[i]1st of Midyear, Afternoon[/i]
[i]The Three Crowns Hotel - Gilane, Hammerfell[/i]
[hr]
In the aftermath of the failed mission to capture and deliver Nblec Mazrac to the Hammerfell resistance alive the day prior, Jaraleet had been in an uncharacteristically foul mood which had seen the Argonian assassin ignoring the rest of the group and sequestering himself in the gym that the [i]Three Crowns[/i] counted amongst its amenities. The failure of the mission in and of itself would have been cause enough to frustrate the Haj-Eix but what had truly set him off had been the fact that, according to Gregor, Nblec had perished as a result of his interrogation techniques, the Dwemer’s body being unable to endure the strain through which Jaraleet’s methods had put it through the Imperial man had claimed. 

Jaraleet knew for a fact that was untrue. He had been trained ever since he had been a hatchling in the forms of torture, he knew how to inflict the most pain while causing the least amount of actual damage to someone’s body. He knew just how much a body could take, had experienced how much pain, how much damage, someone could take on his own flesh. His training as a Haj-Eix had ensured that he wouldn’t commit such a basic mistake as killing an interrogee by pushing them beyond the limits of what they could endure. What puzzled Jaraleet was why would Gregor claim such a thing? Mere ignorance on the Imperial’s part? Or was there more to what the Imperial warrior had said? Could Gregor have been lying? And, if so, why? 

These questions, coupled with the failure of the mission and the fact that he was held as the one responsible for said failure, had driven Jaraleet to his present mood, which the Argonian hoped to excise his mind of via exercise. 

“So, this is where you’ve been hiding. I suppose mucking up an assignment and getting the words ‘kidnap’ and ‘murder’ mixed up is something of an embarrassment.” A voice came from the doorway. Daro’Vasora entered the gym, her hand running across a rack of weights as she entered, not looking at the Argonian. “I suppose it was a bit much to ask that we trust someone that barely socializes after mysteriously tagging along with the group after the Rangers went to shit, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.” She said, finally turning her gaze to Jaraleet. “Was I wrong?”

“You are.” Came the simple reply from the Argonian as he paused in his exercises and approached the Khajiit woman. “Nblec Mazrac didn't die due to what I did.” Jaraleet said, looking at Daro’Vasora straight in the eyes. “I don't expect you to understand, but I can assure you that I took the utmost precaution in making sure that Nblec wouldn't expire in the course of the interrogation.” The assassin said in a cold, detached, tone, utterly unperturbed by what he had put the recently deceased Dwemer administrator through. 

“Torture, was it? I don’t recall the Poncy Man asking for anyone to torture and interrogate the man you were asked to bring in.” Daro’Vasora replied conversationally, although her eyes narrowed in dangerous slits. “In fact, I’m reasonably sure that no one in this insurgency knows what particular skills and talents any of us have. It seems like an excessive liberty that you lot indulged yourselves in, in fact, if I were to be a betting woman, I would think that the whole idea was to bring in a sympathetic figure of the Dwemer administration to potentially turn to our cause. Hard to do that when you’re ripping out fingernails or whatever it is you do, but this brings into question; how does one as unassuming as yourself with such a wholesome personal story come to acquire the talents of interrogation, I wonder? Others say you were a hunter and a soldier, neither of which require the delicate balance of knowing how to extract information through controlled brutality. The fact you readily admit to violating the Administrator in such a way casts quite a bit of shadow over you, Jaraleet. Or is it something else, I wonder?”

Jaraleet chuckled darkly once Daro’Vasora was done with her tirade, shaking his head slightly before he regarded the Khajiit woman with a look that carried a slight hint of pity. “You are a fool Daro’Vasora.” He said simply, crossing his arms over his chest. “Nblec was never going to live, not really. Did you honestly believe that the Poncy Man would try and turn him into an agent of the Hammerfell resistance? At best Mazrac would have been drugged into a stupor to make him blabber what information he had and then disposed. At worst, and to be frank the most likely case, is that he would have been tortured for the information he had, if not by the agents of the Poncy Man then surely by agents belonging to other cells.” The assassin said nonchalantly, as if he was explaining the most obvious thing in the world.

