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bxynjolf · 7 years ago

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child bryn. 2/2

By now, the father was so frustrated with the boy and his wife’s stubborn insistence on the wild creature’s rehabilitation, he let slip a scandalous truth. When one of the wardens had initially questioned her on the appearance of the boy, the wife of the farmer had falsely claimed him as the son of a distant cousin. No further inquiries were pressed. Sounded right as midsummer rains. A few sour neighbors assumed it the lost bastard child of the husband’s, but all these were untrue. Clearly. But, in anger, the husband then snapped at his wife for continuously defending “that ungrateful ass of an orphan” time and time again. He deeply regretted his poor wording immediately as, upon this confession, his wife not only broke down into tears but Brynjolf was taken into custody once more. It was revealed to authorities then that he was a troubled cub to begin with. He had all the fire of Ysgrammor but with such a want for trouble that his passions, his talents in particular, were misplaced. Word was sent back to the village closest to his old home, asking around for family who would claim him.

Brynjolf had been clever, or so he’d thought. No longer did he go by his birthname but a similar alias of it. After all, the most legendary in their work did not keep their real identities. Not really. ‘Brynjolf’ was a name he’d donned as soon as he departed the wilds. He had assumed that, with no kin able to identify him, he would be released, able to return to the woman whom had since acted as a mother to him.

Unfortunately, with the written description of the child paired with the remarkably similar name to that one lost few months back, he was quickly identified as a ‘local’. One of his mother’s previous ‘employers’ had not heard word back from her in over two month’s time. Fretful that the worst had come of the isolated pair, the man wrote he’d stumbled across quite the sad scene. The squalor was as in much shambles as before, but now showed signs of significant negligence. Bedrolls were caked with debris. The single cupboard was in disarray, having appeared to be ransacked in a hurry. Leaks once trickles were now downpours, guiding brutal waters to destroy what few novels were abandoned. All except one, that was. His mother’s journal was salvageable and it documented the woman’s steady decline (both mentally and physically) and her son’s part in her failed treatment. Her employer took note of the relatively fresh grave near the site. To ensure no disease stuck to him, he fumbled fast to burn the entire lot, all possessions, and his own set of attire. He confessed embarrassment to have to stroll into town so late in the dusk whilst bare, but after exposing the secretive tragedy, was spared mockery. Momentarily. A search was sent out for the lost child but discontinued shortly thereafter when no sign of his survival remained.

With no surname to search for the lost father and no genuine name managed to be verified from the boy himself, Brynjolf was packed and escorted to Riften, a stone-walled city he had heard of past a few honorary mentions in novellia. Initially, he was hesitant of its confines. Walls loomed high over head. Bricks and stones lay strong, unwavering against the slanting rains that ailed these parts.

Here he faced true terror: Honorhall Orphanage.

Odd, mouthy, and now churning with spite, Brynjolf adjusted as well as an Ice Wraith does to flame. He didn’t. Grelod’s cruelty seemed to inspire, not demean him. He’d first snatched coin from her unsuspecting purse. In response, he’d been beaten. When the act was repeated, he’d been beaten once more then placed in the dungeon, left to rot for a week before another misbehaving child took his spot. He adapted. He overcame. He survived. Riften was a bustling little city. The walls were not confines, he discovered, but rather played a crucial role in protection. No longer did he have to dream of wolves tearing him limb from limb; now, the nightmare that plagued him was a waking one with crooked hands and narrowed, evil eyes. Grelod quickly harbored a bitter dislike toward him, a dislike he nurtured and let grow and grow and grow. He replied to her threats with clever quips and smiles. He took her lashings with a laugh. He delighted in leaving honeyed syrups in her bed with the window cracked. When her withering back would dare try for rest, she’d arise with a howl as it’d be discovered that such sugar attracted the fiercest of flame-ants. Nevermind she’d force him to lay through the agony too. The reward of her upset was well worth it. Because of his tenaciousness, Brynjolf curried quite the favor among his peers. With Grelod’s attentions centered on him, others were spared her cruelty. That, and young Bryn discovered he’d a natural talent with people. He retold grand tales with all the fluidity of an expert storyteller. He regaled each and every child with exaggerated successes of his exploits. He peddled false hopes bottled with a self-assuring smile, and when asked what he’d do once he’d found his family, he’d smirk and say he’d already found one of his own.

Let the world slight him, he’d decided. Let them try to corner him, label him a rat, a thief, a troublemaker, a “vile piece of vermin” as Grelod so tenderly crooned, and let them deem him a loss. By the Nine, he’d grown content to be his own. Families were nice, quaint even. Not for him, though. His last chance for that had ended dismally. Sometimes, in the dancing shadows of solitary, he wondered what came of them, of that woman who so badly wanted to play his mum and if her disappointment ate at her still or, or far more likely he thought, if she’d forgotten him already. They did not want him, not in the way he wanted to be wanted. He did not wish for what his fellows here pleaded for: a lap of complacency. They had offered that with an ignorant smile and, from that man, begrudging hesitance.

Life was hard. What good would another parent do if she was to just die again? Be a poor investment, he grew to presume. And, as days grew longer and his skills sharpened, so much that Grelod balked at finding he’d undone his shackles even. He’d tried and tried and tried, and when he won, he simply looped his wrists in them again whenever he heard the hag’s shambling return. Aye, it’d been a ploy that he upheld for a handful of days. That occasion, he’d fallen asleep in the pitiful hay sprawled around and hadn’t considered her taking a nightly visit. She shrieked her fury at him, fury that was fueled by his own jabs.

She brutally lashed him that evening. She drew blood and spat in disdain and quoted his fated failure with all the bitter relish of a Hagraven. In her seething hate, she’d cut his cheek with that whip. The apprenticed lady underneath the wretch had gone to tend the wound after but was waved off and soon, soon he was left. Sore, bloody, and taught with pain, he was discarded in the backroom. Few visited while he remained curled in on himself. Tears stung eyes. Shame and humiliation dissolved his usual snark. Attitude was haunted now by a terrible thing indeed: broken subservience. Just shy of thirteen, he briefly contemplated death, but didn’t favor that outcome. Wasn’t so sure what pretty things and gold he’d have there. To him, there was no use trying to live another life only to not know how that other one would go. He’d no faith. No gods looked after him. None of the tricky Princes would cast him their ill favor.

So, he kept on. In the creeping hours of dawn, just before the thrushes’ morning cries, he disappeared. Bruised and bloodied, he slipped out of the city with a vow to do better. By Shor’s Beard, would he fail himself and prove her right. He limped out underneath the dawn’s peaking shadows, and shortly thereafter, crawled upon a bandit threshold.

From there, he healed. He grew. He laughed and learned and labored till he was no longer a boy, but a budding young man. What was a thief to a bandit? What was a murderer to an assassin? What was right, when all that was told to be right and just, felt so wrong?

Blast. Grelod was proven damn wrong. Although his career was short at that Fort, it led to this success. Here, where Delvin’s hand lay amicably along his shoulders and Vex’s shallow smile glowed dimly in the Flagon’s light and Tonillia’s darling glance stole his attention away-----

Here, where he cheered alongside his little family over the anniversary of his hiring day, was what marked his true success.

#ᴍʏ ꜱᴏᴜʀᴄᴇꜱ ᴍᴜꜱᴛ ʀᴇᴍᴀɪɴ ꜱᴇᴄʀᴇᴛ. | (ᴍᴜꜱɪɴɢꜱ)#(.#tw: long post #the final part!#love the comments guys thank you so much #.)

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