decides to inflict."

"Oh, good," Vex said, dropping her arms, "because we all agree that he needs to die."

Ziris's heart stopped, and she hoped that it wasn't obvious to everyone else.

"Of course," she said, forcing a nod. "Seems only right."

That seemed to appease everyone, and they all started moving away again, leaving her alone with Thrynn, who could read her better than the others.

"You're not all right with it, are you?" he asked.

"Well… it's what he deserves," she replied, which didn't actually answer his question.

"Z…"

"I think I'm going to go find Brynjolf," she decided suddenly. "Knowing Mercer, he had a secret place somewhere where he would have hidden all his plans, and I think I might be the only one who knows him well enough to actually be able to find them."

Without waiting for whatever Thrynn had to say, she hurried out of the cistern, and headed for Riftweald Manor.

She'd never actually been inside, but as soon as she crossed the threshold, she spotted tiny things that signified the path Mercer had frequented most often. A disturbed trail of dust here, and wrinkled carpet edge there.

It wasn't hard to work her way down to the lowest floor of the home, through a hidden doorway in a wardrobe. What she found at the end of the hidden passage was Brynjolf, looking through a pile of papers on a desk in a small hidden room deep under ground.

He looked up when he heard her approach, and he frowned. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I… I wanted to see," Ziris answered, stepping into the room. "Did you find anything?"

"No," Brynjolf responded after a moment. "Mercer must have taken it all."

Ziris sighed to herself and walked around him, eyeing the desk. Brynjolf stepped back, watching her as she reached a hand beneath the desk and felt around underneath it. After a moment, she smiled to herself, and a part of the desk fell off, landing on the floor, along with several pieces of parchment.

"How -?"

"I know him better than you do, I guess," Ziris replied. She bent down to pick up the parchments, grunting a bit as she did so. She straightened up, ignoring the helping hand Brynjolf held out, and unfolded one of the papers. She read it silently to herself, and then handed it to him.

"He's going after the Eyes of Falmer," she murmured, eyes on the floor.

Brynjolf blinked, and looked the paper over himself. "Damn him," he muttered after a moment, crumpling the paper up in his fist. "We've been planning that job for almost five years now."

"We're going after him?" Ziris asked, and Brynjolf glanced at her.

"Do you want to?"

"Of course not," Ziris replied quietly, "but… I know you don't really believe I didn't help him unlock the vault, and I guess that this would be the only way to prove it to you."

"Ziris -"

"Don't worry about it," Ziris said, offering him a smile. "Really. I think he gave me the key in order to convince you further, actually, so…" She shrugged, stating that she was done, and Brynjolf exhaled a bit.

"Let's get back to the Guild," he said softly, and then he headed for the passage that didn't lead back into the house. Ziris imagined he believed he'd find a hidden passage that led right back, and, knowing Mercer, Brynjolf was probably right. Indeed, he found a wooden door at the end, and when he pushed it open, they found themselves looking at a familiar part of the Ratway.

Ziris hesitated before following Brynjolf through the doorway. "You go on," she said after a moment. "I… I feel like we might've missed something."

Brynjolf gave her a look, and then he shrugged and left her alone. Ziris watched the door swing shut behind him, and then she returned to the hidden basement room of Riftweald Manor, and glanced around for a moment. She didn't doubt that Mercer had taken everything he could with him, but she had to wonder if there was something.

She approached the desk again and began to examine it more thoroughly. Her wound ached terribly, and she exhaled, leaning her weight against the desk. It rattled sharply beneath her, and she shushed it.

She was busy dealing with her pain and the desk, and so she didn't feel the gaze on the back of her head until after a few moments. When she did, however, she went stiff. She knew this gaze.

"You lived."

His voice was dry, and Ziris didn't bother turning around. Instead, she leaned one hand against the wall and closed her eyes, gritting her teeth.

"Did you expect me to die easily?"

Mercer moved so that he was standing beside her. She wondered how long he'd been hiding in the shadows of the corner of the room, and why they hadn't said anything to her. Probably that they didn't want to alert Brynjolf to his presence. Mercer's face was all hard lines and scowl, and he stared at her for a long moment without speaking.

When he did, Ziris winced: "I didn't expect you to come back."

"What did you expect?" she asked him harshly. "That I'd leave? That you were the only reason I was with the Guild? It's my home, Mercer."

"You'll be lucky if they ever trust you again," he told her. "Now that they know you had a key."

"Was that your plan all along?" Ziris lifted her head and met his gaze. "For them to believe I'd helped you? What did you think would happen after that? Did you want me to be run out of the Guild?"

"I thought that, perhaps, you might decide to join me," Mercer said.

Ziris blinked at him, her anger disappearing all at once. Now she only felt disbelief.

"You thought I'd want to come with you? Stay with you after you betrayed the people who have been my family for so long?" She knew that she'd never understand Mercer, but now she didn't even know if she could consider him sane. "What possessed you?"

Mercer's eyes hardened. "I took care of you," he reminded her. "I shaped you into the thief that the entire Guild admitted to being the best. I thought you might recognize that, at least, and decide that maybe I had the right of it."

