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Description
Screams greeted her. Guest fleeing the hall alerted her to the trouble. She padded through the halls her skirts in hand, her heart beginning to climb into her chest as thoughts of Morag Tong flitted through her mind. She was distracted, worried, dressed in something that wasn't her leathers, unarmed flustered. She rounded the corner and bumped into the steward.
She flinched as he grabbed her arms. Grinning like she had never seen him before.
"This is too perfect." He whistled softly and 6 of his personal guard descended on her binding her hands behind her back. Holding her at weapon point.
Taking a vial from his person and a small blade. He rubbed the liquid on it.
"Thanks to the healer having fantastic ears, I know what you tip you red arrows with. And judging by the red gems in the blade you gifted our king to be I'd say it was tipped with the same." He placed the tip of the blade into her right cheek and cut a slow precise line down her face, following the mark Vilkas had left on the assassin.
"I'll have you hang. And once your gone, I'll have their heads."
She bared her teeth pulling against her captors, as they dragged her back to the ball room.

"Sire, your attacker." The steward announced and what was left of the party goers hushed.
Tight lipped atty stood, back straight and defiant in her finery.
Farkas came forward, "brother you can't think..." He began
"Ask her where she was," Vilkas said slowly. "After the two of you," he paused finding a appropriate word "frolicked, in the garden. Ask her where she went."
Attys eyes were locked with Vilkas, red, surrounded by white tattoos. Her teeth clenched. She realised what the steward had done.
"I thought we were family." He whispered grabbing her chin turning her face so he could see the wound he gave her, festering with the poison it had been tipped with.
"Let her hands free." Farkas protested "let her defend herself."
The steward scoffed "defend? More like murder us all. The healer says she can speak let her speak. And we will keep her weapons in chains."
Farkas dark brown furrowed "is it true?"
"Of course, she is an assassin, why do you think she doesn't speak?" The steward bellowed "A child of the order her voice is saved for her mother." He turned to atty an evil glint in his eye," If you are not an assassin, if you are not THE assassin, speak! For all that holds you Mute is a vow to the dark one."
"Please Atty," Farkas begged "tell me now and I'll believe you. Just a whisper."
She looked at him her heart breaking to hear that he believed the stewards lies. Silently begging him to believe her.
"You can't? You can't break a promise to a dead woman in a box? To voices in your head. Not even for me?" He shoot his head.
"Take her away" Vilkas hissed. Seeing even his brother couldn't get through to her.
She hung her head, her dark hair falling forward shoulder bent she didn't fight her captors.
"She will hang for this treason." He finished.
Farkas' eyes snapped up, "You can't. Not hang her."
"Vilkas!" Leith snapped "Don't be an idiot. What's your proof."
"Do you see many assassins in our midst? Do you see many dark elf's with white tattoos, and a cut on their right cheek?" He snapped "I am no idiot, I cut my attackers face, it's the same."
"You don't think a cut can't be replicated?" Her anger rising to meet his. "And you can't just lump one elf in with another."
"If you weren't all criminals I wouldn't have need to."
Leith stood up like a bolt of lightning had run though her. She took a step back.
"And one more word from you Thief, and I'll throw you in with your friend." Vilkas stormed from the room, he had been right not to trust either of them. They had played him for such a fool. Farkas he expected to fall, but he had been so careful so guarded for so long, he thought he had made sure before letting them in, Letting Leith in.
His coronation gift to himself would be to watch his would be murderess swing from a noose. To think they had played such a long game. Saving them from the silver hand, bringing them to the island, Atty arming him with the weapon that would prove her guilt. Leith's quips and affections, helping him with the trials of court. It stung his pride most of all. Betrayal cutting his fragile ego to ribbons.

Stumbling into the cold damp cell. A guard put a boot on her back and cut her binds before retreating and slamming the heavy iron door shut.
Atty lay on the floor, her fight left her, if Farkas didn't believe her and leith wouldn't raise her voice in defence, what hope did she have.
The scrape of the viewing slot pulled her eyes from the floor up to the door.
"When you and your friend found the princes and brought them here, I thought it was all over." The stewards clear clipped voice broke the silence of the cells "I thought the gods them selves had seen to throw a rock under the wheel of my plans. But here, they granted me the silent listener from the dark brother hood." He chuckled leaning against the door at his leisure.
Mistrust and curses follow the Dunmer like a bad smell on a dung cart, and so, you gave me the means for my plan. You even left at the most convenient time and returned with enough time to allow me to incriminate you." He almost purred with the pleasure of his plan.
"The perfection in you being blamed for the attempt, is only preceded by the fact your order and yourself will be blamed for the main event that I have scheduled for the Coronation. My only loose end is the thief, once she's taken care of. You will rot here and not be able to tell a soul."
His laughter echoed as he slammed the slot shut leaving her with no more than the drip if condensation down the stone walls.
Atty opened her mouth, she forced air through useless vocal chords. She screamed, a silent hissed breath of a scream.
Fuelled by frustration, limitation and stupidity, she screamed at the night.
***

