“Hey, girl! Stop!”

 

Sloan stopped as a burly guard stepped toward her, then put forth her best innocent face.

 

“Me?” She squeaked her voice on the word.

 

“Yes, you.” The guard stopped, towering above her. “What are you doing with that dagger?” He cast a dismissive eye over her. “If you have a license, I’m the Jarl of Solitude.”

 

Sloan didn’t have to feign her surprise or ignorance on this one. “License?”

 

“Aye. You know women can’t carry weapons without a license.”

 

What?! “I’m…sorry, sir, I…um…just got out of the orphanage this morning. I didn’t know.”

 

“Oh, one of Grelod’s, are ya? Figures. We’ve told that woman many times to make sure you kids know the law before she dumps another homeless wretch on us. Fine. Come with me – we’ll make sure you don’t have anything else you’re not supposed to and explain all the laws, then you can be on your way.”

 

Several options went through Sloan’s mind but none of them seemed her best course of action (at least, not here in the middle of the busy street), so she surrendered the dagger and followed the guard. She grimaced as they walked – she would have a choice to make once they were in the Guard Station, and she wasn’t sure which way she should go.

 

She was going to be raped, possibly by more than one guard. If she allowed it. The question was, should she? On the one hand…well, she didn’t really want to be raped, especially since she had not taken any of the medication that would stave off pregnancy. On the other, though, murdering the entire station would add unneeded complications to her agenda. Perhaps best to just let them do what they were going to do – it was not really different than a whoring assignment, in effect. She would even get paid, after she picked all their pockets.

 

The guard interrupted her thoughts. “Where did you get this, anyway? You don’t look like you could afford something like this.” His voice had taken a suspicious bent.

 

Sloan told the truth, more or less, since it was the most plausible response for something like this anyway. “I found it by the canal.” Murky things happened down there, so someone stumbling across a wayward dagger was not out of the question. Four of them however…

 

“Ah.” The man’s tension and his suspicious tone melted away. “It’s dangerous down there. Probably safer to stay in the upper city.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

As they reached the central guard station, her escort held the door for her. His voice had lost its aggressive tone – he sounded almost kind as she passed by him into the building. “I feel bad for you kids, just dropped off in the middle of the city with just the clothes on your backs. Just through that door on the right. It’s like you aren’t given a chance. Here we go.

 

“Now, don’t worry – nothing bad is going to happen to you here. I’m going to have to touch you, but I promise, it’s just a formality to make sure you don’t have other things you didn’t know you weren’t supposed to have. All right? Then we’ll go over the other laws you probably won’t know, and then…well, then I’ll have a question for you to answer, and then you can go. If you choose to.”

 

Sloan blinked, once again not needing to fake her discombobulation as he started a thorough but professional pat down. No groping, no leering, nothing but…

 

“Wait, what is this?”

 

Sloan cursed to herself. She had meant to do something about the other daggers – maybe drop them here and there along the path – but had distracted herself thinking of how to deal with the rape that hadn’t materialized. She was acting just as sloppy as Mishi had always accused her of being.

 

The guard hesitated, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to remove your clothes.” His eyes were wary now, but he still acted more professionally than any guard Sloan had ever known before. And she had known many. In fact, there was a decent chance she had slept with every guard in Riften at least once. So why didn’t this one look familiar?

 

Another mystery to try to solve later. For now, she made a show of being embarrassed as she slowly began to remove the clothes she had taken from the canal ambushers.

 

It was decision time. It was only her and the guard in the room – another strange thing; in the previous Riften, she would have been taken to the middle of a room full of guards so they could all enjoy the show – so she wouldn’t have any difficulty killing him and slipping away.

 

Perhaps it was the oddly kind way he acted that made her decision for her; she never had been able to shake the dim sense of guilt from all…well, most of her assassinations. She had no real motivation to kill an innocent man out of convenience. With a sigh, she took off her clothes, setting the other three daggers on a nearby table as she did.

 

“Don’t tell me you found all of those by the canal as well.” The guard’s tone had shifted to something more hardened and icy but he still acted like a professional. Which is to say, he did not grab the naked woman in front of him and try to have his way with her. “This looks more like the work of a thief. Typical for you orphans.” He shook his head, but his eyes still betrayed a hint of that empathy. “I suppose it’s not all your fault. Still, though, I’m afraid the law is the law. I’m going to have to arrest you.”

 

He turned away (and Sloan, even as she broke into tears and pleaded in the way a real teenager in her position would, resisted the offer of such a tempting target of his exposed back for those daggers), rummaged through a cabinet, turned back, and handed her a bundle of clean if plain clothes. “Put those on. And don’t worry – you have probably heard about the bad things that can happen in prisons, and many of them are true, but I’ll put you in a cell of your own.”

 

Sloan shook her head through her continued faux sobs as she put on the rough linen clothes. Who was this guy?

 

She got at least a partial answer after he brought her to the prison and, as promised, locked her into a spacious cell devoid of other inmates. As she clung to the bars while gulping down sobs, he paused, then reached down and lifted her chin with his finger.

 

“Listen. I know you didn’t know any better. I promise, I’m going to make sure you’re not in here for long. But…” A pause, and then she finally got a glimpse of his game. “Look, you’re only going to end up dead or keep ending up in here if you live the way you have started to. And I won’t always be around to make sure you don’t get put in a cell with rapists and murderers. I don’t want to see that happen to you. So, tell you what – when you get out of here, I’ll bring you to my house. You can live with me. It’s not a big house, but it’s safe, it’s warm, and you will have food and a place to sleep. You don’t have to say anything now,” as Sloan opened her mouth, “just think about it. I’ll be right back with some food.” The guard’s finger moved from her chin to caress her cheek for a moment, then he gave her a soft smile before walking away.

 

And there it was – instead of forcing her, his game was far more insidious. The grateful pretty orphan girl with nowhere to go and no one to turn to, rescued from a short unhappy life on the streets by a gallant man who takes her in and provides for her. In exchange for her undying loyalty and gratitude, as well as her body, of course. That girl would be better off than a slave but no more than a kept whore, something she wouldn’t realize for years, if ever. She would probably think of herself as an unofficial spouse, but would have none of the agency or rights to go along with it. The moment she stopped being young, pretty, and/or compliant, she would be right back on the streets with no life skills to protect her.

 

Current Sloan had no interest in such an offer, of course – she had much bigger fish to fry – but would past Sloan have taken it? She thought back, remembered her desperation, especially after she found her money had been stolen. If she had been arrested instead of stumbling into the Vixen and had received this same treatment, this same offer…

 

She probably would have taken it. It certainly would have been better than going back to having nothing on the street. It would at least have given her some stable time to think. And she had ended up being a whore regardless, so even that wouldn’t have been much different. Of course, all the things that happened after were another question.

 

She allowed herself a quiet laugh as she paced away from the bars and sat on the low platform bed. Even this prison (including the food, which the guard came back with as promised) was nicer than the orphanage had been. Re-killing Grelod bumped up a spot on her internal to-do list.

 

In the meantime, though, she settled on the bed and ate while half-formed plans swirled around in her head. There had to be an opportunity here that could help her get where she needed to go. She only needed to figure out what it was.

 

 

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