[center][h3]One Way Or Another[/h3][/center]
[sub]a Father Hank and Stormflyx production[/sub]

[i]Evening, 6th of Midyear, 4E208
Gilane, Hammerfell[/i]

She hadn’t returned. 

Gregor had armed and armored himself, cursing up a storm as he did, and left the hotel, heart thundering in his chest. That cat-bastard had her again, he could feel it in his guts. He never should have let her go on her father’s errand alone. Terrified and enraged in equal measure, Gregor hardly knew what to do with himself as the black knight stalked the bowels of Gilane, and even less where to begin his search. He did not know what the Khajiit looked like or what his name was, let alone where he made his lair, and the idea that Gregor would somehow chance upon him was ridiculous -- and yet his mind was so overwhelmed with emotion that he could not think clearly enough to come up with an alternative. It was a pleasant, balmy evening, not as warm as the previous days, and by all rights Gregor should have been enjoying it, spending his hard-earned cash on something nice. But no, here he was, scaring the beggars and thieves that he passed in the alleyways with his bloodthirsty gaze, long strides and veritable armory that he carried on his person. 

After an hour, Gregor realized he was merely pacing the length of Gilane, eyes darting fruitlessly from shadow to shadow but seeing nothing. He stopped just a few yards shy of one of the bazaar’s main streets, staring at the crowds from the gloom that shrouded him as dusk fell across the shimmering city. His breathing was heavy and his fingers were trembling. He took a deep breath and forced himself to think, pushing his feelings back into Pandora’s box with all the discipline he could muster. There was nothing else for it; Gregor was not equipped to handle this situation. He closed his eyes and wilfully summoned his dark companion. When his eyes opened again, a different person looked out over the streets, and a small smile played around his lips. 

The Pale Reaper had an idea. 

He turned on his heels and marched back the way he came, head held high and face inscrutable. By the time he reached his destination, having made sure that the street was devoid of Dwemer patrols before showing up and knocking on the door, there was no trace left of the trembling and incoherent Gregor, and he looked for all the world to see like a gentleman warrior merely calling on an acquaintance. He stepped back and waited, hands clasped behind his back. 

For once, it would not be the towering Redguard who answered the door. Instead, the Hawkford Patriach. This evening, he was dressed in a light robe and slippers. Comforting. He needed it. On his desk was a crystalline bottle of rum, and beside it a short glass. He shuffled over to the door - he already knew who was on the other side. His intuition. Ever since Zaveed had pulled the rug from under him and changed the plans, he knew there would be some… [i]setbacks[/i].
He hesitated over the handle for a moment, taking in a deep breath. He knew that Gregor was on the other side - but how would the man be? He didn’t know him well enough. He put himself into the shoes of the Imperial. He thought about how he would act if his Roxada went missing. The only real reaction to that would be to burn down cities until she was found. That however, was Roxada, his wife. Raelynn was merely a companion to Gregor. 

He opened the door, a cold expression would meet Gregor’s eyes from behind the spectacles. “Mr Sibassius, do what do I owe the pleasure?” Ignorance would be his method, at least for now. 

“Your daughter is missing,” Gregor said, his voice sharp as a knife, and swept past Salasoix without asking permission. His gaze lingered on the bottle of rum as he stepped into the older man’s office and he smiled knowingly. He turned his head to look back at Salasoix and the look in his eyes was unmistakable -- something dark and terribly dangerous lurked in there, inexorable and unstoppable. He would not be denied. “Sit,” he said and gestured towards the chair that Salasoix had just vacated to open the door. “We will speak now.”

Salosoix let him have his moment, it reminded him ever so slightly of a child building to a tantrum. He uttered nothing but a breathy chuckle as he moved past him with such an aura that it caused his robe to flutter in the breeze he caused. He closed the door, his eyes falling to the floor with guilt. She was missing after all, it had been his doing. But it was to save her, and he knew that she would be alright. He had ensured this. He had to maintain a brave composure now, to continue to protect her. She was not out of the woods yet, he knew it. 

“Is she now?” he began in an arrogant and lackadaisical tone, almost melodic, “is she missing, or is she exactly where she should be?” He turned back to face Gregor - his presence had brought a heaviness to the room that couldn’t be avoided. He made his way over to the desk in a relaxed fashion, almost deliberately taking his time, testing his guest’s patience. “When did you last see my dear Raelynn today?”

The Breton’s laconic behavior all but confirmed that which Gregor had suspected; Salasoix knew something. “Just before she left after you summoned her,” he replied, playing along for now, and took a seat without waiting for his host to do so first. He would not allow Salasoix to control the conversation entirely. He clasped his hands in his lap and tilted his head. “She did not come back. You know what that means, Salasoix. You’re not stupid.”