Late into the night, after her clothes were taken from her and she was reduced to rags. The Door swing open. "You pull anything and I'll lock you in there with her."
Leith waved off the guard but not with her usual air if confidence. She slunk into the cell head bent laden with guilt.
"Atty, he'll hang me if I say any more."
The dark elf nodded, Leith was loyal but she would never risk her life for her friend. Nor would Atty ask.
She pointed to the wood elf, tapped her head then to her own chest, finished with a gesture of a thumb across her throat.
"I don't think it was you, I'm not an idiot. But I can't prove it to him." She shook her head. "I'm not ready to die, and I won't watch you hang."
Atty held open her arms.
"I'm not hugging you, you sap. Even if your going to die."
She re iterated the movement.
Leith sighed and gave Atty her wish, the two friends embracing for the first time In years.
"I'd say take care... But..." Her sentence lingered "Don't, if you see a chance go for the throat if it means you'll live. "
Atty winked, and patted her shoulder.
"Good bye old friend."

The dagger was tiny In her green hand. Leith's little eating dagger balanced between her fingers.
"You think a dagger will get you out of this child." A dry hissed voice whispered in her ear. "I didn't think I had raised an idiot."
Atty's eyes flicked to the shadow of her mother, but paid her no more heed.
She began to find a sneaky way to wrap the knife into the binds of her breast.
"Foolish pig headed child." The night mother reiterated
"A dagger and luck is all I need." Atty signed.
"And who would you ask that luck from?"
Red eyes met black as her hands formed the words slowly. "I hoped my own mother wasn't going to just sit by and watch my death."
Air escaped the dead woman's lips "I'll make you a deal." She whispered "Claim the brothers life in the name of Sithis. Beat Morag tong to the contract, Forget this one like he did you." She paused and cooed with open arms. "Return to your mother."
Shaking her head her hands spoke. "I'll not blame him for one mistake, or his brothers insolence."
"Quiet! I did not raise you to listener to watch you throw it all away for a man!" The dark mothers voice echoed through the cell unnaturally "Sithis conceived you. I bore you. Those giants may have whisked you away and taught you some sense of twisted morality but you are still my child!"
Atty laughed, the silent shaking taking over her body "Your child?" Her fingers added the bite to each word her voice could not. "You killed your children, every one before their second year, Babes in arms strangled in their slumber." She became cool and stern again. "You don't have children you have sacrifices and I am only a tool rendered in such a way that no one else would find it valuable. You forget mother, I read your tomes, I know who you are."
Beaten in rage the Night mother changed tact.
"Then calm my sweet, and return to your makers arms. Come back to us, and I will free you of this stone cell and give you the gift of speech and love like you have never had."
Atty flexed her Jaw, liking her lips, thinking of what it would cost her to be able to speak. Reminded of the conversation with the old woman about how she wasn't whole, knowing that if she could talk she could have been out of this mess and many to come. Forever burdened with the guilt of Farkas, Vilkas and ultimately Leith's death.
"I would rather remain mute."
"Then scream in silence, wretch." Her mother huffed. Swirling away in smoke.
Atty grabbed her arm before it could dissipate "This man the would be Usurper, circumvents our customs. " She explained "he hires not from the brotherhood, he seeks to sully your name.
"You wish the means to stop him?" The night mother hissed intrigued.
"I am still the Listener, I have a duty to the guild. I will remain your silent servant, I will stop this man, I will deliver him piece by piece to you and Sithis. Just let me stop this, for your sake and mine."
The night mother sighed before she spoke. "I offer you your voice, you spit in my face. You offer me service for what an elf and a nord?"
Atty nodded solemnly.
"So be it, do as you will, but you are mine when it is done. Until he is dead, you'll have nothing to do with each other, you will not see or know each other."
Atty took a long raking breath knowing what the night mother meant.
She nodded.

Her body was weary as the day light crept through the stone.
The echoes of the preparation for the coronation taunted her.
She tested the position of the Stolen dagger. It had to be just the perfect combination of well hidden, easily reachable and hard to knock out. She stretched, making sure every muscle was warm and ready, as if she was preparing for a marathon.
The guard sniggered. As he entered.
"You'd be best making peace with your god. Than flexing for the noose. Ain't no fight with the snap of the rope."
Holding her hands before her she smiled, and he shuddered. "When your gods the night mother I guess it's like going home

Sun streamed through the gallows. As she was lead through creaking gates to a disused area of the castle. Time and nature had wore away at the area. of course it had been left to rot, she figured all the criminals in Bildsfel were in the stewards employ.
The princes walked the battlements that surrounded the area before heading back to the court yard to begin the ceremony.
Farkas leant on the stone tapping the edge with a closed fist. He was trying to think. Trying to find words to help Atty, but none came. He never wanted her to hang. He didn't even want her to sit in a cell, he just wanted to understand what was going on. Vilkas moved him along. Waiting only long enough to see the noose go about her neck but not long enough for executioner to pull the leaver.

