The Tale of the Opal Assassins

9: Good Judgement

               ~Gudrun~
          Well I guess I'm good to see Theon for the next little while. That's a pleasant thought for this morning. What is wrong with me? I'm about to start a career of killing people and he's the first thing on my mind. I don't think about the blood that will be on my hands, I don't think about the possibility of getting caught, but here I am concerned about how often I'll get to see Theon Greyjoy. It's a hell of a good thing that Ingrid can't read my mind.
          "But I can," a voice echoed in my head.
          What was that? Am I crazy? Maybe Theon was right...
          "No Gudrun," the voice said, "This is not the reason you're insane. Still, I'm surprised you don't remember my voice."
          I thought about it for a moment.
          "Josh?!" I said out loud.
          "Indeed."
          "How are you doing this? Why are you doing this? What the hell is going on now?"
          "It's quite the tale. I'm sure that your parents have told you by now that I am the Listener for the Dark Brotherhood. I listen to what the Night Mother says. She tells me who has been doing the black sacrament and wants a contract."
          "Yes? How does that give you this ability?"
          "Well it's a bit of 'Night Mother Magic,' as I like to call it. She's created a way to put our voices in each other's heads as a way for me to tell you who's been doing the black sacrament in Westeros."
          "So I'm like the listener in Westeros?"
          "Something like that. Anyway, there's something I need your help with in Skyrim. I'll be over to Winterfell in a Fortnight to pick the three of you up."
          "How long will we be in Skyrim?"
          "It shouldn't take too long. You'll be able to see Theon again very soon, but don't tell him where you're going, or even that you're going for that matter."
          "You'll understand why fairly soon."
          "Okay, I'll trust you."
          "Good. I'll see you in a fortnight."
          "One more thing."
          "What is it?"
          "Please let me know if you're randomly gonna show up in my mind."
          "I definitely will. I don't want to see what kind of creepy shit you think about."
          After he said that, I could feel pressure releasing from my head. It was strange. Never thought things like that was possible. However I do know that magic is real. It's everywhere in Skyrim, but I guess it's existence has died in Westeros.
I sat down at my desk and began to write in my journal as I heard loud footsteps running down the hall.
"Gudrun," Ingrid yelled as she barged into my room, "Gudrun!"
I noticed that she was dressed in extremely fancy attire. She wore a long white dress with her finest leather boots. She also wore a necklace that depicted a dragon.
"The king is about to arrive in town," she hastily explained, "We have to be there. Mom said to wear that new purple dress."
"It's too big," I replied.
"Do you honestly think she cares? She said she doesn't want you wearing black, so put on the damn dress."
"Fine," I said as I quickly pulled it out of my dresser.
"Hurry up before we get in trouble."
"I'm almost done. I just have to tie the laces on my sleeves."
"No time for that," Ingrid said as she grabbed my arm and quickly pulled me to the entrance of the house, "Boots!"
I put on my best leather boots and ran out the door with Ingrid. Everyone in town was standing together eagerly awaiting The King's arrival. We ran into the crowd and found our parents and Ireonna. My mother did not look amused. My father just looked relieved that we were not too terribly late.
               ~Ingrid~
          We stood in the crowd and watched as all of the fancy people rode in. I caught a glimpse of the Prince Joffrey, and let me just say that he looked like a spoiled little bitch. Damn I want to punch that kid in the mouth. I saw him making eye contact with Sansa Stark and immediately thought that she must be either a really bad judge of character, or just mentally insane. Perhaps the best part of the whole event was when Ireonna caught sight of Tyrion. Her jaw dropped to the ground, and her eyes filled with joy. I knew that she'd probably soon speak to him. Next the queen showed up in her box thing. Finally, the King stepped off of his horse. Every single person kneeled.
After he exchanged a few words with the Starks, he said that he wanted to the crypt to pay his respects. To which the Queen responded, "You've been riding for a month, my love. The dead can wait." That pissed me off a bit. I mean... How disrespectful!
"She seems like a bitch," I whispered to Gudrun, "We should find a way to drop a chandelier on her."
