To Kill a Nightingale

Altercations

Runa did not much care for the aspect of that morning sun. Unhindered by as much as a scrap of cloud, it poked hostilely through the fresh foliage of the surrounding trees, looking every bit as though it was planning to shine down as relentlessly as it had these past few days. She'd have to be extra careful to keep hydrated. Yet she'd also need to be careful about the nature of her hydration, so as not to compromise the sharpness of her wit. She suspected she would need all of her wits about her today.

Behind her, Rusty groaned. "Why do we have to be up at such a gods-forsaken early hour?"

They stood beside the Riften stables outside the city wall. A stagecoach waited for customers nearby, the driver sleeping in a very awkward-looking position on his seat, the horse looking like it could also stand to sleep—say, forever. Behind, the stable master, who also doubled as the stablehand, was busy pitchforking hay in front of the horses in the ramshackle stall hunching by the even more ramshackle house, or shack, in which he lived. There was another man on the shack's sagging roof, fighting a losing fight against the inevitable by supplanting old missing shingles with new ones, which didn't in fact look any newer.

"Early worm gets the bird, Rusty!" Runa said. "Besides, it ain't exactly dawn no more; the sun's been up for a good five hours."

"I never get up before noon," he replied. "Especially if I've been drinking."

"Evil never sleeps," muttered Hroar beside him.

"And you, do you ever lighten up?"

Hroar shot the other man a quick glower but made no reply.

It did seem that the big boy had woken up on the wrong side of the bed, and was perhaps even worse than usual. Runa was hoping that this mission would prove to cheer him up.

Yeah, 'cause ain't nothing gonna cheer a man up more than facing certain death!

"Fuck yourself," she mumbled.

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind, Rusty."

She gave a mighty stretch and an even mightier yawn, and then proceeded to gather their horses. After her usual coquettish—well, coquettish by her standards, leastways—song and dance with the stable master, conveying the usual implication that the lifelong discount he'd more or less granted her would soon enough see a worthy compensation—and it wasn't as if the Redguard was bad looking fellow for his age, and most likely didn't get too much action and so might well be eager to prove himself, so why not . . . one of these days . . . when she got around to it—she took Frost by his reins and started to walk her down the gently sloping cobbled road.

"I say we walk a bit first, I feel like I need to use my legs," she called behind her.

Rusty groaned.

"What, I'd imagine your backside would welcome the rest after all night spent with Hroar."

She could practically hear the eyes of her companions rolling.

Runa gave the two men the chance to catch up with her, then took a deep breath and let it escape in a big, contented sigh. "Ah, well isn't this nice! A beautiful morning, with a big adventure ahead of us. Just like old times, eh?" The droves of songbirds in the trees all around them seemed to accentuate her words with their polyphonic chirp and twitter.

Glancing over her shoulder, the others did not seem to share her optimistic enthusiasm.

"What? Come now, doesn't this feel right? The old gang, together again. Runa, Rusty, and Hroar—the three R's!"