[center][h1]The Blood of Martyrs and Tyrants…[/h1][/center] 10th of Midyear, 4e208 Gilane, Hammerfell Freedom, they cried, Blood and Freedom… [hr] “You look dashing.” Latro heard the Dunmer speak, “If you had bronze skin I wouldn’t be able to tell you were Breton under there.” “Reachman.” Latro corrected. “Hill-Scum.” He heard Thunderhead’s voice roll. “You Forsworn? Figure a Forsworn would find some way to go back to living in shadow and killing innocents.” “Your Dwemer were the ones killing innocents in Cyrodiil.” Latro spat bitter in no particular direction, not knowing where everyone was situated, only that they were rolling in a carriage. “And don’t forget what Ulfric did to us in Markarth, [i]Pale-Shit.[/i]” “Enough!” Sevari’s voice, “If I have to kill the both of you to end my headache I’ll sleep like a baby after.” They were quiet again for a while, the carriage’s wheels crunching over the dusty streets of Gilane and the sounds of the Ministry Agents with him in it. A banging came from somewhere and it sounded like a latch was opened. Latro hated not being able to see but the faintest suggestion of light through his hood. “We’re almost at the meeting area, check your weapons.” The hatch closed again, Sevari’s voice, “You heard him.” All around him was whetstones working at blade’s edges, the curious mechanical sounds of Dwemer rifles and pistols being worked. The Dunmer’s voice, “Anything out of the ordinary, don’t hesitate. We’re all coming back from this, grab a drink and laugh about it after.” “Aye.” Thunderhead’s grim voice. After a little bit of a ride, the banging came again, the latch opened again. “Five minutes, we’ll be at the rendezvous point with Krinnec’s men.” “Oh, Sevari, your friends are here!” The Dunmer said in a mocking sing-song. “Family reunion? Is Zaveed going to pop up again there?” “Shut your hole or I’ll put the barrel of my rifle in it and make another one.” Sevari said, sliding the latch closed again. Latro worked at the manacles around his wrist. He couldn’t go anywhere if he tried before he was stuck like a pig for the effort. Still, they itched, felt uncomfortable in more ways than one. He sighed, just wanting to get this over with, or even settling for taking this damned sack from over his head. “Maulakanth not with us? I miss him.” The Dunmer said. “Don’t you miss him, Two-Shafts? What about your best friend, Zaveed?” Latro supposed the annoyed grunt he heard was Two-Shafts. Supposed as well, that Two-Shafts didn’t like whoever Maulakanth was. Thunderhead’s voice came again, “If we had Maulakanth and Krinnec’s Cathay-Raht boys here it’d be something of a reunion.” “And Gilane would burn just like Al-Aqqiya?” The Dunmer said, “I still can’t believe what Krinnec’s boys did to the place. I would have thought Maulakanth would’ve swept through them like that, but…” “But nothing.” Sevari said, bitter, Latro wondering just what had happened in Al-Aqqiya, “It’s done, Kerztar doesn’t want it coming up again, so I don’t either. Talk of it is dead.” “Like everyone there?” The Dunmer prodded at Sevari’s patience. “If Krinnec’s team hadn’t shown up, we would’ve remained cornered and strung up in the town square for everybody to dance around and sing mighty heroic songs about killing.” Sevari growled, “Do’Jaffi is just a Khajiit that kills for killing alone.” “You can relate, no? Bhaanu Sasra, you and them?” The Dunmer said. Suddenly there was a powerful crunch and the Dunmer was wailing and whimpering, “My finger!” “Now maybe you’ll think twice before speaking out of turn, Knife-Ear.” Thunderhead laughed a low growl. The banging came again, though somehow Latro could feel the franticness of it. Sevari opened the latch, “What?” “Krinnec’s men… their wagon-“ Suddenly the loudest sound Latro had ever heard set his ears to ringing and he was weightless inside the carriage’s walls. He only had a second to spare to think on how the heavy metal walls that seemed like protection at first now seemed like a cage. Then all was that much more black… [hr] He came to. He didn’t know where he was, what happened, all around him was black and an all-powerful ringing in his ears made his head throb that much worse. He could tell he was breathing, then came the realization he had a sack over his head, his breathing causing it to cling damp around his mouth with each breath in. He went to get himself up, spread his arms but he was shackled. There was weight on him, heavy. The smell came to him first, just as the ringing began to die down. Burning, sulfur. And something