"Are you crazy," Gudrun responded, "That would kill her."
"I know!"
"Could you even begin to comprehend how much trouble we'd get in for killing the queen? It sounds like fun, but we shouldn't do that."
"C'mon, we're assassins now. We could pull it off."
"We're not trained assassins."
"We've been training with our talents for years now. We wouldn't get caught."
"Maybe not a chandelier, but perhaps a torch holder. We could probably get away with that. However we shouldn't drop it on her directly. We'll drop it close enough that her dress catches on fire."
"I can live with that."
          Ireonna had disappeared for a few hours, most likely to talk to Tyrion. I couldn't help but wonder what she might be saying to the dwarf that captivated her heart for so long and drove her insane.
We later met back up and found many people celebrating inside. The Queen was one of those people. Lucky for us she was standing quite close to a mounted to torch. We found the iron fittings that kept the torch in place on the other side of the wall. It didn't take much for us to rip them out of the wall causing the torch to fall. It missed The Queen's dress entirely, but we could see through a hole in the wall that she was definitely startled. We were quietly chuckling from behind the wall. Our fun was over when she sent two guards to check out what was going on. Ireonna was always the quickest of us, so she was long gone before we could think about moving. Gudrun and I eventually thought to run as we laughed. When we thought we were nearing safety, I saw Gudruns facial expression change. She was no longer laughing. I continued to laugh until I saw what she was looking at. It was our mother. She stood there with her arms crossed. 'Twas the moment that the knowledge came over us that we had fucked up.
                    ~Gudrun~
          Ireonna stepped out from behind our mother to reveal that she too had gotten caught. Mother gestured for us to come to her. We obeyed hoping that our punishment would be light.
          "Now I know that Queen Cersei seems like a bitch," mother began, "And that's because she is one, but you can't go dropping torches on everyone who's a bitch. Our population would be cut down by two thirds."
          "The population of idiots," Ingrid muttered under her breath.
          "It's good to know that you three are good judges of character. For that I am proud, but don't kill people unless they attack first or have a contact on their head. Understand?"
          "Does being a bitch and verbally attacking someone count," I asked.
          "No, Gudrun. It does not. I trust that you'll all listen to me. Now, there's a celebration going on. Go have fun!"
We ran into the celebration to see what fun may be occurring. We were not too shocked to find that there was absolutely no fun inside. However we did use this bit of time to catch up on what Ireonna spoke with Tyrion about.
         "So what did you talk with him about," Ingrid asked.
         "I don't want to talk about it," Ireonna said as a tear fell from her eye, "He didn't even remember me."
          We didn't speak any more on the matter. To be completely honest, I sort of saw this situation coming. I was still heartbroken for her nonetheless.
          But about the festival, at least we could say that we tried. Mother should at least be proud of us for that. Instead of continuing to bore ourselves, we all went home and crowed into Ingrid's room to talk about various things such as The Dark Brotherhood, memories of Skyrim, and other random things. It was fairly nice. All of that changed when our father barged into our room.
"Girls," my father began, "It is time. Follow me."
That was the only explanation we received. Our father lead us quickly to the tunnel to the sanctuary. As we hurried along, I watched the opening to our home disappear in the distance. I had a strange feeling that I wouldn't see Winterfell for quite a while.
~Ingrid~
We arrived at the sanctuary to be greeted by a strange looking young woman. She was fairly tall, pale, and somehow had violet hair.
"You three must be the famed Opal Assassins that Josh spoke of," The girl said with a snarky tone as she opened a bottle of Nord Mead, "Well he's waiting for ya. I'm Vesper by the way. Hope you haven't adapted too much to Westeros. You girls are going on a little trip to Skyrim."
          "When," Gudrun asked with a look of concern in her eye.
          "Well in the next few minutes of course," Vesper loudly belched and then smiled.
          At that moment a man that looked oddly similar to Gudrun walked in. They had a certain resemblance that made no sense. It looked almost as if she could be his cousin or something, but that can't be. That's when it became very obvious to me who this was. This was the Dovahkiin. This was the Listener. This was probably the most powerful man in Skyrim... This was Josh.