a/n: Hello! This is just an opening for another story I'm currently working on. It's centered around the Dragonborn and the Thieves Guild as well.

Review or I'll rip your face off. 8D

Brynjolf has been described hot-headed, overzealous, and disruptive. He's organized, skilled, and he takes care of his only family – the one that inhabits the Ragged Flagon.

He has been called many things. His favorites are the curses thrown at him from Khajiit when he wins a bargain at their caravans, or the bone-curdling, cruel threats he overhears when returning to a scene of his crime, after his victims realize they have been targeted.

Never, in his humble twenty-six years on the planet, has he been called a dung bug.

As he laughs heartily, holding onto his side as they start to pain him from his heaving breaths, the woman in front of him continues to glare daggers. If her body is half as skilled with silence as her quiet, threatening ice-blue irises are, Brynjolf knows she will continue to be a successful family member.

"I don't know what in the Divines is so damn funny, Brynjolf," the woman begins, cocking her head and continuing with her baleful glares.

He is almost crying now, and follows her over to one of the Flagon's tables, where she sits down with a huff. He tips back in his chair, shifting on the legs back and forth, like a new mother's rocking chair. Brynjolf, after some time, is able to contain his merriment, and reaches out to take a swig from the tankard in front of him.

Before he can reach it, Kadria's tiny, pale hand darts out and snatches the tankard away. He watches as she chugs down the rest of the ale, and pounds the tankard back onto the table.

When she licks her lips to clear them of the remaining ale, something in his lower stomach jumps with interest. He ignores it, deciding it might have been some of the venison Tonilia had prepared earlier.

The otherwise grumpy woman has been in an oddly delightful mood lately, and he and Delvin have decided Tonilia was finally able to convince Vekel to sleep with her.

Brynjolf cast his gaze over to said man, who was wiping the Flagon's bar with a content smile on his face. Suddenly, two fingers snapping together in front of his face catch his attention, and he turns his head to look at Kadria.

Like many times previous, he allows himself to take in her appearance.

She has just returned from a numbers job assigned by Vex, albeit one that is unofficial, as she is not exactly a member yet. The woman's white-blonde hair is pulled back at the tops of her ears, thinning the locks so she can sneak around and see without it getting it in her line of sight.

While she usually tends to it like a mother would a newborn, the long, straight strands are now frizzy and curling, and Brynjolf vaguely wonders if she jumps into rivers on return trips for fun.

The thought invokes another strange churning from his lower stomach, but he once again ignores it. Briefly, he contemplates excusing himself to the washroom in case he needs to release his dinner.

Kadria is now yelling vehemently at him, and Brynjolf agrees with quick nods until his mind focuses from her Imperial face, and onto her words.

"…and you know why you're a dung bug, Brynjolf?" she finishes, and he can't help but cheekily rest his head in both palms, blinking at her.

She scowls and knocks one of his elbows from its perch on the table, and he has to quickly catch himself in order not to land jaw-first on the cobblestone floor.

"Why is that, lass?" he asks, and her pale face goes red with anger.

"Honestly, I'm not quite sure, but I believe you smell enough like dung to be considered one," she snaps, and lifts herself from the table, pacing around the Flagon's center. Brynjolf follows her, because he doubts the once-noble Imperial woman is done talking.

"You know that 'private business' you sent me to for the numbers job?" she asks, and her angry tone gains his curiosity.

"I don't know it, lass, just that you had an assignment there."

Despite trying not to sound cheeky with the woman, she seems to take it that way, and rolls her eyes exaggeratedly.

"It was a brothel. A damned brothel tucked into the mountains behind Markarth. Very hard to reach, save a tunnel through the city, guarded by city soldiers. Guess you forgot to mention that, eh?"

Brynjolf raises his eyebrow in interest, both at the prospect of a brothel, and hearing the rest of her story.

As they near the entrance to the cistern, Brynjolf opens the door for Kadria, making an obnoxious bowing gesture as she passes through. She swats him away, and makes a beeline for her straw bed on the other side of the circular room. Brynjolf follows her, listening to her mindlessly annoying complaints about foul-tempered whores and grope-happy men as she leans down to open her personal chest.

Niruin has already made a fresh run and delivered a dozen lockpicks to each chest.

If Brynjolf wasn't staring fixedly on her arse, he might have noticed her fishing a huge amount of broken lockpicks from a pocket in her armor, and replacing them with a joyful noise in the back of her throat.

"As it so happened, the owner was in the central room, and I was able to-"

Brynjolf levels his gaze at the back of Kadria's head as she stares blankly at the cobble wall in front of her. She retreats into herself often in this way; he notices. Her eyes glaze over and her lips mouth words he cannot understand. Sometimes he acts on a whimsy that she is talking to her own mind, and he places a hand on her arm, tugging lightly.

"Conversing with the voices inside your head, lass?" he wonders teasingly.

Kadria snaps out of her daydream, and trains her eyes to the ground for a moment.

"Ah, you fool. Something like that," she laughs a bit, and he smirks back until she relents and glares at him again.

She heads towards the training room, and Brynjolf supposes she wants to spar. He catches himself watching her hips swing as she goes, and tears his eyes away out of respect.

He is only too happy to assist her training, despite having work to do.