Work Text:
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
Calyn Frey stared at the looming city of Riften, uncertainty sitting like a rock in the pit of her stomach. She nodded, though, and glanced over at where Serana stood next to her, support in her eyes.
“Yeah,” she said weakly. “It’s just been a while, is all.”
“When was the last time you saw them?”
“Seven years.” She looked back over at the gate, watching the guard as he lazily leaned against the stone wall that surrounded the city. “Delvin I’ve seen since then, but he promised not to tell anyone.”
Serana nodded. “And what are you going to tell them?”
“The truth, at least partially. They don’t need to know about some things, like the…” she trailed off.
“Like the vampirism?” Serana finished, raising an eyebrow.
Calyn chuckled. “Yeah, that. I think they’d just freak out.” She took a deep breath, exhaling through her nose. “Let’s do this.”
She led the way to the gate. The guard recognised them, a let them into the city without paying the ‘entrance tax’—something the Thieves Guild did to try and get more gold. Something that didn’t always work out.
The streets of Riften were just as she remembered them—busy, even in the middle of night, the streets overtaken by drunkards and prostitutes and thieves. She warned Serana to keep her hands in her pockets while she herself effortlessly took a heavy coinpurse from a man who was very intoxicated and stumbling around. The far older woman just raised an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged.
They approached the Temple of Mara, but instead of going up the large steps and into the temple, Calyn led the way around the side, where a graveyard sat, an open mausoleum resting against the side of the temple. They entered the mausoleum, and Calyn ran her hands over the coffin pressed against the back wall, finding the well used button set into the stone and pressing it.
A large grating sound filled the air, and she took a step back as the stone coffin slid into the wall, revealing a staircase that lowered into the earth.
Serana gave her a strange look. “Seriously?”
Calyn nodded. “Yup. Come on, before I change my mind.”
They descended the stairs to the bottom, the coffin sliding closed above them, plunging them into darkness. They made their way to the end of the passage, where a trapdoor sat sunk into the stonework, and Calyn wrenched it open, torchlight spewing in from the hole.
She swallowed the bile that was threatening to rise in her throat and lowered herself down the ladder, not stopping until she hit the floor. She took a step back to allow Serana to lower, refusing to turn around, her heart pumping so hard and fast she could hear its beating in her ears, overtaking whatever noise might be in the Cistern behind her.
She almost didn’t hear it when someone said, “Who’re you? How did you know about that entrance?”
She turned her head to look at him, still not turning around. She didn’t recognise him—Imperial, long dark hair, light brown Guild armour. So, he wasn’t far up the chain of command. At least that counted for something.
“An old Guild member,” she told him, voice surprisingly smooth despite the panic in her veins. “It’s been a while since I’ve been here.”
He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously, like he didn’t believe her. “Right…”
“Is Mercer still Guildmaster?” she asked.
He paused, and nodded. “Yeah. He’s out, though. He should be back soon if you want to stick around.”
She heard what he didn’t say: And I’ll find out if you really are part of the Guild or not.
She finally turned around to see that the Guildmaster’s desk, where Mercer works, was empty. Well, there was no one at the table. It was piled high with papers and coinpurses and political things she’d never understood, and probably never would, despite being in the middle of politics several times now.
There were a couple other people milling around the place—a Bosmer was shooting arrows at a target, and an Imperial was sleeping in one of the beds that line the Cistern walls—but other than that it was practically empty.
“Is this it?” Serana asked, looking unimpressed.
Calyn wondered that herself. “There’s a tavern, too. Come on.”
She crossed the Cistern and led the way down one of the tunnels that branches off, and through the back of a cupboard. Noise hit them like a wall, with various thieves chatting and yelling as they drank away their sorrows and their money. Calyn spotted a Nord redhead drinking at the bar with a bald Breton and a white-haired Imperial woman—Brynjolf, Delvin, and Vex.
She stood there, not really sure how to approach them, when Brynjolf looked up, his mug halfway to his mouth, and locked his green eyes with her golden ones.
He froze.
“What’s wrong, Bryn?” Vex teased. “You done drinking already?”
“ Calyn? ”
She swallowed the extra saliva in her mouth as Vex looked confused, then followed his line of sight. Her dark eyes widened, and she swore loudly, catching the attention of a couple others, but none she recognised.
Brynjolf slammed his mug onto the counter and stood up, making his way over to her. His eyes roamed all over, like he couldn’t believe she was standing in front of him, and pulled her into a bear hug, squeezing her tight.
If she didn’t have her vampire strength, he probably would’ve crushed her. But she did, and she returned the hug, being careful not to crush him .
He pulled back after a couple minutes. “How are you here? Where have you been? Mercer is gonna kill you then be excited then kill you again.”
She chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. Everyone was staring at them now, and she didn’t like it. “Yeah, that sounds like him. And, uh, that’s a long story that I don’t want to get into right now.”
“Right,” he says suspiciously. “You’re gone for seven years and you expect me to just take that?”
“You’re not my father, you can’t tell me what to do,” she told him.
“No, but Mercer is.”
She winced as one of the other thieves did a spit-take.
“He’s going to want to know where you’ve been.”
“As I said, it’s a long story,” she told him. “A lot happened in the seven years I was gone.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Do you know when he’s going to be back?” she asked after a couple minutes of silence.
“Uh, yeah, he’s just taking to Maven at the moment. Should be back soon.”
She nodded.
She heard the cupboard open behind her, and she looked over her shoulder just in time to see a man with gold hair streaked with white coming through, age lining his face. He stopped just inside the Raged Flagon, golden eyes meeting golden eyes.
Mercer Frey stood there for a second, frozen. “Calyn?”
She turned around fully and smiled at him. “Hello, Father.”