Crossfire (A Skyrim Fan Fiction)

Chapter 2: Back in Black

WARNING.  There's been a little confusion, so real quick, I just want to clarify that this is a sequel and crossover of both Not Alone AND But I'm a Black-Briar, so this book contains massive spoilers to both books!

Kisvar

    I was trying to explain why I'd been gone for so long to Ulfric, but every time I said more than three or four words he interrupted me. I snapped my mouth shut, exasperated and wishing that if he was going to keep doing this he would at least use actual words and stop mumbling nonsense. Ulfric stopped speaking, but to my acute annoyance, the mumbling continued.

The fog slowly lifted from my brain and I realized that the sounds weren't being made by Ulfric at all. Now that my mind was clearer, the mumbling changed into the sound of low voices speaking somewhere around me. My eyes felt as though they'd been sewn together, but I forced them open anyway in order to locate the source of the voices. "Vex?" I asked hoarsely, my voice barely more than a low whisper. Divines, how it hurt to talk!

The voices stopped, then the locks of pale blonde hair that had let me identify her leaned closer. "Finally," she said, her voice both sarcastic and slightly relieved. "I was wondering how much longer you were going to sleep."

"What happened?" I turned my head slightly to look beyond her, completely bemused by the sight of shelves on the other side of the small, well-lit room.

"I was going to ask you that question." Vex watched me. "You came here with Brynjolf two nights ago, told him you'd been trapped in Apocrypha, then collapsed."

My memory came flooding back and I let out a snort that hurt too much to be worth the effort. "You mean Brynjolf drugged me," I corrected her, trying to move my mouth as little as possible.

Vex just shrugged.

Taking a breath, I closed my eyes and searched my mind, but there was nothing but my own thoughts. Hello? I thought tentatively, thanking Talos when not even a whisper of alien thought brushed my mind.

Immensely relieved, I tried to close my right hand into a fist, but my fingers just wouldn't bend enough to touch my palm. Sighing mentally, I lifted my left arm with a groan (why was it so much heavier than normal?) and touched my throat gently. My fingers brushed against fabric that ran in a circle around my neck.

"Your throat was burned pretty badly," Vex told me. "Probably why you sound like a horse stepped on your throat."

"Feels that way." I kept my words short. Carefully, I bent my undamaged right leg and used it and my left arm to lever myself into a sitting position. Now that the initial shock of waking from unfeeling sleep to sudden pain had faded, I decided that it was bearable enough. "Where are Brynjolf and Delvin?"

"Brynjolf is catching up on some sleep and Delvin is working the books," Vex told me. "You should try to get some more rest as well. Let the healing potion work."

"Yeah," I said a trifle unwillingly.

Vex shook her head and said bluntly, "What is wrong with you? Brynjolf said you pulled a sword on him when he offered you help and you intended to leave Riften without coming to the Guild at all."

"Vex, last time I saw Brynjolf he shoved me into a wall, held a dagger to my throat, and told me to stay away from his guild. I didn't know how he'd react- how any of you would react- to finding out I was alive." And a voice in my head was tearing my skull to pieces while I was trying to talk to him, I added to myself.