3rd of Midyear, 4e208
Morning



Latro sat alone in the little alley zen garden that he and Sora had sparred. Where it had been still and the air tepid, it was now filled with the sounds of chirping birds and warm breezes. It was peaceful, tranquil, beautifully serene. All the things his thoughts and dreams were not. He looked at the bottle of poppy-wine he hadn’t indulged in since Cyrodiil and sighed. He wanted to so damned badly, to feel a measure of comfort. His hands wrapped around the cork but refused to pull and twist. He uttered a curse and set the bottle down next to himself. Nothing was going his way the past weeks and he’d gone beyond getting angry at any of it.

He decided to stand and walk away from the garden, perhaps being among the crowds would help him. The hubbub of the streets did little to calm him once he was walking on them, but he was fiercely determined to find something to take the edge off. With his lute on his back, he cast an errant thought to just set up on a bench and play, but decided against it. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself after the stunt they’d pulled the resulted in Calen’s grave wounding. Something he regretted the other bard had gotten himself into, painfully naïve to just what this war was about. Because of all that, he walked the streets fully garbed and painted like a woman, letting his hair flow freely in the breeze.

He settled for perusing the vendors’ stalls and window shopping along the avenues. As the next hour passed, he’d gotten a skewer of meat and filled his water skin with Daggerfall wine. After a while of walking the streets his eyes were pulled towards something for seemingly no reason. They settled on a pair of hazel eyes that regarded him in the same way a sabercat would an elk. An Ohmes-Raht was leaning against a wall, chiseled, swarthy features and a large build, thick arms folded. Quicker than he was meaning to, he turned away and walked the other direction, trying to put as much space between him and the Khajiit. No matter how quickly he tried to weave through the crowds and disappear the Khajiit was behind him. He had much practice in this, he could tell.

That only set his nerves more on edge. What did this Khajiit want with him? Was he a random thug? Whatever he was, Latro rounded another corner to get away from him, finding himself on the docks after the lengthy slow, but tense chase through the crowds. He tried at a warehouse door but found no luck, as the door handle only jiggled in place. He could feel his heart stomping up into his throat. Two more doors and he finally found one that was unlocked. He quickly slipped inside and climbed to a higher vantage point among the crates. All was painfully quiet, the smell of dust and sea salt mixing, the sound of settling wood. After a few moments, the door opened again and the Khajiit walked in with footfalls effortlessly as quiet as his own. His mouth was dry at that, a hunter of men, but who sent him?

The Khajiit pulled a splintered practice sword from his belt, the same one he and Sora had broken a couple nights before. He hadn’t noticed it missing from the alley when he was there. The Khajiit tossed it, letting it skitter across the warehouse floorboards. “You dropped this.” Came the Khajiit’s deep voice. “You have two choices-“

Latro didn’t want to give him the chance to finish. Noiselessly, he leapt from his perch, poised to land a stone-skinned elbow atop the Khajiit’s head and brain him, but before he even got close to him his vision was enveloped in the brightest white that burned his eyes to look into. He shielded his eyes but lost his footing, clattering to the ground with a grunt, still disoriented.

His vision adjusted and he quickly got to his feet, pain gripping his left ankle as he teetered on his right foot and took a few limping steps. The Khajiit nowhere in sight and there was an eerie silence that befell the room, his blood thumping in his head as his eyes flitted about the room in search of his enemy. He felt a big hand grab his hair in a fist and once again his vision was white as his head met the side of a crate, a searing pain clouding his mind that much more and he felt his ear split, feeling the blood run down his neck. He stumbled, not knowing in which direction as the room spun before once again, he felt himself grabbed by his shirt. All at once, he was weightless and he collided with another crate, breaking it open with his side. He gasped for breath as he lay there, the pain sapping the breath away from him.

“I could smell you. You should use less fragrant soaps if you’re trying to hide from someone.” He looked to the source of the voice, the Khajiit was walking towards him with the pace of someone who had not a worry, “Like I said, you have two choices-“

“Fuck your choices!” He sprang to his feet and launched himself at the Khajiit, finally finding purchase against him as he landed a hard kick to the Khajiit’s abdomen, sending him stumbling to his left.

Latro followed with a left hook to the Khajiit’s face, snapping his head to the left. Not giving the Khajiit time to recover, he launched himself into the Khajiit, knee-first, doubling him over and then another knee to the face stood him as upright as Latro needed him to be. A flurry of lightning quick punches to his stomach knocked the air out of the Khajiit, Latro deciding to finish this by giving the Khajiit a taste of his own. He grabbed the Khajiit by his hair and roared, sending him headfirst into a crate, splintering the wood of the crate with the first hit and then breaking a hole in it with the Khajiit’s face.

Latro stepped back, hand grabbing his aching side and rested himself on a crate. His shoulders heaved with his breath and he watched the Khajiit cautiously. His mouth hung open as he watched the Khajiit stir and then stand, popping his neck and then rolling his shoulders, hands balled into meaty fists. “Tougher girls than you have tried to brain me with a board to the face, little one.”

“Wha-“ Latro tried to mutter but his voice was cut off by a lightning quick palm to his chest, knocking the air out of him in a mist of bloody spittle and slamming his back against the crates he was leaning against.

