Chapter Text
Brynjolf was a wee, fresh-faced lad of twelve the first time he met Gallus Desidenius. He had been left an orphan by the Great War, forced to fend for himself. He turned to thievery, stealing food and coin to survive. He thought he was decent at picking pockets, but when he reached into Gallus's pocket that fateful day, the man had smiled as he placed his hand on Brynjolf's and gave him a look over his shoulder.
“Just what do you think you're doing, lad?”
“Nothing, sir.” Bryn had been certain he was going to be sent off to jail, but instead he found himself being studied by the Imperial man. His gaze was soul-searching, or at least it felt that way.
“How long has it been since you ate, boy?”
“Ah... I don't remember, sir.” It had been a couple days, at least, but to a boy of twelve that felt like forever. He was scrawny and filthy. His ratty clothes were covered in dirt. Most people just ignored him or shooed him off. There were too many orphans these days, and too few people who cared what became of them.
Gallus wasn't one of those people.
Later that night, Brynjolf sat in a tub of hot water in disbelief. He had a full stomach, there was a small bundle of clean clothes waiting on him to finish bathing, and he actually felt like someone cared about his well-being for the first time since his parents had died.
Gallus even let him stay in a room he'd rented from the inn – he didn't sleep there at night, and though Brynjolf was curious at first he soon figured out that Gallus preferred to sleep in the daylight hours. He was a man of the night, a master thief. The master of all thieves, in fact – Gallus was the head of the group that wasn't supposed to exist: the Thieves Guild.
“What brought you to Markarth?” Bryn asked one night, while Gallus prepared a meal. A small, wistful smile had crossed the older man's face as he took a seat at the table and slid a bowl of stew over to Brynjolf. He had pressed his hands to his lips as he collected his thoughts.
“I'm working on a project,” he said. “A great heist – perhaps the greatest heist of my career. I came here to study some ancient texts that have clues to the whereabouts of this... buried treasure I've been seeking. I think I've gotten just about all the information I need, though, so I'll be heading back to Riften soon.”
Brynjolf must have looked disappointed, because Gallus gave a laugh and messed up the young lad's hair. “Do you really think I'd take you in from the streets just to put you back on them, lad? I'm taking you with me. You're a good thief, and I think you'll be an asset to the Guild.”
And that was how, a few weeks later, Brynjolf had found himself being sized up by Mercer and Karliah, Gallus's right and left hands in the Guild. Neither of them seemed happy that Gallus had brought such a young boy before them, but Brynjolf didn't know which form of scrutiny was worse – Mercer's angry, disapproving frown or the quiet pity in Karliah's violet eyes.
“We don't need a kid getting in the way, Gallus. Why don't you just bring him to Honorhall and be done with him?” Mercer asked, shaking his head. “He's too young to join.”
“I don't want to go to an orphanage!” Bryn protested. “I've been fending for myself for a long time already. I can be of use to the Guild, I promise!”
“It's true,” Gallus mused, sipping at his mulled wine. “He very nearly made off with my wallet before I noticed him. His age could be an advantage for him. Why, by the time he grows his first beard he'll be a fine thief. I'm sure of that.”
“If he lives that long,” Karliah's voice was quiet, but it sent a shiver through Brynjolf. There was something odd about the woman, something that unsettled him greatly. When he met her eyes again, he decided he preferred Mercer's disapproving glare to whatever lurked in the depths of her gaze. He knew how to deal with shame and anger, he'd felt those countless times before.
The butterflies she put in his stomach, though? Those were something... new.
The next several weeks went by quickly – Brynjolf got to know the other folk in the Guild, though most of them paid him little heed. Karliah had insisted that Gallus keep him from doing any dangerous jobs, so he mostly stayed in the Cistern and trained with the older thieves when they gave him time of day. Occasionally he would wander the city of Riften and pick people's pockets, which usually kept Delvin happy with him.
But he found himself wanting to do more – he wanted to really impress Mercer and Karliah, prove his worth to them. Prove Gallus hadn't been wrong in taking him under his wings. So he started training himself to pick locks when no one was looking and began hatching a plan to steal something from the market. Something impressive.