Atty had seen hangings before. She had expected a sack over her head, an audience of shouting civilians. She would have relished the darkness, over watching nothing but the stewards men practically baying for the snap of her neck. She was nervous like a performer on stage.
"You have been charged with high treason." The executioner bellowed "and so you shall hang from the neck until you are dead."
Glancing over the trap door she stood on. Atty breathed.
The leaver groaned. Aged and unused it's mechanism sluggish. She felt the wood open beneath her. Her performance began. Legs snapped open catching the stable frame of the door. She sprung up wards snaring the rope with her hands turning upside down supporting herself with her feat while she wrenched the noose off her neck. It was in this moment she herd the guards begin to shout but any cries for reinforcement were drowned by the fanfare of the coronation.
Atty dropped slipping through the open gallows trap door and cutting herself free.
She had to make it to the ceremony the steward and his assassins would strike there making the hit as public as possible.
An axe man swung, a swooping sidestep made his axe plow into the wood behind, her her left hand with the tiny dagger made a snapping strike, piercing the soft flesh of his neck with the blade. She turned as the guards approached. Their friend crumpling to the ground no more than a fine red prick to his neck. Like fluid each of Atty's movements became the next, snapping and crashing down as she made a kill quick and painless as if her only purpose in life was to spread death. It was a way of fighting the guards hadn't ever seen. With the last taken care of she crashed through the gates and ran through the castle. Her presence known, the whole keep on alert.

High in the battlements a figure fought back against the tide of people. The guards weren't out for the small wood elf. But they weren't going to help.
She shouted but the noise are her voice. So she fired and arrow at Atty's feet to get her attention. The dark elf jumped catching a glimpse of the golden elf in the throngs.
Leith tried to shout but couldn't be heard over the battle cries and clang if weapons.
"You stole my cheese dagger!" She signed angrily at her friend.
Atty smirked while laying out a few more guards. She knew the material theft would be enough to for Leith to return, a lousy excuse was all the wood elf needed, but she couldn't bee seen caring for her friend or kingdom.
"The steward is Morag Tong." She signed quickly removing a bow of an unconscious soldier. "He means to kill the boys at the coronation."
"In the hall? In front if every one?"
"Yes now go." She urged "Do anything just get them out of that hall."
Where Atty had to fight for every step Leith was undetected, small and unobtrusive she slipped passed any one who could have stopped her to make it into the grand hall before anything could happen.
Crashing through the doors she brought the coronation to a halt. Sprinting up the walk way to the stage.
"Leith?" She heard Farkas exclaim standing from his seat.
"You have to leave." She shouted "Farkas, Vilkas you have to run, the assassin is here."
"Because she has escaped." The steward shrieked over top of her. "The dark elf cuts down your men in an attempt to finish what she started."
Vilkas turned to Leith she looked desperate. Reaching out and grabbing a hand she tried tugging him. He almost believed her, something was so Ernest in her attempts to move him. Leith who always laughed, who was always at her leisure was scared.
"She's cutting through your men because she's trying to get to the assassin."
Farkas joined them. "Brother perhaps she's right? Perhaps we should postpone."
"Don't be pig headed." Leith cried to Vilkas in desperation.
"Pig headed?" Vilkas reiterated the first words since she had flown in the door. "Pig headed like you? Or pig headed like your friend? Both of you treating me like I'm a fool." He shook his head. "No if Atty is coming to kill me I wouldn't survive right? I'm tired of running from this assassin."