else, was someone cooking meat? He reached up and grabbed the cloth around his head, yanking it from over his eyes and finally, he saw the bloody horror that the sack kept from him. The weight on him was Thunderhead, lower part of his face missing and dribbling blood. He realized in bloody terror and disgust that he was still somewhat alive, his hand grasping at nothing before he inhaled like the sound of a tub being drained of the last bit of water before a final gurgling cough sent thick bloody spittle about the carriage, Latro feeling it warm on his face. He groaned and cringed at the feeling, letting go a pitiful whimper at the now-dead Thunderhead atop him. The sharp cracks of rifles and pistols resonated within the carriage. He was alone, wondering if Sevari and the Dunmer were still alive. He didn’t see Two-Shafts either. He thought to call for help, but who would answer? He made to sit up and his head swam, falling back to his side, he let go a thin, acidic spew from his lips. He tried again and fortunately was able to shimmy from under Thunderhead’s corpse, the blood from his face making his Dwemer tunic stick to his chest and stomach. He stopped, needing to catch his breath and wait for his head to stop spinning. All around him was the sound of battle, a battle he couldn’t see from inside the carriage. He swallowed, tasting blood on his tongue. He guessed he bit it after whatever had happened. He sat there, waiting. Waiting for what? The battle raged on outside and it didn’t sound like it was going to be stopping soon. Either way, when it did, he didn’t want to know who would be pulling him out of this wreckage. With all his willpower he forced himself to stand, poking his head out of the door, which was pointed open towards the sky now. The scene that greeted him was no less gruesome than the one inside the carriage. Another carriage was in the middle of the road, huge Khajiit tied to it like ducks waiting to be bought on the market from a vendor’s stall. They were charred black, so that’s the meat that had been cooking, he realized sickeningly. There was a blackened crater in the road behind the carriage, he guessed that’s what had toppled them, but he had never seen a fire rune give out that much strength to throw a carriage of Dwemer metal like that. He looked around, saw Two-Shafts loose arrow after arrow, nocking them effortlessly though his face betrayed his desperation. They were coming from everywhere, up and down the street. Sevari and the Dunmer’s Dwemer guns sounded out their cracks on the smoky air but the few bodies that dropped did nothing to make the wave of bodies bearing down on them seem any less bough there were plenty around still, Dwemer and others of every race, Ministry Agents and Insurgents alike. Two-Shafts was the first to go, loosing two arrows at once that struck two of his attackers and dropped them. One through the eye and the other in the throat, dropping the Redguard with a sick gurgle. Even so, the other three closed the distance quick and he had no time to draw his messer before his head whipped to the side at a mace’s terrible swing. Bits of skull and skin flung from him before he dropped like a brick, the pinging of metal to bone reaching even Latro’s ears over the carnage. The Dunmer turned to Sevari, yelling something and before Sevari could answer, he turned to see the Dunmer take an arrow to the side of his head. The Dunmer stumbled back and fell on his arse, hand reaching up to feel the arrow, face all confused as if it hadn’t donned on him yet. He let go a string of gibberish before he tried to stand, eyes going cross and finally he dropped with no ceremony, finally dead. Latro had not seen a fight like this. He had only known the quickness and drama of a duel in the town square, the ceremony of it. Only to first blood or when the other would yield. Even during his time with the Forsworn, it had not been this chaotic. This disgusting and impersonal and horrifying. Sevari ran towards him, catching sight of his head. He screamed, “Go! Get away now!” Latro heaved himself over the side of the carriage and spared one last look at Sevari, turning around and firing a shot into one of the men coming at him before forgoing the range and braining the other one with a mighty swing of the stock. Latro gasped as he saw Sevari jerk back at the dull thud of an arrow into his side. That was the last thing he had the stomach to watch before he ran. A dead sprint away from the scene down an alleyway to wherever was the farthest away from this