“Yes, I do know what that means. She’s where she needs to be right now.” He did not take his seat - and instead made his way to a cabinet on the furthest wall from the desk and removed a glass from inside. It matched the one that he had been drinking from. “She has been [i]missing[/i] for some hours now, I ask you to think of how many hours. I would then ask you to imagine how far away from Gilane a ship can get on it’s voyage back to High Rock in those same hours. She’s where she needs to be, Gregor.” He appeared behind Gregor, leaning over him to place the empty glass down, before moving around to his seat at last. 

He said nothing, and made no eye contact with the man and instead poured them both a glass of the rum. “Do you really think I would allow her to remain here?” His hand hovered over his glass, and he pondered momentarily on whether to follow up his question. He chose not to - lifting his head to look Gregor directly in his eyes - they repulsed him with their dangerous vacancy and his lip visibly curled - something in there wasn’t [i]right[/i]. Something about this man was [i]off[/i] and he’d known it from the instant he’d met him only days prior. 

Nothing visibly changed but Gregor’s face still took on an inexplicably chilling expression, like the suspended blade of a guillotine, and he leaned forwards in his chair. “You insult my intelligence,” he said softly. “What you [i]allow[/i] is irrelevant. You have no power over Raelynn. She is not on her way back to High Rock. She’s here, in Gilane, in the claws of that fucking Khajiit, and yet here you are, sipping your rum and lounging in your bathrobe. You have resources, wealth, influence -- a man like you should be out there, organizing the search party, petitioning to the Governor, spending monstrous sums of cash to get your daughter back. The only reason that you’re not is because you know something.” 

He let his words hang in the pregnant silence of the room for a few seconds, staring daggers into Salasoix’s eyes. “I want to know what you know.”

Once again the Breton let Gregor do what he needed to do. Pointless and futile to interrupt a man like this, and yet something about him completely hit a nerve in Salosoix. There was an unmistakable tenebrosity about him that only made him doubt his own daughter’s judgement. He had to take a sip from the glass just to restrain himself. His jaw clenched. [i]The nerve of him.[/i] “Gregor, the only resource a man ever needs,” once again his crooked smile flickered over his thin lips as he reclined in the chair - knowing that his blase attitude in the situation was stoking the flames within the Imperial. It was a game he probably shouldn’t be playing, and yet he was doing it anyway. Poking the bear with a rather sharp stick - and right where it hurt too. He lifted his hand, pointing his finger towards his head before gently knocking against his skull, “is this one.” 

He cleared his throat, ready to go for another poke so soon. He too leaned forward until his face was inches from Gregor’s. The iron in his eyes was the opposite of the calming blues of his own, it made his skin crawl to look them so dead on, and yet he was hypnotised by them too. “Of course I fucking know where she is. She’s where she needs to be, I told you.” He pushed Gregor’s glass closer to him, inviting him to drink. “Indulge me. Tell me how you plan to save her from the claws of the Khajiit.”

Gregor pointedly ignored the glass. His anger was threatening to rise to the surface and make him do something stupid, but the Pale Reaper silenced it, overcoming his base impulses through sheer willpower. “If I told you that, I would have to kill you too,” he said flatly. “You don’t know the first thing about me and, for your own sake, it’s better if it stays that way. Tell me what you know.” He hadn’t moved an inch since he started talking and the air was charged with the superhuman restraint that was necessary to stop Gregor from flying at Salasoix and beating the truth out of him. 

“The reason that I do not use any other resources, the reason that I am not tearing my hair out right now is because my daughter, like me, is resourceful. She found her way out of his clutches once. She will do it again. I made sure of it.” He knew better than to engage Gregor in conversation regarding himself. His threats were palpable and real and that was enough to slow Salosoix down on pressing those particular nerves any more. He closed his eyes and sighed, bringing his elbows to the table, his hands together, as if in prayer. 

“I plan everything. I always have, and I always will. You are a man of great strength and no doubt you have physical prowess. I know this to be true because you and the Argonian took down several men with little difficulty. I was not blessed with such talents - nor was I ever interested enough to pursue them.” Salosoix opened his eyes again, locking onto Gregor’s once more - only this time, a fierce fire brewed in his own. He blinked slowly and let his fingers interlock together. “I was blessed with the gift of an amazing mind, it has served me well. Everything I have is because I am smart, patient, and because I [i]plan[/i] for every eventuality. I knew that you would be here this evening, and here I am, buying my daughter more time because I planned it that way.” Once he had said the words, he sat back in his seat - tired of being so close to the Imperial, his eerie stare had rattled him enough now. 