Atty had made it to the servants entrance of the grand hall. She had tracked the assassin to the heights of viewing boxes that circled the hall, following them as she ran to the head of the stage. The two large marble statues were her goal. A clever plan if no one had known she was there. Leith was making no head way. She recognised the puffed chest and straight posture of and angry Vilkas and even Farkas wasn't getting through to him.
The marble statue rocked, it twitched it began to slip. Atty hit the door at speed. She had to run faster than gravity could grip the statue. With no finesse no decorum and no time To explain her actions Atty ran at Farkas hoping she'd have enough momentum to knock them all out f the way.
The chain reaction sent Farkas into his brother who because Leith was holding him inadvertently dragged her out if the way the marble cracking both the stage an itself. The head rolling down the path between the pews.
Atty was up. The foreign bow clunky in her hands she pulled with the assassin in her sights. No Morag Tong was getting away from her. The steward enraged by these elf girl fouling yet another plan lunged, the only weapon in his hands Atty's own confiscated hunting blade. Before she could loose the Arrow, he plunged it into her shoulder.
The shot flew wild as Atty's body contracted and reacted to the pain. She stumbled forward and to her knees, Leith making a dive for her friend. A mournful wail sounding in the distance.
She heard a thump and turned to see Farkas wielding a portion of statue and the steward flat on his back cowering from the silver eyed nord.
"What are you doing?" Vilkas hissed shocked by his brothers sudden action.
"What's right." Farkas answered simply. "We placed our trust in these two in the wilds and we should have kept our trust in them here. This place is still wild, the wolves just wear silk."
Grimacing as she pulled her knife out of her shoulder, Atty stood. She signed to Leith to go and check on the assassin to see how far her arrow missed, then she moved forward. Across the stage surrounded by royalty and dignitaries to shocked to flee. This wild elf stalked the stunned steward.
He thought his nightmares had been made real as the red eye demon came for him. He had thought her furniture to begin with, a silent watcher of all things. Then she was a rookie assassin, an annoyance. Now here she stood, a score of guards dead around the palace, the noose hung empty and she slipped even from certain death. He cowered in his robes.
Snatching the front of his collar Atty lifted the steward, trying not to show the agony such a feat put her in. She put the fine sharp blade into his nostril. Her eyebrow twitched he eyes goading him for a confession,
"I'll not say a word elf." He hissed.
With a flick of the wrist she sliced his nostril in half giving him a moment to shriek in agony before she put the blade in the other nostril.
Again her eyebrows and smirk asked the question her voice could not.
"Filth, you and your friend are filth!"
This time he was given no moment to scream she cut him and pushed him down on the ground her knee in his clavicle the blade pressing down under his eye.
"Wait!" Vilkas protested as her torture continued.
Atty didn't look at the almost crowned king. She held up a hand to silence him and the steward began to speak.
"You don't deserve it." He choked finally cracking. "Any of it. 20 years I kept this island, ran this island, kept it pure. You allow elves into council, filth pointy eared wildlings. Your as bad as your parents, pushing for equality. workers work, it is our right to reap the befits. I couldn't even hire the brotherhood to get rid them because of you." He looked Atty in the eye. "Our little dark horse. The silent watcher. I'm lucky the Morag Tong want to send you back to your maker for squandering the gifts you've been given. They even wanted to have you framed, cut the tongue out if one of their dark elves so she couldn't speak either. Cut off the head of the snake."
To this revelation Vilkas could no longer stay quiet. "Why would they go to so much trouble just for an assassin."
"This is not any assassin, this is the daughter of Sithis and the night mother. Enemy of the Morag tong." Knowing what it meant to out Atty in front of every one. "They call her Hel, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood"

Vilkas stepped back sitting with a shocked flop into the throne. Everything he had excused in her behaviour to being feral, every time he scoffed at her for not liking politics he had put down stupidity, or lack of education. She had known the whole time she had known better than any one what was happening. And she had actively tried to prevent it.
"I've been such a fool. Such an arrogant fool." He muttered leaning heavily on the arms of the throat face in the palm of his hand.
Assassin in custody Leith had returned to see Vilkas sitting on the throne his regalia a mess his hair mussed bitter realisation plastered over his face. She collected the crown as he muttered confessions and placed it on his head.
"The fool king."
***

Standing in her assassin blacks. Hair back into her pigtails of dreadlocks, Atty looked as she had when Farkas first met her.
The mute assassin sat waiting on the ferry, relieved that the Listener of the Brotherhood was far kinder than her previous employer. Atty had given her the opportunity to join them considering her tongue had been cut out by the Morag Tong against her wishes. Atty knew first hand how it felt to have choice ripped away from you.
"I wish you could stay for the second attempt at the coronation." Leith laughed "Just incase a dragon shows up to try and stop this one."
Smiling she handed over the little blade he had stolen.
"It's funny you took this. I wouldn't have come back other wise.."
Atty winked knowing the truth, and hugged her little friend.
She clapped Vilkas on the shoulder pointed to her eyes then his.
"This time I'll take note." He said.
She turned finally to Farkas.
"When will you return?" He asked innocently.
Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath Atty shook her head.
"I don't understand." Farkas said "why? I thought..."
She held her hand up to stop Him and Leith stepped forward to translate.
"I can't." Leith spoke for her, "When I was in the cells, the steward told me his plan. I had to stop it. The night mother does nothing for free and nothing for love." Leith stopped "Oh Atty." She exclaimed realising what had happened.
"There will be no more hunting trails, no more freedom. But we keep our lives."
Farkas shook his head. Grabbed her hand. "You hate stone walls. Why wouldn't you do that?"
She smiled sadly and touched her heart then touched his cheek before stepping on the ferry.
Leith was distraught for her friend and as callous as she pretended to be she cared for Atty and in turn Farkas, but with no real way to cope with the sad wash of emotion she was witnessing she broke the tension the only way she knew how.
"Does this mean we get a discount of royal assassinations in the future?" She shouted as the ferry began to leave. "I mean an in with the Brotherhood is good for business."
Atty smiled and Leith laughed.