“As to where I came to acquire such talents...well, sometimes soldiers are called to perform immoral acts for the greater good. But, then again, you've never been a soldier. I doubt you'd understand.” 

“I understand more than you give me credit for,” the Khajiit mused, her arms crossed. “And what of it? It wasn’t our call to make. For a soldier, you’re pretty daft at understanding the fact we need allies. This hotel that we are staying at for free and the resources and contacts we stand to gain? Jeopardized because of the likes of you because you have a short-sighted bloodlust. If Mazrac blabbed and told you something vital, you’re asking these people to take the word of someone they don’t know who murdered a person they instructed you bring in to them, demonstrating an incredible inability to follow simple instructions. 

“So what, maybe they kill him and interrogate them at their leisure? That’s the point; it was their decision to make. Ever consider this was a test to see if they could trust us with something actually vital and important that could actually make a dent in the Dwemer occupation? Or would you rather blindly go on raids again and watch as 90% of our outfit is slaughtered? Tell me, Jaraleet, oh wise one, what was the plan here?” She stepped closer to him, staring him up in the eyes. 

“Or do you think they’re benign and not above discarding of us as they see fit if we endanger their operations? They have an entire network of people doing all sorts of dirty work, we’re going in blind. Want to find out what happens when you fall asleep and they decide that you aren’t worth the bread they feed you?”

“I didn’t murder Nblec.” The Argonian repeated coldly, staring back at Vasora with a harsh look. “And I didn’t torture him for such a petty reason as sating my bloodlust or any other inane reasons like that. I did what I did because it seemed necessary at the moment and if the Dwemer hadn’t raided the safe house in which we were holding Nblec I’d have handed him over to the Poncy Man so that he could verify the information I obtained first hand.” He continued, letting out a dark chuckle when Daro’Vasora asked him if he thought that the Poncy Man and the rest of the Hammerfell resistance were bening.

“Oh, I don’t, not at all. I know full well that you, me, and the rest of our group are disposable pawns to them. I’d be surprised if that wasn’t the case truth be told.” He said with a shrug. “But why does this bothers you so much? It’s not like you care about the Dwemer, do you? Or are you perhaps worried that I’m a risk to you and the other members of the group? If that’s the case, well, I must admit that I’m surprised to see that you care so much after your….candid words to Rhea in Anvil I thought you didn’t care about anyone in this little group of misfits.” Jaraleet said, regarding the Khajiit woman with an inquisitive gaze. “So, again I pose you the question, why do you care so much?” 

“You’re right, I don’t care about [I]you[/I], I care about the people I’ve been with since this whole sordid mess began, you’re just a tumour that grew out of nowhere and immediately started causing issues. I won’t hesitate to cut you loose if I have to.” She replied darkly. “I decided that the best thing for everyone is if we had a chance to get out of Anvil and Cyrodiil and everyone could go their own separate ways, but here’s a chance to actually do the right thing, a foreign concept to you, I’m sure.” she said, stepping away from Jaraleet and talking a walk about the room, taking in the details and needing space from the Argonian. “My uncle died in Imperial City, and in my grief, I did some stupid things, I’ll admit. Here’s my chance to try and make the Dwemer suffer a bit for what they did to him and maybe ruin their machinations along the way. We were never going to beat them honestly, but Jaraleet… whatever it was that prompted you or whoever to torture and murder that man did is not the way to do it. There’s going to be reprisals, you know that, don’t you?” she asked, looking at him from across the room.

“Why are you here, with us, doing this?” She asked, a bitter tone in her voice. “Why are you latching onto us like some overgrown parasite that doesn’t know where else to inflict his miasma? There’s a dark cruelty to you, and you clearly aren’t the sort to think things through. Great, you planned on obtaining information by torturing someone who was popular with the locals. How do you think them and the Dwemer are going to react when they find out what you had a hand in doing?” she asked. “It’s going to be harder to do anything because heroic acts like freeing prisoners is going to be hard to suppress with the people, but finding out that the so-called freedom fighters are terrorists who are worse than the occupiers? What were you thinking?”

