Skyrim One-Shots

Brynjolf x Reader(Female) ~Enchanted~

With a soft sigh, you let your head rest against the wall behind the nearly rotten wooden bench you laid on, your legs taking up the space and your meager pack of things laying on top of them. Quietly, the soft waves of the Riften canal reached your ear, along with the frogs croaking and the crickets. The revelries of the Bee and The Barb was muffled, both from the thick stone and from your distance to the inn were soft.

You held the small cloth pouch of coin you had tightly, clenching your eyes shut.

How did it get to this?

You should've left that farm earlier. Should've packed your bags and said goodbye.

Riften was nothing like Whiterun.

Riften was not filled with kind people. Riften was not filled with hard-working warriors, honored and respected. Riften was not filled with dutiful guards that would bark at you for standing on the wrong side of the main road.

Riften was dark and gloomy on a good day. You liked it.

You didn't even plan to sleep tonight for the likelihood a thief would come along and find easy pickings out of you. Then again, what you had was minimal, but you had something. You knew the mind of thieves, you had been one, for the love of Mara. If it was easy, they did it. If it was hard, they planned, and they did it.

And there would be no chance of getting your things back. Not with the awfully posted guard spots and the fact that half of them were sleeping standing up.

Everything you knew from your many years of thieving kicked into in effect. Your ears were sharp, your eyes scanning as if you were just tiredly observing the city, and your body feigned sleep. You made yourself out to be an easy target.

Why? 

The easiest way to scare a thief shitless is to catch them or show them someone better than them. Warriors with full metal didn't scare the ballsy fuckers, no. It was their own kind that scared them and guards with nasty reputations for cracking down on crime. You weren't a guard, but when you had stole, you were damn good.

Too good. You were starting to get known on the streets. You were getting greedy and overconfident, which wouldn't do. You weren't greedy.

Save for food. With food, you'd take everything in sight without so much as a flinch.

And drinks.

No, not drinks. You'd been through that. You'd gotten over that.

Sure, you had your relapses, your rocks in the dirt, but you weren't sober for nothing. 

"You new to the town, aren't you, lass? Didn't anyone tell you the streets aren't safe?" a smooth voice, rich with an uncommon accent, spoke from the wall to your right. 

You didn't even turn to look. Either it was a thief or a rapist, or in a very lucky case, someone genuinely nice. "Streets are never safe," you answered dryly, picking at the dirt under your nail.

You hadn't bitten that nail off yet, surprisingly.

"Ah, but you don't know Riften," the man insisted.

You moved your legs from the bench and settled your things underneath the bench, depositing the coin in the bag so seamlessly that it would be nearly unnoticeable in the dark. "If you want to talk all night, be my guest."

It was a bland, monotone offer, but the man took it. You got a good look at him while you did so, and you carefully nudged your things further away.