huge, drawn-out and sick grand display of hatred and death. He ran for he didn’t know how long, just that his lungs were burning and the only thing that stopped him were his legs buckling under the weight of themselves, the dull ache of overexertion making them dead and unwilling to listen to him. He was in the alley that he and Sora had sparred in, the alley that he and Sora told each other that they shared love. As he heard the pounding footsteps scratching on the dusty streets, the yelling of men coordinating their search like wolves on the hunt, he knew this was the alley he was going to die in. He looked down at his manacles and sighed resignation. To fight or just let it happen? What would Francis do? As he saw the first of them come into view, axe in hand and murder in the eyes, he instead wondered not what Francis would do, nor Sevari. He wondered what Pale-Feather would do. With that, he got to his shaking legs and stood to his full height. “Come on then.” He growled, “Fucking coward.” [hr] This was bad. Of course, words like that were useless in times like these. It was times like these where commenting on how bad it was was akin to commenting on how wet the sea is when you’re drowning. Similarly, he felt a rising in his throat and retched up blood. His lips were already wet with it, and Sevari knew the arrow had gotten his lung. He’d need a surgeon, a healer. And bad. He had holed himself up in a house, had to kill the owner when he made to impale him with a chef’s knife. The same chef’s knife he’d taken from the old man easily and stuck in his throat. He looked at the old Redguard, feeling sorry that he had to do it, but it was either the old man or him. Sevari was never too keen on dying for someone else’s bloody fucking convenience. So, as he coughed and gagged up another mouthful of blood, heaved in a rattling breath, he calmly sat behind the overturned table with his rifle pointed at the door one of the insurgents had been working at with an axe. He felt weak, all the strength in him being sapped away despite all the anger. All the spite. He watched the door idly being chipped away, hack after hack as the insurgent on the other side gradually was pieced together from behind it with each swing. He thought on how ironic his life was up until this point. Anger, spite, sorrow. Revenge. That’s all he lived for. Now, a thousand miles away from home, he runs into his estranged family and fate doesn’t even grant him the dignity of dying in a pool of his own blood among however many Justiciar corpses he could make. No. He would die here, in the house of an old man he murdered, murdered in turn by the very insurgents he was sent by the Penitus Oculatus to help. [i]How’s that for bitter ends,[/i] Sevari thought and managed a tired but all the more rueful grin despite himself, [i]I always knew it’d be like this.[/i] Finally, the opening in the door was wide enough and the man on the other side came clambering through. He only made it half way before Sevari squeezed his trigger, slow and even. The Dwemer rifle boomed louder than thunder in the small apartment’s kitchen, the familiar jolt of it in his shoulder. It caught the insurgent center mass, through the chest, forcing him to grunt and then go limp, the hole in his chest smoking. The axe dropped from the corpse’s hands and Sevari worked the lever, the spent shell spitting out of the smoking breech before he shoved another one in with practiced, deliberate hands. Then the door exploded off of its hinges, sending splinters of wood hurtling through the room straight at him, saved by his ducking behind the table. He popped up again in time to squeeze off another round, another deafening crack and another insurgent stumbled and slumped against the wall dead. Quicker than he could reload, another one came bounding through the door, Sevari pulling his senche-claw dagger from the small of his back. He swung his rifle and batted away the mace coming at him, slashing out with the dagger and finding purchase. The dagger bit deep into the man’s guts and sent them flopping out of the deep, long wound the wicked knife wrought. The Redguard went away from him squealing, grabbing at his gut-rope and trying to put it back in, shock apparent in his eyes. Sevari laughed at that, a dark humorless barking as they came at him. He stepped, or more stumbled, away from a swing towards his stomach by an insurgent armed with an axe. He slashed out with his knife and cut his cheek open. Without any more room to work with, he turned on his heel and ran as