Description
Screams greeted her. Guest fleeing the hall alerted her to the trouble. She padded through the halls her skirts in hand, her heart beginning to climb into her chest as thoughts of Morag Tong flitted through her mind. She was distracted, worried, dressed in something that wasn't her leathers, unarmed flustered. She rounded the corner and bumped into the steward.
She flinched as he grabbed her arms. Grinning like she had never seen him before.
"This is too perfect." He whistled softly and 6 of his personal guard descended on her binding her hands behind her back. Holding her at weapon point.
Taking a vial from his person and a small blade. He rubbed the liquid on it.
"Thanks to the healer having fantastic ears, I know what you tip you red arrows with. And judging by the red gems in the blade you gifted our king to be I'd say it was tipped with the same." He placed the tip of the blade into her right cheek and cut a slow precise line down her face, following the mark Vilkas had left on the assassin.
"I'll have you hang. And once your gone, I'll have their heads."
She bared her teeth pulling against her captors, as they dragged her back to the ball room.

"Sire, your attacker." The steward announced and what was left of the party goers hushed.
Tight lipped atty stood, back straight and defiant in her finery.
Farkas came forward, "brother you can't think..." He began
"Ask her where she was," Vilkas said slowly. "After the two of you," he paused finding a appropriate word "frolicked, in the garden. Ask her where she went."
Attys eyes were locked with Vilkas, red, surrounded by white tattoos. Her teeth clenched. She realised what the steward had done.
"I thought we were family." He whispered grabbing her chin turning her face so he could see the wound he gave her, festering with the poison it had been tipped with.
"Let her hands free." Farkas protested "let her defend herself."
The steward scoffed "defend? More like murder us all. The healer says she can speak let her speak. And we will keep her weapons in chains."
Farkas dark brown furrowed "is it true?"
"Of course, she is an assassin, why do you think she doesn't speak?" The steward bellowed "A child of the order her voice is saved for her mother." He turned to atty an evil glint in his eye," If you are not an assassin, if you are not THE assassin, speak! For all that holds you Mute is a vow to the dark one."
"Please Atty," Farkas begged "tell me now and I'll believe you. Just a whisper."
She looked at him her heart breaking to hear that he believed the stewards lies. Silently begging him to believe her.
"You can't? You can't break a promise to a dead woman in a box? To voices in your head. Not even for me?" He shoot his head.
"Take her away" Vilkas hissed. Seeing even his brother couldn't get through to her.
She hung her head, her dark hair falling forward shoulder bent she didn't fight her captors.
"She will hang for this treason." He finished.
Farkas' eyes snapped up, "You can't. Not hang her."
"Vilkas!" Leith snapped "Don't be an idiot. What's your proof."
"Do you see many assassins in our midst? Do you see many dark elf's with white tattoos, and a cut on their right cheek?" He snapped "I am no idiot, I cut my attackers face, it's the same."
"You don't think a cut can't be replicated?" Her anger rising to meet his. "And you can't just lump one elf in with another."
"If you weren't all criminals I wouldn't have need to."
Leith stood up like a bolt of lightning had run though her. She took a step back.
"And one more word from you Thief, and I'll throw you in with your friend." Vilkas stormed from the room, he had been right not to trust either of them. They had played him for such a fool. Farkas he expected to fall, but he had been so careful so guarded for so long, he thought he had made sure before letting them in, Letting Leith in.
His coronation gift to himself would be to watch his would be murderess swing from a noose. To think they had played such a long game. Saving them from the silver hand, bringing them to the island, Atty arming him with the weapon that would prove her guilt. Leith's quips and affections, helping him with the trials of court. It stung his pride most of all. Betrayal cutting his fragile ego to ribbons.

Stumbling into the cold damp cell. A guard put a boot on her back and cut her binds before retreating and slamming the heavy iron door shut.
Atty lay on the floor, her fight left her, if Farkas didn't believe her and leith wouldn't raise her voice in defence, what hope did she have.
The scrape of the viewing slot pulled her eyes from the floor up to the door.
"When you and your friend found the princes and brought them here, I thought it was all over." The stewards clear clipped voice broke the silence of the cells "I thought the gods them selves had seen to throw a rock under the wheel of my plans. But here, they granted me the silent listener from the dark brother hood." He chuckled leaning against the door at his leisure.
Mistrust and curses follow the Dunmer like a bad smell on a dung cart, and so, you gave me the means for my plan. You even left at the most convenient time and returned with enough time to allow me to incriminate you." He almost purred with the pleasure of his plan.
"The perfection in you being blamed for the attempt, is only preceded by the fact your order and yourself will be blamed for the main event that I have scheduled for the Coronation. My only loose end is the thief, once she's taken care of. You will rot here and not be able to tell a soul."
His laughter echoed as he slammed the slot shut leaving her with no more than the drip if condensation down the stone walls.
Atty opened her mouth, she forced air through useless vocal chords. She screamed, a silent hissed breath of a scream.
Fuelled by frustration, limitation and stupidity, she screamed at the night.
***

