Brothers in Arms (skyrim/Dark brotherhood fic)

Marked for Death -Chapter 1

Astrid's P.O.V

I turned away from Babette to see a whirlwind of fury slashing through the training dummies at lightning speed. I sighed and advanced on Deanerys. She swung around and struck a dummy at the base of the neck, her two handed sword easily cutting trough the cloth and and stuffing. The head and neck of the dummy fell to the floor leaving the blonde youth panting and growling to herself. I put a hand on her shoulder reasuringly. "What Astrid?" she snarled through gritted teeth. "You need to let out some of that bottled up energy little tiger" I chuckled to myself. steering her outside. Her fiery chestnut horse, Blaze was standing patiently next to my dark stallion Shadowmere. I leapt lightly onto Shadowmere's back, she did the same. "Let's take these guys out for a gallop" I pushed Shadowmere foward and he immediatly took off at a brisk canter. I looked over my shoulder to see Deanerys' chestnut stallion rearing up on his hind legs, his lethal hooves cutting through the air with ease.

The horse touched back down on all fours and shot foward at a thundering gallop, his two-toned mane and tail streaking out behind him like leaping tounges of flame. I asked Shadowmere for more speed, the great almost black horse pushed off his hindquaters with an imense burst of speed, stretching out and powering across Falkreath's countryside. We were deep into the forest now and still flying between the trees. I twisted around in the saddle and glanced over my shoulder, there was no sign of Deanerys and Blaze. I didn't worry about them getting lost, we had galloped along this path many times and we knew it well. I smiled to myself, knowing Shadowmere was the fastest of the pair of horses. I galloped through the dense forest for 30 more minutes before I felt Shadowmere begin to tire. I slowly pulled the horse up and slowed him to a steady canter. I gave him a pat on his sweaty dark brown neck. Suddenly I heard the thunder of hoofbeats.

I turned to see a chestnut stallion flying out of the brush, his rider was smiling triumphantly to herself. The powerful red sallion flew past me, spooking the usually placid horse benath me. Shadowmere flew to the right taking off at a mad gallop. I snatched a handful of mane and went with the dark horse, knowing trying to stop him would panic him more. I loooked up over the frantic horses head and saw a towering Cedar tree looming towards us. Shadowmere veered to the left and leapt over a line of dense bushes. The sharp movement along with the sudden leap took me off gaurd and sent me flying over the stallion's head and landing in a heap at the base of the tree. I stood up, dusting off my tradmark brotherhood armour and went to pull Shadowmere away from the bushes he was now devouring. I led the horse back to where Deanerys was still circling Blaze to slow him down, a heavily leaved branch hanging from Shadowmere's mouth. When Deanerys finally managed to stop the excited horse, she dismounted and led him to where Shadowmere and I stood. "I did some hunting on the way..." She held up a dead rabbit, I looked down at her belt and saw three more hanging from it. "Good, we were running out of freash meat..." I smiled despite myself. We skinned the rabbits and roasted them over a fire, we hade no worry of the smoke drawing attention to us, we were the assassins. I bit into the juicy meat, fat dripping down my chin. I pulled a face as I swallowed the meat, it was OK but it was a little bland. "This needs some flavour!" I declared, searching my bag for something to spice up the rabbit. "I saw a patch of chives somewhere along the path, I'll be right back" Deanerys stood up and pulled herself onto Blaze's back, she cantered him back through the trees bareback, her saddle left abandoned on a low hanging branch. I was poking at the embers of the dying fire, trying to amuse myself when I heard a man screaming. "No! By the gods no!" the snapping of several branches followed the screaming. I stood up and wandered in the direction of screaming.

I emerged into a clearing to see a tall middle aged nord cowering beneath Deanerys. She had a dagger drawn and had the man pinned to the ground, her knees digging into his shoulders. Several differant wounds on the Nords face were bleeding heavily. "I have gold, game, jewels! Whatever you want! Just don't kill me!" The Nord pleaded, but it was no use. Deanerys had slit his throat before he even knew what hit him. She straigtened up and whiped the blood off her face. She picked up the man's bag and rooted through it, throwing anything that wasn't of use to us on the ground. I shook my head and walked back to where we were cooking the rabbit. Moments later Deanerys returned, she dropped a bag of gold in front of me and settled down next to a sweating Blaze to eat her share of the food.

We walked the horses back to the sanctuary. As soon as we stepped inside I heard a farmilliar voice. "The Night Mother has called Cicero!" The blumbering fool, Cicero, was standing in the middle of the main training room surrounded by my deadly brothers and sisters in arms. Abjorn prodded Cicero in the shoulder. "What do you want fool!" he demanded. Cicero shrunk back a little bit. "I...I..." he stuttered looking around at the surrounding assassins. His gaze landed on me. "Astrid!" He yelped, breaking through the group and running towards me in his pathetic jesters costume. "Astrid, the Night Mother, I must see her! The listener is near!" Cicero hopped from one foot to the other, his eyes darting back and forth. The Night Mother had been the original leader of the Dark Brotherhood, now she was just a decaying body in a metal casket. Cicero had convinced us all that she would speak to a single being, that being was the listener. Cicero believed that he was the listener, but apperantly the Night mother hadn't spoken yet. I rolled my eyes at the cowering jester in front of me. "What do you want?" I sighed. Cicero straightened up, a mysterious glint in his eye. "Acess to the Night Mother" He said simply, I should have guessed.