fast as he could away. Which, of course, was to say that he jogged haphazardly with dragging feet out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him and finding himself in an alleyway. He kept going, not knowing where his flight would take him but not caring, as long as it was away from there. He took the turns and straightaways as fast as he could, sticking to side-streets and alleyways before he found himself among the alleyway zen garden. The same garden he’d watched Latro and Sora spar in. The same garden he’d sent Latro and Jaraleet on the little mission in. The same garden a helpless Reachman was being choked to death in. To his credit, there was a body with a face like a bloody crater next to him. Latro’s manacled wrists struggled painfully as he thrashed about in the grip of the Redguard kneeling over him, a Khajiit watching impassively. He took the few precious moments he had where he went unnoticed to reload, the working of his rifle’s lever cutting off all the noise of the scene. The Redguard stopped choking Latro to look up at him, Sevari’s barrel staring into his eyes. The Khajiit was brandishing his scimitar but had yet to move. Even Latro stared gape-mouthed at him from under the Redguard. “Bad luck.” Sevari said, squeezing the trigger and hearing the crack of his rifle, the stock jolting against his shoulder. Latro and the ground around his legs were showered with bits of brain and skull, the large bullet the carbine was chambered in eviscerating the back of the Redguard’s head as it exited, not to mention his ruined brow. “What the fuck!” The Khajiit yelped, stupefied, “You help this Reachman when your own kind stands with the Redguard? How do you look at yourself knowing you help the oppressor instead of the oppressed? The Thalmor in Elsweyr will fear me and my kin when we come back to its sands! Where will you be?” Sevari let go a long, rattling cough and spat blood off to the side. He took a last look at his fellow Khajiit, finishing reloading as he flapped his gums at him about Elsweyr and oppressors and whatever the fuck. He frowned, “Fuck Elsweyr.” He raised his rifle, shouldered the stock and took in another wheezing breath, “Fuck Hammerfell.” The loud crack echoed off the walls of the alleyway zen garden, the bullet catching the Khajiit in the neck mid-charge and leaving his head lolling about with half his neck and most of his jaw gone. The Khajiit dropped to his knees and then slumped over, dead. Sevari dropped to his own knees next to Latro, who pushed the Redguard’s body off of himself and came to his side. “Are you… are you alright?” “Have you always been that fucking blind?” Sevari wheezed through rattling breaths, “I’m fucking dying. Take me to the safehouse.” “Safehouse…” “In the slums, the safehouse I took you to in the slums, you fucking idiot.” Sevari said, trying and failing not to let panic grip him as he made to flex his hands and finding it difficult. Hypertension. He was losing lots of blood, and most of it inside his lungs. “Right, right.” Latro said sheepishly as he hauled him up and helped him walk. There was no way of knowing if Irranhu cell had betrayed him. They had their blasting powder he’d procured for them and that was that, the fucking bastards. If they targeted his carriage, there was a chance they knew about Aries. He had to get to her, she’d grown on him and he’d be damned if he let her share the fate of Forosien, Thunderhead, and Two-Shafts. Killed like dogs in the streets. [hr] One by one, Latro watched Sevari struggle with the myriad locks upon the door. Finally, the door swung inward and the Khajiit stumbled inside as the door no longer held his weight against it. Pitifully, he tripped over himself and met the ground with his back, letting out a long, rattling cough as he rolled over to spit a gob of blood from his lips, right onto the fur rug he lay on. Latro followed soon after as Sevari called out with grating breaths, “Aries! Aries!” He cried out, “Please…” The sound of hurrying footsteps could be heard coming from around the corner, followed by the exasperated sigh of a woman as a voice complained, “So I take it the commotion outside was your doing? Great. You better be dead or close to dead, because if you’ve blundered something up again…” When the auburn-haired woman came around the corner, she saw Sevari bleeding on the floor, and for a brief moment, her mouth hung slightly agape, rendered speechless mid-sentence. She huffed, shaking her head as she picked up her pace to hurry next to the Khajiit’s