“That I was doing a necessary evil.” The Argonian stated simply. “Make no mistakes Daro’Vasora, I don’t do the things I do out of a desire to inflict pain or to be needlessly cruel, but rather because they are necessary steps. I’m fully aware of the nature of my acts, and I’m willing to pay the price for them when then the time comes.” Jaraleet continued, letting out a sigh. “For every one of these so called ‘heroic’ acts there’s someone like me behind them, doing the dirty deeds that need to be done to ensure victory for whatever group they support. So it has been throughout the length of history, it is a simple fact of war nothing else and nothing more.” 

“The truth of the situation is that, sooner or later, everything in war becomes a calculus of result versus costs. What is one willing to sacrifice to ensure victory? I’d say that, historically speaking, the side who is willing to sacrifice the most is almost always the assured winner of a given conflict.” He said calmly and by memory. “As for why I am here with your group right now? It’s because our goals intersect. I seek the defeat of the Dwemer, same as you do.” Jaraleet said, letting out a tired sigh. 

“What is the point of this bitter tirade of yours anyways? If you believe me to be such a detriment to the group such a...parasite as you put it, why not cut me off? I’m sure you could that do easily, as you yourself noted I haven’t been with your group all that long and I doubt you’d get anything more than some token complaints if you decided to do that.” He pondered, tapping his ching as he thought. “Or is it merely that what I did was just a reminder of our current situation, of it’s costs, and I’m just simply a convenient scapegoat for your frustrations?”

“Unbelievable.” She breathed, turning her tone to a mocking approximation of the Argonian, “‘I did what was necessary by not following orders because it’s way easier to interrogate and torture people on the go than follow simple instructions’. None of that was necessary, you elected to do it yourself. And up until now, I didn’t think you were a risk to everyone’s well being, but congratulations; you’ve just made life worse for us all and potentially put us on a dark list for those whose roof we sleep under. The winners of wars aren’t the ones who are willing to sacrifice the most; the Rangers were willing to sacrifice nearly every man and woman in its ranks to free prisoners, and look where that got us. Pick up a history book sometime, Jaraleet; wars are won through superior logistics, alliances, and having the manpower and talent to use it, not squandering resources on stupid-ass risks with no potential pay off.”

She crossed the room suddenly, jabbing a pointed finger into his chest. “None of that was your call to make. You want our interests to keep coinciding? Then start acting like you belong rather than acting on your own twisted personal whims. I have my own goals, and right now, one of them is making sure that we never end up in a situation like we did in Imperial City or the Rangers again; acts like you did are going to add up. The Dwemer have a loose grip here, but you know full well what happens when that tightens, or did you think that some low-level government stooge was going to contain some big war winning secret that you felt it was worth risking all of that instead of just bringing him him like requested? You want to defeat the Dwemer? Then maybe not be a fucking lone wolf and start following orders. 

“If you can’t do that, fight the war on your own terms, but don’t drag everyone else down with your stupid ass. I’m not going to stand here and watch as you and people like Gregor start to erode what little guarantees the group have of protection because you are incapable of seeing a picture bigger than what’s immediately in front of you.” She said, turning to leave. She stopped at the door frame, looking back. “You know there’s very little chance this little chat of ours wasn’t overheard by one of them, right? The walls have ears, the ceiling has eyes. You may want to consider what you’re willing to sacrifice to accomplish something great, or wither away into the dirt because you spent yourself on something so incredibly petty that it’s less noteworthy than a man who dies in a cavalry charge.”

“I already decided that a long time ago Daro’Vasora. So, go and do what you think is best for this group. Be it keeping quiet or handing me over in a platter to the Poncy Man to ensure that you and your friends will be safe, I won’t hold it against you.” The Argonian said with a light shrug, unperturbed by the Khajiit’s words. “Just remember what I said, you might not share the same beliefs that I do but, who knows, it might prove useful to you one day.”  

She let out a terse smile. “Turn you over? I may barely know you or consider you one of us, but you’re way more so than a man who won’t tell us his own name. All I ask is that you think of the others first next time; we’re in dangerous territory and we can’t afford missteps when potentially everyone is an enemy. We need to know which is which, understand?”

“I understand. And I apologize for putting the group at risk, I will endeavor to be more careful from now on.” The Argonian conceded, nodding slightly in Daro’Vasora’s direction before he turned his back to her and resumed his exercises.