He lay there spluttering and once again trying to gasp up air, but the Khajiit didn’t waste time in once again grabbing his hair and yanking his head to look up at him. He scarce had a look at the Khajiit before a fist came down once, twice and had him spitting bloody. He’d be unconscious were it not for the mage-armor, but the pain he felt still made him wish he was unconscious. The Khajiit grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up without much effort, leaning his head back and bringing his forehead into his nose hard enough to crack it and make him cry out.

He couldn’t even finish his pained howl before he was thrown once again, this time landing in a pile on the floor, back arching as he hit the floorboards and he let out a cry of pain that came out only as a breathless croaking, eyes screwed shut. He heard the sound of the Khajiit coming towards him, “I’m getting tired of beating you into mud, Breton. I’ve never liked you posh shits from Daggerfall or wherever.”

“I’m,” Latro started, heaving in a breath, “I’m a fucking Reachman, you godsdamned rug!”

He yanked his knife from his sheath, and lunged at the Khajiit, his thrust finding only empty air. The Khajiit grabbed up his wrist and made to throw him again, but Latro pivoted, quite tired of finding himself hurling through the air. He sliced into the Khajiit’s wrist attached to the hand that grabbed him before he slashed out at the Khajiit’s face, but he ducked. Not giving him time to gain back the offensive, Latro put all of his strength into a kick that sent the Khajiit stumbling back when it connected with his chest. Like a charging bull though, the Khajiit came back at him, wrapping him in his thick arms and roaring as he carried them both at a breakneck speed.

Latro grunted as his back found itself once again crashing through a pile of crates. He tucked his knees to his chest and planted his feet on the Khajiit’s hips, but his effort to kick the Khajiit away from him was foiled when the Khajiit brought down his fist like a hammer on his head, whacking the back of it on the floorboards. He felt himself getting picked up before he was slammed on the ground again, breathlessly squirming. The Khajiit let him lay there, Latro heaving in breaths and too weak to get back to his feet. He knew full well now though that if the Khajiit wanted to kill him, he would have been dead long ago.

“Do you want to listen to me or do you want to keep going at this?” The Khajiit asked between breaths, forearm wiping his split lip, “I could’ve snapped your neck from behind at the start of all this, but I decided to see what you were made of. Shame it was just a fucking ponce I found.”

“Fuck you, Khajiit.” Latro responded lamely, it was the only thing he found appropriate, or found at all with such pains seizing his every movement.

“No, [i]Breton[/i],” The Khajiit spat in further insult, “Fuck you. I came to give you a choice, not a hard beating. Are you ready to hear it?”

“Fuck it, just tell me.” Latro struggled to a sitting position, groaning and wincing, aching legs outstretched before him as he rested his spasming back against the mostly intact crate behind him. “I’m not really feeling up to strolling out of this place and resuming the fucking good day I was set on having.”

“Oh, trust me, it’s been a vacation every day since I came to this forsaken desert country.” The Khajiit rolled his eyes and Latro was almost taken aback at how casual this all suddenly was. It was odd times all around though.

“So, my two choices are my money or my life, I take it?” Latro asked, frowning.

“I’d pick someone with a fatter purse. Now shut the hell up and listen to me or I’ll start beating you into shit again, ponce.” The Khajiit took a moment to spit blood to the side, “I didn’t come here just to throw you around like a twig-thin girl until the sun goes down. You have two choices, like I keep saying before I’m fucking interrupted by your limp-wristed pillow-fists.”

“I came to Hammerfell with a very specific task to fulfill. My being pressgang’d into Dwemer service has thrown a wrench into the cogs, but I’m not set on bucking their saddle on me. Not yet, at least.” The Khajiit rolled his neck and shoulders before continuing, a pained look on his face that gave Latro a little too much pleasure in knowing he was the reason for it, “I can either be your friend or I can be the one who kills you and all of your friends. And trust me, if they fight like you, I’ll have a fucking boring time of it. Meet me in that zen garden a few days from now at nightfall, or I can tell my new friends and their shiny rifles where to find you.”

“A few days from now? When will I know when it’s enough time?” Latro asked, face screwed up in confusion.

“I’ll find you. It was easy enough the first time. Nice hiding hole too, you should see mine.” He said humorlessly, frowning, “I wouldn’t want you being the reason I’m dropping your girl’s corpse at the feet of my associates. You should try to be more receptive to new friends.”

“You have an odd way of making friends.” Latro huffed.

“You tried me first.” The Khajiit replied. “Shiburi ibn Sev’Ahmet.”

“What?” Latro asked, looking back at the Khajiit.

“My name.” Shiburi said. “What’s yours?”

“Latro.” He said, before adding, “Your name sounds fake.”

“So does yours, Reachman.” The Khajiit only smirked before walking away towards the entrance where it all began. “I’ll find you.”

It was both a reminder and a veiled threat, Latro was aware. He rested in his crate, still throbbing and altogether still not set on strolling back out and resuming the good day he was trying to have. Before the Khajiit finally disappeared beyond the threshold of the warehouse, he stopped, saying over his shoulder, “Beware the Khajiit with evil in his eyes. He won’t be as lenient as I am.”

“There’s another? Why are you warning me?” Latro asked, still struggling to his feet.

Shiburi stood in the doorway without a word, before he spoke again, “He’s my brother.” Shiburi sighed, “But he’s strayed far from the Khajiit I once knew him to be. I gave you two choices, Latro. He’ll give you none.”

“I see.” Latro said, looking to the doorway, but the Khajiit was already gone.