side. She sat on her knees next to Sevari’s head, lifting it up onto her lap as she muttered under her breath, “Now what did I say last time about blood on the rug… sanguine on merlot… what are you thinking?” Suddenly she looked up at Latro, eying him with a look of suspicion. Sevari must’ve trusted the mutt enough to bring him here, but then again, he probably didn’t have the clearest mind at the moment. She barked at him and asked, “What happened? Do you know any medicine or restoration?” Sevari lay a hand on Aries’, squeezing her bracelet and looking at her with pleading eyes, eyes that knew the pain that would come soon at his request, “The arrow!” His voice was harsh but was only a grating whisper as he coughed wet into his fist, “It needs to come out. If it’s too deep… you’ll need to push it…” he swallowed and shuddered, “Push it through. I could die.” “You know, for an Oculatus…” Aries muttered as she carefully inspected the shaft of the arrow, “you’re mewling a terrible amount over a risk you knew you’d be taking.” Her eyes darted up towards Latro. “This looks like a dwarven arrow,” Aries said to him, “which must mean it’s pronged and pulling it out isn’t a good option no matter how deep it is.” In one quick movement, both of her hands gripped the arrow and snapped it below the fletching, the sudden twisting motion causing the shaft to splinter and Sevari to groan and let out a sharp yelp. Aries, still unflinching, summoned a fierce blowtorch of fire from the palm of her hand and began singeing away the loose splinters of wood that could potentially catch his insides. Without looking back up at Latro, she snapped at him again, “Well? Speak up! Can you do anything to help or will I have to do all the work?” “I-I can close the wound.” He blurted sheepishly. He was not expecting her to be here, though he remembered wondering whose fineries were here last time he was in this house. Was this Sevari’s lover? He shook that from his mind and knelt down beside Sevari, who grabbed him by the collar, “Once that arrow comes out,” Sevari’s breath was ragged and he swallowed hard, taking another breath that seemed to agonize him, “Aries is going to cauterize the wound from bleeding any more. I need you to close it, do you understand?” His grip grew weak around his collar but Sevari suddenly jolted Latro towards him by his shirt, “Do you understand!?” “Yes!” He said, grabbing Sevari’s hand, “I understand. Let’s do this. Quick.” Aries propped Sevari’s body up for Latro to hold onto so she could get to work, the Khajiit wincing and hissing with every movement. Balling up her hand, she unceremoniously shoved the arrow deeper into Sevari’s body with the heel of her hand before it stopped, just barely protruding from the skin on his back, making Sevari squeal and kick out with one of his legs, eyes screwed shut. Aries pushed on it again, causing the arrow to burst free on the other side, and without hesitating, grabbed the bloody arrow and yanked it free from Sevari’s body, finally throwing it aside. The Khajiit fell limp, head lolling back with his eyes out of focus and staring at nothing. “Hold him still.” She ordered Latro as screaming hot plumes of fire suddenly blossomed out from both of her hands. She barely gave him enough time to prepare as she planted her hands on both sides of his torso. Within only a second, she felt his skin beneath her hands bubbling -- a cue that she wasn’t sure if it meant that even a second was too long, but she extinguished the flames nonetheless and appraised her handiwork. The wounds were seared shut. She quickly took Sevari from Latro’s arms, struggling a little more under the Khajiit’s weight than the Reachman did, and nodded to him. “Alright,” she said, “your turn.” At the same moment he nodded to Aries, he set to work. His hands were glowing golden-white even before she’d cauterized the wounds from bleeding, so just the movement of his hands onto Sevari’s skin had the wispy tendrils of magicka pouring into the wounds like smoke. Slowly, the wounds crept shut, the blackened skin around the holes growing back into Sevari’s skin tone but held the pale of scars. After a long while, he fell back onto his arse, dizzy. He wiped at his brow, looking worriedly at Sevari’s limp form. “Is he,” he gulped, looking from Sevari to Aries and back, “is he breathing?” “Don’t worry about him.” She replied, her voice sounding distant. When she let Sevari onto the floorboards, she searched his body, eventually finding where he kept his weapons. A dagger was found at his side. She