Late into the night, after her clothes were taken from her and she was reduced to rags. The Door swing open. "You pull anything and I'll lock you in there with her."
Leith waved off the guard but not with her usual air if confidence. She slunk into the cell head bent laden with guilt.
"Atty, he'll hang me if I say any more."
The dark elf nodded, Leith was loyal but she would never risk her life for her friend. Nor would Atty ask.
She pointed to the wood elf, tapped her head then to her own chest, finished with a gesture of a thumb across her throat.
"I don't think it was you, I'm not an idiot. But I can't prove it to him." She shook her head. "I'm not ready to die, and I won't watch you hang."
Atty held open her arms.
"I'm not hugging you, you sap. Even if your going to die."
She re iterated the movement.
Leith sighed and gave Atty her wish, the two friends embracing for the first time In years.
"I'd say take care... But..." Her sentence lingered "Don't, if you see a chance go for the throat if it means you'll live. "
Atty winked, and patted her shoulder.
"Good bye old friend."

The dagger was tiny In her green hand. Leith's little eating dagger balanced between her fingers.
"You think a dagger will get you out of this child." A dry hissed voice whispered in her ear. "I didn't think I had raised an idiot."
Atty's eyes flicked to the shadow of her mother, but paid her no more heed.
She began to find a sneaky way to wrap the knife into the binds of her breast.
"Foolish pig headed child." The night mother reiterated
"A dagger and luck is all I need." Atty signed.
"And who would you ask that luck from?"
Red eyes met black as her hands formed the words slowly. "I hoped my own mother wasn't going to just sit by and watch my death."
Air escaped the dead woman's lips "I'll make you a deal." She whispered "Claim the brothers life in the name of Sithis. Beat Morag tong to the contract, Forget this one like he did you." She paused and cooed with open arms. "Return to your mother."
Shaking her head her hands spoke. "I'll not blame him for one mistake, or his brothers insolence."
"Quiet! I did not raise you to listener to watch you throw it all away for a man!" The dark mothers voice echoed through the cell unnaturally "Sithis conceived you. I bore you. Those giants may have whisked you away and taught you some sense of twisted morality but you are still my child!"
Atty laughed, the silent shaking taking over her body "Your child?" Her fingers added the bite to each word her voice could not. "You killed your children, every one before their second year, Babes in arms strangled in their slumber." She became cool and stern again. "You don't have children you have sacrifices and I am only a tool rendered in such a way that no one else would find it valuable. You forget mother, I read your tomes, I know who you are."
Beaten in rage the Night mother changed tact.
"Then calm my sweet, and return to your makers arms. Come back to us, and I will free you of this stone cell and give you the gift of speech and love like you have never had."
Atty flexed her Jaw, liking her lips, thinking of what it would cost her to be able to speak. Reminded of the conversation with the old woman about how she wasn't whole, knowing that if she could talk she could have been out of this mess and many to come. Forever burdened with the guilt of Farkas, Vilkas and ultimately Leith's death.
"I would rather remain mute."
"Then scream in silence, wretch." Her mother huffed. Swirling away in smoke.
Atty grabbed her arm before it could dissipate "This man the would be Usurper, circumvents our customs. " She explained "he hires not from the brotherhood, he seeks to sully your name.
"You wish the means to stop him?" The night mother hissed intrigued.
"I am still the Listener, I have a duty to the guild. I will remain your silent servant, I will stop this man, I will deliver him piece by piece to you and Sithis. Just let me stop this, for your sake and mine."
The night mother sighed before she spoke. "I offer you your voice, you spit in my face. You offer me service for what an elf and a nord?"
Atty nodded solemnly.
"So be it, do as you will, but you are mine when it is done. Until he is dead, you'll have nothing to do with each other, you will not see or know each other."
Atty took a long raking breath knowing what the night mother meant.
She nodded.

Her body was weary as the day light crept through the stone.
The echoes of the preparation for the coronation taunted her.
She tested the position of the Stolen dagger. It had to be just the perfect combination of well hidden, easily reachable and hard to knock out. She stretched, making sure every muscle was warm and ready, as if she was preparing for a marathon.
The guard sniggered. As he entered.
"You'd be best making peace with your god. Than flexing for the noose. Ain't no fight with the snap of the rope."
Holding her hands before her she smiled, and he shuddered. "When your gods the night mother I guess it's like going home

Sun streamed through the gallows. As she was lead through creaking gates to a disused area of the castle. Time and nature had wore away at the area. of course it had been left to rot, she figured all the criminals in Bildsfel were in the stewards employ.
The princes walked the battlements that surrounded the area before heading back to the court yard to begin the ceremony.
Farkas leant on the stone tapping the edge with a closed fist. He was trying to think. Trying to find words to help Atty, but none came. He never wanted her to hang. He didn't even want her to sit in a cell, he just wanted to understand what was going on. Vilkas moved him along. Waiting only long enough to see the noose go about her neck but not long enough for executioner to pull the leaver.

