#yivohn

I feel like this is why he responds the way he does if the pc decides not to spare him.  & I feel like it’s important to note that he does not become hostile until after it’s verbalized they don’t believe him & think he should be punished.  He’s spitting out what Ahzidal must have told him.  Over & over. 

“What ? No !  You can’t… I have his will on my side!  He will command all of us!”

Ahzidal had control of Ralis, yes, but Ahzidal would want that influence to run so deep it’s ingrained in Ralis as a whole.  Something Ralis can process through on his own … But if threatened with death by a trusted friend?  Seconds after being freed?  Well …  Maybe Master Ahzidal was right & his business partner really ~was~ out to get him !  & betray him !  & leave him for dead ! & don’t trust ~them~ you know the truth !! you know better !! Because Master Ahzidal Said.

& it’s such a struggle for him due to the nature of Ahzidal’s influence.  Ahzidal was in his mind.  Ahzidal was influencing every single action.  Every single thought.  Ralis spent the entirety of the excavation shifting from assuming ; he’s having a psychotic breakdown & trying to hide it, somewhat acknowledging he’s in actual trouble & still trying to hide it for the safety of others despite his mind magic induced haze, realizing fully how truly under Ahzidal’s contol he is after being rescued from it … & being left to wonder …. why he still …. Hears him. 

It frightens him.  Having to sit there & wonder if it’s actually all in his head this time.  Or if Ahzidal had either … never left to begin with … or was making a genuine return.  Which are valid fears.  Which doesn’t help.  His greatest fear is waking up & finding bloodied hands again.  Luckily for him … It won’t ever pan out that way ever again.  He’s in control this time, even if he’s spiraling, it’s only him in there.  It gets better with time.  The psychosis in particular.  But overall he’s … scarred for life ?  Straight up ??

Believers & skeptics alike shared one thing in common.  A inexplicable paranoia of the Fox.  Ara had grown up knowing these tales well.  The Thieves Guild’s apparent activities were the building blocks of her apprenticeship.  The guards & officials who scoffed away frets as gossip, were the very same men & women who frequented Locks & Locke —- seeking reliable security.  

Her Master had always thanked the Fox for the consistent flow of business.  A staunch believer, & retired thief himself, the elderly bosmer had often chuckled knowingly upon inspecting returned locks — expertly picked.  Ara could remember his cheeky grin & how his his dark eyes lit with the promise of a challenge, something that she’d come to mimic unknowingly after a childhood under the mer’s passionate instruction & lead.  Ara feels a familiar aching as she absently sorts through old blueprints & concepts she’d been forced to abandon until her present mission concluded.  She missed him.  She knew she could visit.  He was there in the Market District after all.  Her room in the workshop’s attic couldn’t have walked away either – her hammock & books must be collecting dust by now.  She hadn’t even written.  Too fearful of her words being tracked down to his doorstep.  It was dangerous.  The Mythic Dawn hid in plain sight ; beneath her homely robes of cream, a fresh scabbing scar stung as a continual reminder.  She could only return to him once the Gates have been slammed shut once more.  

Ara uncrosses her legs & shifts to dangle them over the bedside.  Leaving her portfolio & papers spewed across her blankets.  She allows heavy lids to shut.  Sitting upright she stares into the nothingness, welcoming its dark.  She lets her head fall to one side.  & then the other.  An orchestra of crackling joints & groaning sinews.  Her hair, free of its formal braid, is left to drape down her back, but not for long.  She opens her eyes.  Running her hand through her hair before gathering it all up, twisting & securing it with her gilded strap, hoisting it all up into a bun.  

It’s only in this moment that Ara detects a considerable unease within herself.  A sickly dread with no apparent source.  Digesting the sinking feeling, Ara’s able to name it as the dread which comes from eyes unseen.  She freezes.  Breath held tight & hands still posed, hung hovering over her secured messy bun.  Gawking at the empty room, it takes a considerable amount of time, or so it feels, to recognize what was wrong with the sight before her.  A shadow.  There, standing tall against the far wall.  The silhouette was much taller than she, broader as well, which could be accounted to the very nature of shadows.  This was the trouble.  By the very nature of shadows, this one shouldn’t exist.

It possessed no apparent source.  No apparent means of obstruction for the gentle glow of candlelight & humble hearth.  Not only was Ara herself not standing, she was at an angle which would prevent the formation of this mass altogether.  Her expression pales as the shadow darkens.  Before any thought to jolt for her loyal bow had any hope of being born — her weapon solidifies alongside a man.  She can’t maintain her focus on the bow, hypnotized instead by the face now revealed.  Or more specifically.  His cowl.  She cannot count the moments that pass them by in this stalemate – frozen in time.  A vision that would stay with her her whole life long.   

“You’re real.”  the silence is broken, her tone blunt, factual.

He smiles, pleasant, for a criminal, “More real than you could begin to imagine,” he tapers off, setting Ruin’s Edge upon her table, “am I speaking with the lady of the house, the Hero of Kvatch ?”

“That’s what they’ve begun to call me.”

“… & what would you call yourself ?”

“ — you first.”

In a blink on her part – his smile is gone.  He clears his throat, eyes shifting away as he meanders nearer — steps light so as not to spook the younger thief further after such an intrusion of privacy.  “For now, I will remain a stranger in a mask,” he speaks as if correcting himself, as if Ara had missed a handful of words, she briefly notes it odd, albeit barely registering the shift as he continues, “name me as you see fit ; The Grey Fox, a Stranger, a Thief — Guildmaster.”  

He pauses halfway across the room, making himself at home upon her fireside chair ; the eyes watching her from beneath the cowl just as warm.  Holding within them a hidden nostalgia which evades Ara.  Recognition she could not share.  Even if he’d removed his cowl.  Especially if he’d removed his cowl.  His voice strikes her familiar, he can see it in her face ; like a vivid dream forgotten upon waking, the echoes lingering even in lucid memory.  “Only know that I do not mean you harm.  I’ve been watching you for some time.  A proper introduction has been long overdue.”

“& you’d deny me your name still ?”  Ara chimes, cautious, but notably easing in her tension ; there was the obvious excitement now bubbling where dread had previously curdled, & even then, there was something in the way he held himself.  The kinship they shared which ran deeper than shadow walking, thievery, & deceit, “I’ll give you mine once & only once.  You must promise to never forget it.  I wont remind you again.”