abruptly pulled the blade from it sheath, and with it, closed the distance between her and Latro. Its sharp edge was mere inches away from his neck, and suddenly her cold and distrustful eyes were trained solely on him. “Who are you?” She growled. “Latro.” The Reachman said level, chin held high and hands up in mercy, the chains of his shackles softly clinking, “Sevari had me here once, he had me help him with favors.” “Latro?” She repeated, a hint of recognition in her voice. “How do I know you aren't going to stab me in the back? The fighting outside -- how are you unharmed while Sevari lays half-dead?” Suddenly, Sevari stirred behind them, a series of wretched wet coughs escaping him and shaking the whole of him, “Fuck!” He cried, before he grunted and his arms went weakly to his sides, knees tucking to his chest as he groaned, “Fuck. Aries, Latro, we need to go. They’ll find us.” Aries’ eyes bounced between the Reachman and the Khajiit before she muttered something incomprehensible under her breath and took the dagger off of Latro’s throat with a huff, though she still kept her eyes trained on him. “Help him to his feet.” She ordered as began walking across the room where the bed was. It was relatively small, though it gave the appearance otherwise with how lavishly adorned it was. Gripping the bedposts by the foot of the bed, she began dragging it across the floor, scuffing the wood along the way, before giving one last pull and exposing a locked hatch that was previously hidden by the bed. Aries pulled off one of her necklaces to reveal a key that was kept hidden underneath her clothing. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to use this.” She sighed as she went to work. “So you were listening all those times.” Sevari smirked then immediately grabbed his side as he cringed. “Get it open.” Aries side-eyed Sevari as the lock on the latch popped off. As she undid the chains, she replied to him quite casually, “We need to have a conversation at some point about your habit for speaking out of turn.” She flipped the hatch open, revealing a short ladder that would lead them down into an underground tunnel. Aries turned her back to it and walked in the opposite direction, towards a vanity desk pushed against a wall, and her hand reached for an unassuming suitcase which sat next to it before returning. “I’ll go down first.” She said, carefully lowering her suitcase down into the tunnel. “Then you can give me Sevari.” She didn’t wait for Latro to respond or give any indication that he understood what she wanted before she lowered herself into the tunnel after the suitcase, gesturing for him to bring Sevari down once she made enough room for him. “Is she your commander or something?” Latro asked, only smirking when Sevari shot him a scowl. The Khajiit pushed off of him none too gently and Latro snorted as he carefully lowered himself down. “Out of turn?” Sevari asked haughtily before finding the ground with his back as his hand slipped. He seized up on the ground as Latro watched, cringing for the wounded man. No matter how much enmity there was between them before, the fact he saved his life, not to mention came back to find him before doing so, meant something. It didn’t mean he couldn’t chuckle at him as he lowered himself down after. “Old bones starting to give out on you?” “Shut the hell up.” Sevari’s breathless whisper came from behind clenched teeth, “Help me get up.” Latro offered out his hand to the man and he took it. He hauled himself up with Latro’s help, though he couldn’t stand to his full height for how compact the tunnel was. Instead, they continued on, the trio crouching to various degrees. “You built this?” Latro asked. “Oh, yes, I’m a fast worker.” Sevari smirked, before it fell away, “This used to be a safehouse used by the Blades in the Septim Dynasty’s time. Now, I use it.” “I hope the tunnel is suiting you well, m’lady. Wouldn’t want the bottom of your skirts to get too dirty. Haven’t swept down here in some time.” He said, words rife with sarcasm. “Oh, did I speak out of turn again?” Latro supposed it was a good thing that Sevari still had some sort of sense of humor. Though to whom it was a good thing remained to be revealed to him. “You’re talkative for a walking corpse; not even an ounce of humility. You forget your place.” Aries replied in a low growl. “Respective stations notwithstanding, my hands are [i]still[/i] covered in your blood. If you preferred, I could have kept them clean and let you die.” Aries stopped for a second and glanced