Chapter Text
It had been several days since she had left the sanctuary, and just as many days had passed since she had been to Sovngarde. The journey there and back had been an exhilarating and violent one that left her mind and body completely drained of any energy or drive to do anything except sleep. When she finally fell into her bed at the sanctuary, her dreams were filled with the vivid colors that made up the sky of Sovngarde.
But the desire to sleep had now left her. Her bones had grown stiff from lack of movement, and there was an uncomfortable twitch in her fingers that she still remembered well.
After many boring days of doing nothing save for sleeping and avoiding everyone in her room while Cicero organized and reorganized all of her things, it was obvious to her how she was going to spend the rest of this day. She disentangled herself from her cocoon of blankets and stretched, yawning loudly. Cicero's head snapped up from whatever he had been bent over at her desk and locked his eyes on her, grinning wildly.
She stood and stretched again, groaning as the vertebrae in her back cracked all the way down her spine. She pulled open her dresser drawer and pulled a tunic over her head, the fabric feeling strange and foreign against her skin after so many hours of it being bare.
The legs of a chair scraped against the floor as Cicero bolted upright and ran to her, hugging her hard enough to squeeze a few stray cracks out of her back.
"Oh Listener, Cicero is so glad that you're awake!" He continued to grin down at her, eyes beaming. She raised a hand and gently patted his cheek, her lips parting in a smile.
"You're acting like you haven't seen me in weeks. I just fell asleep." She pulled away from him as he released her, frowning at her back as she turned from him.
" Asleep. " Cicero scoffed at her and rolled his eyes. "The Listener looked like a corpse."
"I doubt that I looked that bad." Reyye shot him a scathing glance as she pulled her armor on over her tunic. "Ironically enough, I'm in the business of death." She pulled on her boots and turned to look at him with her hands on her hips, biting back a smile. "Doubly ironic: I did just visit the afterlife."
Cicero's eyes narrowed a bit and she thought that she heard him grumble something under his breath that sounded like "not ours" . She knew that the idea of winding up in any other place besides the Void made him uneasy to say the least, so she decided not to press it. Instead she wordlessly passed him a spare set of armor and turned to offer him privacy as he changed.
He began to hum a melody slightly off key as he stripped off his jester's garb, and she couldn't help but chuckle to herself when she heard the bells on either end of his hat jingle. A minute or two passed before the clinking of metal fastenings ceased and Cicero spoke.
"Ta-da!"
Reyye turned and looked at him, unable to stop the smile that formed as he stood in front of her posing with his arms spread, his teeth bared in a mad smile.
She giggled, swiping a brown cloak from off the dresser and draping it around his shoulders. She fastened the clasp at his throat and smoothed the cloth down on his shoulders, smiling up at him. "Absolutely dapper."
Her fingers entwined themselves with his as she led him out of the room, her bow and quiver slung over her shoulder. She took the stairs up to the common room two at a time, Cicero right on her heels, cackling as he danced from stair to stair. She reached the top first and took Cicero's hand again, making her way to the table where Nazir sat poking at the food on his plate with a fork.
The redguard nodded at her in greeting as she laid her bow on the table and took the seat next to him. Cicero stood hovering at her side, muttering to himself. Nazir ignored the jester for once and instead focused on his plate, his lip curling in disgust.
"Whatever you do, do not accept anything that new initiate offers you. I don't care how edible she claims it is."
Reyye examined the contents of the plate; some soggy looking vegetables that were congealed in an unidentifiable mass of dark green, and a slab of charred meat that she could only assume was horker. She took the knife next to Nazir and stabbed the tip of it into the meat and used it as leverage to pry it apart with her fingers. The center of it was red and bloody. She made a face and set down the knife before wiping her fingers on a napkin.
"Noted. It's possible that she just doesn't know how to cook, I wouldn't be too harsh with her. Maybe she just needs to be taught."
Nazir chuckled. "A hardened assassin, lecturing me about treating someone gently." He looked at her, a rare smile gracing his face. "While her cooking is… abysmally concerning, she still hasn't begun her training."
If the initiate's cooking was any indication of her other abilities, there was definitely a need to be concerned. As far as she knew, the girl hadn't been assigned any contracts yet, and Reyye herself had never seen her fight.
"What about Regis? Can't he help?" Regis was the first initiate that she had trained herself. Tall for an Imperial, Regis turned out to be quite deadly with a sword, and equally adept at remaining unseen. He had trained most of the other initiates while she was away, and each of those he trained had quickly become skilled assassins.
Nazir shook his head and rested back in his chair, absent mindedly stroking his goatee. "He's off on a contract in Markarth. Come to think of it, most of our other assassins are out as well." He fixed his eyes on her and smirked, waiting for her to connect the dots. She sighed.
"Fine. I suppose I've got enough time. Where is she?" Reyye pushed her chair back from the table and stood. Nazir nodded towards a small Breton woman as she walked into the room. Her assassin's hood was pushed back to reveal a head of striking blond hair and pale, pinkish skin.
"Initiate," the girl stopped in her tracks and looked up at her, her eyes as wide as a doe's. She stood rooted to the floor until Nazir cleared his throat loudly, then made her way over to the table. Reyye offered her a small smile, hoping to sooth her. "What's your name?"
"Uhm… I'm-" she cleared her throat and fidgeted, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "Vylma. My name is Vylma." Vylma looked over Reyye's shoulder at Cicero, who was staring her down intensely. Reyye stepped hard on his foot, ignoring him as he yelped and looked at her in confusion.
"You're going hunting with us today. We won't be gone for long, I want to be back in time to prepare dinner. Are you ready to leave?"
Vylma looked at her dazedly, her mouth slightly open. "Y-yes, but I don't have a bow-" Reyye placed a hand on her forearm and guided her to the stairs.
"I have a spare one hidden away outside the sanctuary. Come." She smiled back at her reassuringly and took Cicero's hand again as they climbed the stairs, though slower this time with the nervous initiate in tow. Reyye's stomach gave an excited flip as they neared the door and she couldn't help but smile when she pushed it open. The cold air greeted her and she inhaled it as deeply as she could, longing to fill her lungs with it's chill.
She exhaled a cloud of smoke and turned her face up to the darkening sky, smiling up at the green and blue borealis that grew even more vibrant as the sun sank lower. She broke herself away from her reverie and led her two companions away from the sanctuary and toward her hidden stash of weapons.
She turned to them as they began to climb a hill and grinned, her cheeks flushed from excitement and the cold. "Let's go kill something."