"The right of it? You must be kidding."

"What's the point of having something like what Nocturnal keeps hidden away if it's never used?" Mercer demanded. "The Skeleton Key is meant to open locks, any lock. The Daedra dangles it right in front of our faces, and she doesn't expect us to take it, and use it?"

"The Skeleton Key." Ziris frowned. "Is that what happened, then? Even after you told Gallus you wouldn't take it, you did?"

"How do you know what I told Gallus?" Mercer asked.

"The shadows showed me," Ziris retorted. "They tell the truth better than you ever have."

The two of them glared at one another for a long time.

"The Key has insurmountable power," Mercer finally said, and he seemed to have gotten rein around his anger. "Nocturnal made us swear an oath that we would protect it."

"And instead you stole it," Ziris concluded.

"It's safe in my possession," Mercer told her.

"If the Key is as powerful as you say, who knows what you might have opened with it!" Ziris exclaimed. "It's dangerous, Mercer. It isn't meant to be used!"

"Then why have it at all?" he demanded.

"Probably to act as a test for Nocturnal to see which thieves are worthy of her blessings." Ziris shook her head at him. "Apparently, you're not."

"Then why hasn't she stripped me of them?" Mercer queried coldly.

Ziris didn't have a response, mostly because she had no idea what she was talking about. She was basing her statements mostly on what she'd seen in her visions. She was surprised they'd apparently made sense, so far.

"Exactly," Mercer concluded. "Nocturnal doesn't care about the Key, or the Guild, or anything. She just wants to watch us fight about it, to tear one another apart. It gives her pleasure." He tilted his head. "Do you really want to give it to her? Be her form of entertainment?"

Ziris stared at him, and she wondered how much of he was saying was actually true. She didn't know anything about the Daedra that they were speaking of, but she did know that Mercer had been part of Nocturnal's group of special agents, and he certainly knew more than she did.

But… he'd lied about everything else. Why wouldn't he lie about Nocturnal, too?

So, she looked away, and shook her head.

"Why… why did you try to kill me?" she asked, instead of answering him. When Mercer didn't respond, she pulled down her shirt to show him her bandages. "You were… about two centimeters away from my heart," she whispered. "How long have you wanted me dead?"

"I didn't want you dead," Mercer said under his breath.

"You tried to kill me!" Ziris shouted. "You tried to kill me, and you have the audacity to tell me that you didn't want me dead? You're lying even now, even after all that's happened! When will you learn?"

"You were never going to die!"

Ziris was taken aback by this, and she actually moved backwards away from him, into the desk. It rattled sharply behind her, and she stared at him in disbelief.

"What?"

"I knew that you weren't actually going to die," Mercer said after a moment of silence. "Karliah wouldn't have killed me, and I knew that her arrow had to have been laced with paralysis poison. It's her specialty." He looked down. "I thought that… that if I gave you time away from the Guild, I'd be able to burn the bridges here, and come back for you."

Ziris couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You thought I'd want to come with you, after I knew that you'd lied about killing Gallus?"

Mercer didn't respond, and she realized that he'd been lying, again.

"Right," she said softly. "I get it now. You… you're exactly what everyone in the Guild thinks you are. I thought… I thought that maybe there was a chance that you were the Mercer that I always believed you were, but… but apparently he's gone. Or maybe he never existed." She shook her head slightly. "It's a shame, because I'm going to miss him."

"Ziris -"

"I'd get moving, Master Frey," Ziris said, stepping past him towards the door that Brynjolf had exited through. "We won't be far behind you."

With that, she left him alone in his hidden room, very aware that she had tears building up in her eyes.

She found that Brynjolf was waiting for her, as though he hadn't expected her to be able to find her own way back to the Guild. He frowned when he saw the expression on her face, and he quickly reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders as though to steady her.

"Are you all right?" he asked, and she forced a nod.

"Of course," she murmured. "I just…" She trailed off, and a sob managed to escape. Without thinking about it, she rested her head against Brynjolf's shoulder and cried into it.

Thankfully, Brynjolf merely circled his arms gently around her.

"Easy," he said softly. "I know, and it's all right. Cry all you want in front of me, since you won't be able to in front of everyone else."

Ziris did just that, and she decided that she could get over the fact that Mercer had chosen Brynjolf as his second-in-command at last, and she could understand why. Brynjolf was a sharp contrast to Mercer, and that was what made them work together so well.

Ziris decided that Brynjolf would make a great Guild Master, and she let herself hug him back, glad that she could do that without feeling the same uncertainty and anger she'd felt around him for far too long.

She decided that she was happy to have Brynjolf back, and she decided that she would need him in the coming days.

There you go, you Bryris shippers. There's your moment. Be happy. Celebrate.

I gotta go sleep, I think. Or write something else. I'm doing this really shitty story about 13 Reasons Why that is based on Dear Evan Hansen, so you can tell how my life's going.

See you next week. Maybe. We'll see.