over her should toward Sevari with a look of pity, “...But I seem to recall an ungrateful kit mewling over his fear of dying. I believe this is also in light of, I can only assume, the [i]second[/i] failure of your mission. So tell me: where is it, you think, you rank in the grand scheme of things?” “When everybody’s neck-deep in shit, everything looks pretty equal, doesn’t it?” Sevari said, Aries’ growl only making him smirk, “Face death without begging for life, sister. Then, maybe I’ll start considering stations.” After a while of walking, Sevari spoke up again, “This wasn’t my failure, Aries. The plan, incite chaos, arm the insurgency, stoke Irranhu cell.” He found himself scowling, but carried on, Latro’s brows cocking at this candid admission, “I worked twenty years alone and I’ve done fine. I let you into the picture, I let other agents take the lead in my mission here in Hammerfell…” “I was almost captured, strung up and gutted because of this vendetta against the Dwemer!” He yelled, the confines of the tunnel almost making it an unbearable volume before Sevari leaned against the wall and erupted into a fit of coughs. Long, wet, gravelly things that made Latro cringe. “Half the reason I even came back to the safehouse was because a small part of me, an iota, was worried. I could’ve left you alone. So, fuck humility.” The sound of Aries’ suitcase hitting the ground followed soon after Sevari’s outburst. Suddenly a small flame flickered to life in her hand, illuminating the dark tunnel that they had been walking blind in. Aries was sitting on the suitcase, staring intently on Sevari with a gaze too similar to how she was looking at Latro earlier. “Look at me.” She asserted. “We don’t have a lot of time, but I want to make sure who it is I have behind my back before I’m surrounded by enemies.” She leaned in and continued, “This is a [i]war,[/i] Sevari, don’t trivialize it by calling it a vendetta. You might have worked for twenty years, but as far as I’m concerned, this is the only thing you’ve been a part of that actually [i]mattered.[/i] Those were [i]your[/i] duties to see through, [i]your[/i] failures, but you’re too immature to accept responsibility. Secondly, you didn’t come because you were worried about me. You came because it was the only safe place in the city; you couldn’t go back to the Dwemer on the Reachman’s shoulders and you couldn’t go to the insurgency because you’re the face of Dwemer lapdogs. You were worried about saving your own hide.” The plume of flame appeared to swell a little larger. “So, you can probably understand why I worry about having such a person behind me.” Aries finished. “So, convince me that you haven’t forsaken your duty to the Empire. We both know the penalty for desertion during wartime.” Latro watched the exchange behind the face of a man who was completely enthralled by a play. It was like one, with this much drama being dropped in his lap. To tell the truth, he didn’t know this woman, she’d managed to hold a knife to his throat and that never seems to leave the best first impression on someone. He still remembered the beating he’d sustained on account of Sevari, the pain, not just physical. But he’d saved him. Come back when he didn’t need to. Sevari hadn’t been breathing all too quietly after the wound in his lung, so it didn’t take a sharp eye or a keen ear to tell that his breaths had gotten sharper and quicker. The scowl also betrayed it. Anger. The Khajiit stepped towards Aries, “My entire life I’ve seen people I cared about die. Left them to fate. My brother and his sister, the woman I loved, two of them. I went to bring back Erincaro’s head to draw out his father from Alinor. The woman I loved herself was waiting for me.” His voice quivered with barely controlled anger, “Tell me that you’d tear down the lives of everyone who cared about and loved you just to fill a hole in yourself. Just to fulfill some shit reasoning of justice or [i]duty[/i].” “Maybe you can.” He spoke, voice low, “So, pardon the audacity of worrying about someone like [i]that[/i] at [i]my[/i] back.” It prompted a slight smirk on the face of the Breton woman, giving just a faint warmth to an otherwise cold and steely expression, but her eyes remained the same. She continued, her voice calm and measured, “Your care is limited to only a few, whereas mine sees over hundreds and thousands. The meaning of duty is the burden of the larger picture. Perhaps one day you’ll see that and understand the stakes are higher for me.” “Normal circumstances under Imperial law would dictate your defense to be insufficient and sentence you to death…” She mused, but then suddenly lowered her hand and the flame shrunk to that of candlelight. “But right now we’re not in Cyrodiil. The circumstance is abnormal. If nothing else, I believe I can at least make do with your morals.” Sevari coughed something ugly, hocking it up and spitting to the side, “[i]Law.