Atty had seen hangings before. She had expected a sack over her head, an audience of shouting civilians. She would have relished the darkness, over watching nothing but the stewards men practically baying for the snap of her neck. She was nervous like a performer on stage.
"You have been charged with high treason." The executioner bellowed "and so you shall hang from the neck until you are dead."
Glancing over the trap door she stood on. Atty breathed.
The leaver groaned. Aged and unused it's mechanism sluggish. She felt the wood open beneath her. Her performance began. Legs snapped open catching the stable frame of the door. She sprung up wards snaring the rope with her hands turning upside down supporting herself with her feat while she wrenched the noose off her neck. It was in this moment she herd the guards begin to shout but any cries for reinforcement were drowned by the fanfare of the coronation.
Atty dropped slipping through the open gallows trap door and cutting herself free.
She had to make it to the ceremony the steward and his assassins would strike there making the hit as public as possible.
An axe man swung, a swooping sidestep made his axe plow into the wood behind, her her left hand with the tiny dagger made a snapping strike, piercing the soft flesh of his neck with the blade. She turned as the guards approached. Their friend crumpling to the ground no more than a fine red prick to his neck. Like fluid each of Atty's movements became the next, snapping and crashing down as she made a kill quick and painless as if her only purpose in life was to spread death. It was a way of fighting the guards hadn't ever seen. With the last taken care of she crashed through the gates and ran through the castle. Her presence known, the whole keep on alert.

High in the battlements a figure fought back against the tide of people. The guards weren't out for the small wood elf. But they weren't going to help.
She shouted but the noise are her voice. So she fired and arrow at Atty's feet to get her attention. The dark elf jumped catching a glimpse of the golden elf in the throngs.
Leith tried to shout but couldn't be heard over the battle cries and clang if weapons.
"You stole my cheese dagger!" She signed angrily at her friend.
Atty smirked while laying out a few more guards. She knew the material theft would be enough to for Leith to return, a lousy excuse was all the wood elf needed, but she couldn't bee seen caring for her friend or kingdom.
"The steward is Morag Tong." She signed quickly removing a bow of an unconscious soldier. "He means to kill the boys at the coronation."
"In the hall? In front if every one?"
"Yes now go." She urged "Do anything just get them out of that hall."
Where Atty had to fight for every step Leith was undetected, small and unobtrusive she slipped passed any one who could have stopped her to make it into the grand hall before anything could happen.
Crashing through the doors she brought the coronation to a halt. Sprinting up the walk way to the stage.
"Leith?" She heard Farkas exclaim standing from his seat.
"You have to leave." She shouted "Farkas, Vilkas you have to run, the assassin is here."
"Because she has escaped." The steward shrieked over top of her. "The dark elf cuts down your men in an attempt to finish what she started."
Vilkas turned to Leith she looked desperate. Reaching out and grabbing a hand she tried tugging him. He almost believed her, something was so Ernest in her attempts to move him. Leith who always laughed, who was always at her leisure was scared.
"She's cutting through your men because she's trying to get to the assassin."
Farkas joined them. "Brother perhaps she's right? Perhaps we should postpone."
"Don't be pig headed." Leith cried to Vilkas in desperation.
"Pig headed?" Vilkas reiterated the first words since she had flown in the door. "Pig headed like you? Or pig headed like your friend? Both of you treating me like I'm a fool." He shook his head. "No if Atty is coming to kill me I wouldn't survive right? I'm tired of running from this assassin."