There was a necklace one of the vendors had in his display case. It was silver and amethyst, very pretty and very valuable. Something in the way it gleamed made him think of Karliah's eyes. He hoped stealing it for her might leave an impression on her – might make her change mind about him being something they needed to protect. He could fend for himself, damn it! So what if he was just a kid? He was a thief, too, and a good one.
He wasn't as good as he thought he was, though. He screwed up – made rookie mistakes all around. The lock was harder to crack than he thought it would be, and his lockpick got stuck. And of course a guard also caught him trying to get the broken pick out of the keyhole.
Gallus was the one who came to bail him out of prison. Brynjolf had crying in his cell, but when Gallus came in he tried to hide his tear-streaked face. But then Gallus pulled him into a tight hug, which caught Brynjolf by surprise, and he couldn't contain his tearful sobs. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I'm so... so sorry.”
“Shh, lad.” Gallus patted his back gently. “It's alright. Don't hide your tears from me.”
Brynjolf remembered his father telling him the very same thing when he was a much smaller child, and he sobbed harder for it. He still wished his parents hadn't gone off to fight in the war.
Gallus was kind to him, though, even when he didn't have to be. He brought Bryn back to the Guild that night in silence – there were no scolding words given when he sent the lad to bed. Perhaps Gallus thought embarrassment was punishment enough. Or perhaps he was merely eager to get back to his work. Bryn's sleep was fitful that night, and he woke in the wee hours of the morning and wandered restlessly about the Cistern only to catch sight of Karliah speaking with Gallus at his desk.
“It's late, Gallus. You should be sleeping.”
“Let me finish this one thing, Karliah. I'll join you soon, I promise.”
“Last time you said that you were gone half the night.” She laughed as she spoke, and the sound put butterflies in Brynjolf's stomach again. Damn those stupid things. They refused to go away. In fact, they got worse when he watched as Karliah gently placed her hands on the Guildmasters's and leaned in to kiss him.
Oh.
In hindsight, it made sense – of course a pretty woman like her had someone, and it made sense that she was with a man as handsome and charming as Gallus. If anyone deserved her, it was the Guildmaster.
Brynjolf still wished she would smile at him at him that way, that he could be looked at with that much adoration. He knew it was a stupid, foolish wish, but he also knew he was a stupid, foolish lad. As he returned to bed and buried his face in his pillow, hiding the blush that dusted his cheeks now, he wished he wasn't.
He learned to ignore the way Gallus and Karliah looked at each other. He learned to focus on learning the trade from the older thieves, honing his skills so he might actually impress Gallus and Mercer. At night, though, he would steal away and read about history's greatest thieves and imagine he was one of them. Brynjolf still made plenty of mistakes... but he also succeeded at his plots often enough that the other thieves started treating him like an equal.
His thirteenth birthday came and went without a fuss, and he hardly cared. He wasn't sure anyone even knew the day was significant in any way. Gallus noticed him moping around, though, and when he found out the reason he tugged one of his own short swords off his hip and gave it to Brynjolf with a grin.
“You're on your way to being a man now – you ought to have something to defend yourself with.” He clapped Bryn on the shoulder. “You never know when you might need it. It's damn hard to trust people in our profession.”
He had hoped Gallus would teach him to use it, but Gallus was a busy man. He disappeared often and was nowhere to be found for days sometimes. Except days turned to weeks this time... and Mercer and Karliah had both vanished as well. He managed to practice some with Delvin, but Delvin seemed worried, too, and that unsettled Brynjolf more than Karliah's eyes ever had.
When Mercer did return at last, he brought terrible news with him. Gallus was gone – he'd been murdered by Karliah. Brynjolf cried hard that night, sobbed into his pillow until the tears were gone and only a cold numb feeling was left in him. He felt like he'd lost his father again, but it was worse than that. It went deeper.
He remembered the way Gallus's eyes had lit up when he looked at Karliah. He remembered the way her eyes had shone when she was around him. And now he knew that had all been a lie. Love wasn't real, it didn't exist. The heart was a stupid, foolish thing that couldn't be trusted.