“If I had told you about any of this, you would have ran in there like a wild animal and put Raelynn in more danger, admit it.” The Breton placed his hands in his lap and looked down at them, waiting for Gregor’s response. There was still time to fill. 

Gregor was a mage. Sometimes, in times of great duress, things happened around mages that they could not explain or control. As the iron mask finally broke and a loathsome scowl crept over Gregor’s face, the temperature in the room dropped perceptibly and the rum in Gregor’s glass froze solid. He opened his mouth to speak but it was as if he could not find his voice, so great was his fury, and his knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists. “You [i]let[/i] this happen,” he said at length, hissing through his teeth. He wanted to scream at him and gouge out his eyes for his arrogance and his insolence, but once again the Pale Reaper’s indomitable will took control and Gregor’s face froze into a look of pure, unadulterated hatred. With slow, deliberate movements, he freed his dagger from its sheath and pulled a small, opaque, purple gem out of one of his pouches before placing both items on the desk in front of him. 

“Speak,” he said, voice hoarse and cold. It was clear that he would not repeat himself one more time. 

He had let it happen. He had been given no choice - it was a choice that he had very little time to make, with his daughter’s life on the line in both. He had chosen the lesser of the two evils. It didn’t make what he had done any less evil. He had been sitting with it in his gut like a boulder ever since. It was only the knowledge that he had done everything he could to ensure her safety, and a safe escape for her afterwards that was holding him together. He looked at the gem on the desk like a man defeated, his eyes watering underneath. Nobody had known about this - not even Zhaib. Nobody had known that he had played a part in this - he had been carrying it on his shoulders, a heavy burden to carry. And yet, he would not be threatened like this in his home, over his daughter. Over his Raelynn, not after what he had done to protect her, what he had been forced to expose her to. 

He stood up abruptly from his seat, his lips pursed and face hot with an anger of his own. If Gregor did this to him, took his soul - then so be it! But he would not, he felt a semblance of safety - even if it was a thin ice that he was now dancing on. “She is my daughter, my [i]only[/i] daughter. I had no choice,” the Breton emphasised every syllable he spoke now as his fingers grasped at the mahogany of the desk. He looked down. “She is alright, she is safe, Gregor. She was bait - that’s all.”

He shook his head - eyes still pointed at the floor. After a moment, he returned to an upright position and took his glass in hand once more. Inhaling the scent of the rum before finishing the last of it from the glass. “The warehouse district, the outskirts of it - the dilapidated ones,” Salosoix said softly, almost a whisper. “She’ll be making her escape now, she’ll need you.” For the last time, Salosoix looked into Gregor’s eyes - severity etched across his face. The look that only a parent could give. “She’ll need you. She won’t need this,” his hand washed over the gem and dagger. It was a warning, as much as he could muster. [i]What the fuck is she thinking?[/i] were his thoughts. It was his only thought. For the first time in his life, he felt… a divide.

Somewhere deep inside Gregor, he was moved by the display and admired Salasoix’s bravery and defiance in the face of a fate worse than death. But the Pale Reaper was in his element now and he was not yet satisfied. Raelynn’s safety was what Gregor wanted -- but [i]he[/i] wanted a blood-price. He got to his feet and casually returned to the dagger and soul gem to where they came from, but he did not leave. 

“That’s not good enough,” he began, hunger evident on his face and an insufferable sing-song tone to his voice. “The Khajiit. Tell me his name. Tell me who he is.”

“He is a piece of lowlife scum whose name is Zaveed.” He took no time in speaking his name, it rolled off his tongue and he was delighted to say it. He still held pause, thinking it over. He had no regrets - the Khajiit deserved to be killed. It probably should be Gregor to do it. Something was still wrong, still there was a lingering thought in his mind ticking away, agitating him. [i]Of course[/i] - “Gregor,” coldly, the second name was said as he addressed his guest one last time, “this is not my story, it is not yours. It is [i]hers[/i]. You must let her tell you his name.” He hoped the man understood, and at last Salosoix sat back down in his chair with a wistful sigh and his head in his hands.  

Gregor walked over to Salasoix’s side and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. It was almost comforting, were it not for the strength of his grip, and he bent over until his mouth was level with Salasoix’s ear. The Breton wasn’t looking at him and did not see the crimson that flashed in his eyes. “Everything is mine,” the Pale Reaper whispered. He remained still for a few seconds more before he suddenly, like an arrow loosed from a bow, turned around and flew out of the room, the house and onto the streets.

“That’s what I’m afraid of…” whispered Salosoix as he gazed out at the open door and upon the desolate streets of Gilane.