Atty had made it to the servants entrance of the grand hall. She had tracked the assassin to the heights of viewing boxes that circled the hall, following them as she ran to the head of the stage. The two large marble statues were her goal. A clever plan if no one had known she was there. Leith was making no head way. She recognised the puffed chest and straight posture of and angry Vilkas and even Farkas wasn't getting through to him.
The marble statue rocked, it twitched it began to slip. Atty hit the door at speed. She had to run faster than gravity could grip the statue. With no finesse no decorum and no time To explain her actions Atty ran at Farkas hoping she'd have enough momentum to knock them all out f the way.
The chain reaction sent Farkas into his brother who because Leith was holding him inadvertently dragged her out if the way the marble cracking both the stage an itself. The head rolling down the path between the pews.
Atty was up. The foreign bow clunky in her hands she pulled with the assassin in her sights. No Morag Tong was getting away from her. The steward enraged by these elf girl fouling yet another plan lunged, the only weapon in his hands Atty's own confiscated hunting blade. Before she could loose the Arrow, he plunged it into her shoulder.
The shot flew wild as Atty's body contracted and reacted to the pain. She stumbled forward and to her knees, Leith making a dive for her friend. A mournful wail sounding in the distance.
She heard a thump and turned to see Farkas wielding a portion of statue and the steward flat on his back cowering from the silver eyed nord.
"What are you doing?" Vilkas hissed shocked by his brothers sudden action.
"What's right." Farkas answered simply. "We placed our trust in these two in the wilds and we should have kept our trust in them here. This place is still wild, the wolves just wear silk."
Grimacing as she pulled her knife out of her shoulder, Atty stood. She signed to Leith to go and check on the assassin to see how far her arrow missed, then she moved forward. Across the stage surrounded by royalty and dignitaries to shocked to flee. This wild elf stalked the stunned steward.
He thought his nightmares had been made real as the red eye demon came for him. He had thought her furniture to begin with, a silent watcher of all things. Then she was a rookie assassin, an annoyance. Now here she stood, a score of guards dead around the palace, the noose hung empty and she slipped even from certain death. He cowered in his robes.
Snatching the front of his collar Atty lifted the steward, trying not to show the agony such a feat put her in. She put the fine sharp blade into his nostril. Her eyebrow twitched he eyes goading him for a confession,
"I'll not say a word elf." He hissed.
With a flick of the wrist she sliced his nostril in half giving him a moment to shriek in agony before she put the blade in the other nostril.
Again her eyebrows and smirk asked the question her voice could not.
"Filth, you and your friend are filth!"
This time he was given no moment to scream she cut him and pushed him down on the ground her knee in his clavicle the blade pressing down under his eye.
"Wait!" Vilkas protested as her torture continued.
Atty didn't look at the almost crowned king. She held up a hand to silence him and the steward began to speak.
"You don't deserve it." He choked finally cracking. "Any of it. 20 years I kept this island, ran this island, kept it pure. You allow elves into council, filth pointy eared wildlings. Your as bad as your parents, pushing for equality. workers work, it is our right to reap the befits. I couldn't even hire the brotherhood to get rid them because of you." He looked Atty in the eye. "Our little dark horse. The silent watcher. I'm lucky the Morag Tong want to send you back to your maker for squandering the gifts you've been given. They even wanted to have you framed, cut the tongue out if one of their dark elves so she couldn't speak either. Cut off the head of the snake."
To this revelation Vilkas could no longer stay quiet. "Why would they go to so much trouble just for an assassin."
"This is not any assassin, this is the daughter of Sithis and the night mother. Enemy of the Morag tong." Knowing what it meant to out Atty in front of every one. "They call her Hel, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood"

Vilkas stepped back sitting with a shocked flop into the throne. Everything he had excused in her behaviour to being feral, every time he scoffed at her for not liking politics he had put down stupidity, or lack of education. She had known the whole time she had known better than any one what was happening. And she had actively tried to prevent it.
"I've been such a fool. Such an arrogant fool." He muttered leaning heavily on the arms of the throat face in the palm of his hand.
Assassin in custody Leith had returned to see Vilkas sitting on the throne his regalia a mess his hair mussed bitter realisation plastered over his face. She collected the crown as he muttered confessions and placed it on his head.
"The fool king."
***

Standing in her assassin blacks. Hair back into her pigtails of dreadlocks, Atty looked as she had when Farkas first met her.
The mute assassin sat waiting on the ferry, relieved that the Listener of the Brotherhood was far kinder than her previous employer. Atty had given her the opportunity to join them considering her tongue had been cut out by the Morag Tong against her wishes. Atty knew first hand how it felt to have choice ripped away from you.
"I wish you could stay for the second attempt at the coronation." Leith laughed "Just incase a dragon shows up to try and stop this one."
Smiling she handed over the little blade he had stolen.
"It's funny you took this. I wouldn't have come back other wise.."
Atty winked knowing the truth, and hugged her little friend.
She clapped Vilkas on the shoulder pointed to her eyes then his.
"This time I'll take note." He said.
She turned finally to Farkas.
"When will you return?" He asked innocently.
Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath Atty shook her head.
"I don't understand." Farkas said "why? I thought..."
She held her hand up to stop Him and Leith stepped forward to translate.
"I can't." Leith spoke for her, "When I was in the cells, the steward told me his plan. I had to stop it. The night mother does nothing for free and nothing for love." Leith stopped "Oh Atty." She exclaimed realising what had happened.
"There will be no more hunting trails, no more freedom. But we keep our lives."
Farkas shook his head. Grabbed her hand. "You hate stone walls. Why wouldn't you do that?"
She smiled sadly and touched her heart then touched his cheek before stepping on the ferry.
Leith was distraught for her friend and as callous as she pretended to be she cared for Atty and in turn Farkas, but with no real way to cope with the sad wash of emotion she was witnessing she broke the tension the only way she knew how.
"Does this mean we get a discount of royal assassinations in the future?" She shouted as the ferry began to leave. "I mean an in with the Brotherhood is good for business."
Atty smiled and Leith laughed.