The butterflies in his stomach died that night, and he knew they would never come back, either.
Except they did.
Twenty-five years later, after escaping the ruin where Mercer Frey had died for his betrayal, Brynjolf found himself staring into Karliah's violet eyes once again. He'd been laughing, glad to be alive after such a close brush with death... but when he glanced to his fellow Nightingale and saw her smiling at his mirth, his heart skipped and fluttered in his chest.
She hadn't aged a day in all those years. Sure, she looked tired and there was a sadness in her eyes now, but she was still just as beautiful as she had been the day he'd first met her... and the butterflies in his stomach were just as bad as they had been back then, and Brynjolf still didn't know what to do with them.
In the years since Gallus had died, Brynjolf had grown up. He'd proven his worth to Mercer and countless others – he'd become the right hand of the Thieves Guild in Skyrim. He'd had the honor of bringing several lads and lasses to the Guild himself, including one that he had met in a way that would have made old Gallus proud – he'd caught Rune trying to swipe his wallet, and when he'd grabbed the lad by the wrist and looked at him, he knew what Gallus had seen in him that fateful day when he'd still been young and stupid. He saw himself in Rune's frightened eyes, and so he'd told the lad where to find him and the Guild.
He'd even found a lass that reminded him a lot of Gallus – a young Bosmer girl with fire in her eyes and a voice that carried even when she whispered. He'd spoken to Karliah about her before the ceremony at Nightingale Hall, when they had still been waiting for Eira to join them. Things had been so rushed then that Brynjolf hadn't had time to think about anything except the moment.
“She makes me think of him, too. I think she'd make a fine Guildmaster when all of this is finally over. You have good instincts, Brynjolf. Gallus wasn't wrong about you.”
So here they were, watching the stars instead of sleeping. Eira had left them already, gone off to return what Mercer had stolen from Nocturnal. Brynjolf knew he should get going, too, but he couldn't make himself move just yet.
Bryn was nearly forty now, and in all that time not one person he'd met had been worth holding on to. He'd been with a lot of people over the years, loved many for a night or two, but no one had left him wanting more. He'd seldom even felt a need to wait until morning to break their hearts – most of the time he had simply vanished into the night without a trace. He was a scoundrel, after all. A thief. It was all he knew how to be.
When he looked at Karliah, though, he wanted to be more than he was. He felt that same desire he'd had as a young lad – a need to prove his worth to her. As a Nightingale, as the Guild's right hand... and as a good man Gallus would have been proud to call his protégé. He wished Gallus had lived to see him now, standing tall and spreading his own wings.
If Gallus had lived, though, Karliah would still be smiling at him. Brynjolf was no fool, he knew her heart still belonged to the old Guildmaster. She probably still saw him as the scrawny, beardless boy Gallus had brought home with him from Markarth.
Perhaps it was better that way.
“Something on your mind, Brynjolf? You've been very quiet.”
“No, lass. It's nothing.” He sighed a little and stood up, gaze fixed on the sky. It was a clear, cloudless night and the stars were crisp and beautiful, shrouded with bright streams of color. “I should head back to the Guild. Someone's got to go keep the rabble in order.”
“I won't keep you from it, then.” Karliah gave another quiet laugh as she stood up beside him. She moved so silently that Brynjolf hardly noticed until she had clasped his shoulder with one of her slender hands. “I'll see you when I get back to Riften.”
“Aye,” he said, though he had trouble finding his voice. The boldness of the sky looked far more lovely when it was reflected in her eyes. “Keep your eyes open, lass.” He tugged his hood up as he pulled away from her, hoping to hide the heat that had risen to his cheeks.
“Walk with the shadows, Brynjolf.” Mirth danced in her voice as she called after him, and the flutters in his stomach refused to die again. Her eyes haunted him all the way home, and he knew. She'd been his first love, all those years ago – the first to catch his eye, the first to set his heart to fluttering like this. And that wasn't something easily forgotten.
He still didn't know what to do with his foolish heart, though. He still wasn't sure he trusted it, but damn... He wanted to.
He really wanted to.