[/i]” he smirked, “Do whatever you want with my morals.” Latro watched Sevari push past Aries and continue down the tunnel on his lonesome. He flicked a hand up and a magelight floated from his fingertips. “I cared enough about Latro to fight my way to the first place I saw him at. I care enough to give you two a [i]fucking light[/i].” He growled, “Forgive me for coming back to see if they’d gotten to you.” “What would you have done if they had?” Aries asked simply, her voice following after him. As Sevari crawled deeper into the tunnel and no response came, she looked toward Latro from the corner of her eyes. “Latro, was it?” She asked, waiting for his nod. “I want you to think about that question before we try to rescue your lover.” “Mm.” Latro frowned and shrugged, smirking, “Difference is, Aries, I’ll probably have more friends and less arrows in me when I attempt my rescue.” “I mean to say that you should prepare a backup plan.” She responded matter-of-factly, getting up and picking up her suitcase. As she resumed their pace through the tunnel, she added, “I want her on my side, so I aim to help you… but consider the possibility of finding a new suitor.” [hr] Latro had continued down the tunnel as if he hadn’t heard the last part of what Aries had said to him. He’d already imagined and turned in his sleep with the image of Sora’s corpse, his own mind betraying him in sleep, he didn’t need Aries helping it while he was awake. He just frowned at her and kept walking through the tunnel. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of walking in the cramped space, Sevari held out a hand behind him as the magelight illuminated another hatch above them. Sevari produced his own key and slipped it into the lock, the sound of it popping open. Latro hadn’t realized how much he wanted to be out of the tunnel until then. Thankfully, Sevari placed his hands on the trapdoor and pushed it open while riding to his full height. He stood with his head obscured by the opening of the trapdoor for a second before he ducked back down, “It’s clear.” The Khajiit hauled himself up and over the trapdoor exit, leaning against the wall and panting as if he’d run all the way here instead of near-crawled like a sewer rat with him and Aries. He pushed off the wall as Latro came up. He was sure Aries would make a fuss about no one helping her with her luggage, so The Reachman took it upon himself to offer his hand out. Once Aries was out of the hole, Sevari kicked the trapdoor closed once more, locking it topside. Latro had to help him up from his crouched position he’d taken to lock the trapdoor and watched the Khajiit replace the sandy brown blanket the had been over the trapdoor. It had a curious looking seal on it and as soon as Sevari touched it with the tip of his white-gold glowing fingers, the sheet disappeared and instead only a square of dusty alleyway ground was there in place of it. “Huh.” Latro said, impressed. They continued on behind Sevari and soon came to an establishment that looked nowhere near as seedy a place as he was expecting, nor was it as opulent as the Three Crowns. The dusty street threw up a cloud of dust with the wind, obscuring the building somewhat through a haze of red dust. When it came away and dissipated, Latro saw the sign atop it, [i]The Haunted Tide Inn[/i]. “Alright. We’ll stay here a couple days, lay low. Then we can go to the Three Crowns.” Sevari was racked with a fit of coughs almost immediately after he stopped speaking, Latro stepping up to him and lending him his shoulder and the Khajiit took it. “Let’s go.” Aries kept her pace with the two men, her eyes darting around the Gilane streets while keeping her poise. She eventually found herself at Latro’s side where she seemed to take great care in controlling the volume of her voice. She said to him, “You’re to refer to me as Janelle. I am a merchant from Rivenspire. If it is not too much to ask, I would like to use your eyes while Sevari recovers. I will request nothing more of you than that.” “I’m Shiburi.” Sevari said. “Just Latro. Just a bard.” Latro nodded, turning to Aries, with his easy smile, “I’ll do as much. Janelle.”