The Thief of Hearts (A Brynjolf Fanfic)

12

(Warning: Mature content ahead)

~

What happened next happened so fast, I could scarcely recall anything. We fought tooth and nail, powering through men and races of Skyrim within our own home. Maven stood at the head of the steps, white as snow and grinning through darkened lips, her madness completely controlling her now. I watched as comrades fell beside and around me, shooting arrows and screaming for their mothers as they were struck down while defending the only home they knew. I grabbed a knife meant for food, not battle, stabbing it through the eye of an assassin. I watched as Tonilia gutted a guardsman who was attempting to force himself upon a slender girl with a fierce cut across her forehead.

I silently wondered why this happened...I quietly watched in horror as my brethren were literally slain and left in pieces about the Ragged Flagon, the only home I knew as of this past mournful year. I heard shrieks like I'd never heard before, sobs from grown men like they were mere boys. I began to wonder if Nocturnal still cursed my ignorance those months ago. It seemed that since I had arrived to the Thieves Guild, we had been through hell and back with the slaughter of Jarl Laila and now Maven haunting us, toying with our lives as though she was a cat and we were mere mice. I was enraged; I was tired of this all happening. I didn't want this for my beloved friends.

The fight ended as fast as it had started. While we lost the majority of men, many assassins and guards littered the floor of the Ragged Flagon. Maven called a retreat and the Dark Brotherhood dissolved into the darkness, fleeing the Ratway. The guards surrounded her, rushing her from our home. We were left with the bodies of the dead, like the fields of war and not a place we once called home. I saw youths younger than myself, staring with glassy eyes; men with their heads bashed in, a woman with her jaw missing. Such horrors and massacres as I'd never imagined.

Brynjolf survived the fray. He was covered in gore, falling to his knees amidst the dead. He looked shocked; he looked dead himself. I heard Vex's screaming sobs as she held a girl no older than fifteen in her arms. Vekel was slouched against the wall, an arrow through his heart. Niruin had a piece of his tapered ear missing. I looked around, unblinking. Why would Nocturnal allow such a thing to happen? Why would she do this?

"I'm going to murder her," Brynjolf announced with a surprising amount of calm. "I'm going to slit that bitch's throat and feed it to the dogs."

"Why did she do this?" Delvin asked, limping on a broken foot.

"It was for show," Sapphire announced. Her face was doused in blood, making her eyes pop sky-blue. "The months of solid nothing, and now this? It was a message."

"She's playing god," Vipir whimpered. He had a deep gash in his arm and was turning white in the face. He ripped the end of his tunic and wrapped it around his bicep to stop the pouring blood.

"She dies." We turned as Brynjolf stood. He continued to gaze at the lake of bodies. The water began to turn a disgusting mixture of blood and guts, the smell more foul than a dozen unwashed stables. "I'll kill her myself," he said slowly.

A deep chuckle made everyone jump. To our utter, dark surprise, a man in black studded armor was slumped across a table. He was missing a hand and his left eye was so swollen I believed he had to be blind. "You're all fools," he rasped through bloody lips and broken teeth. "Maven has gone mad. She's planning on purging Skyrim like this."

Brynjolf marched over and grabbed him by the collar. The assassin was so weak from blood loss that he didn't dare struggle. Brynjolf's eyes blazed viper-green. "She won't get away with this," he snarled.

"She'll do what she must," the man choked. "Have you seen the influence she has over a city? Just think what she'll do to the rest of the world. It may take...a while. But she'll...kill everyone."