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A title, one that seemed long forgotten now, even after so short a span as it had been. It rang in Kiffar's ears, and brought ice blue eyes quickly to Captain Renault's face. It was such a simple request, and he couldn't decide if she meant to flatter him into compliance, or insult him into it. For a long moment, he simply stared, ears perked high and tail lashing, whiplike, behind him. For all his air headed behavior, those eyes were sharp as augers, uncomfortable for any unfortunate soul without a stalwart disposition and a spine like daedric steel. But then, surely, the Captain of the Blades had both.

Slowly, he decided she could not have meant insult by her words. Her duty was akin to his own, true, but he could not expect her to understand the depth of his shame, the shame of all the Manesguard, in the failure of their duties. Still, it would not do to let her carry on under the pretense that such claims were acceptable. He stooped low, bringing himself almost nose to nose with the Captain, voice low and words measured, a care given to sound... Proper, in this foreign tongue.

"Kiffar.... Is Manesguard no longer. This one remembers Captain Renault. She is proud, and capable, and Kiffar's Once-Kin, his... Fellows, spoke highly of her company in the negotiations. But she will not call this one Manesguard again. Kiffar is Unbound, forever, and always, and he deserves no better. But he will do this thing for you, for the fair hand her Mane-of-Men, her Emperor, dealt Kiffar's kind, however loaded the dice."

With a heavy sniff, he straightened, seeming content to have set the matter straight. Still, there was a set to his shoulders, now, something more ready than before, a more watchful feel to his wandering gaze. He awaited the others to come to readiness- And of course, when their things caught up, he was among the first to rummage through the chests of gear to fetch what had been taken. Heavy blades were returned to their places at his belt, weights and plates returned to wrists and legs. He seemed vaguely disappointed to find one item missing, rifling through the chests a little longer in search of it, though its apparent loss earned only an irate snort in the end.

"Silly man-things, taking Kiffar's sugars. No fun at all."

---

The first thing that struck Antonius when he woke up was the smell, a kind of staleness in the air mixing with sweat and a hint of blood. He picked himself up off the ground slowly, a string of saliva dangling from his mouth only to be wiped away by his sleeve a moment later. Sitting up now and leaning against the wall, he took in his surroundings and the people in the cell with him. A mountain of a Khajiit, two Argonians, a Bosmer, a Dunmer, a few Nords and Bretons and Orcs - quite a lot of people crammed into one tiny cell. He tried his best to get his bearings again, reaching up to rub the welt on his forehead only to wince and hiss in pain at the touch.

Antonius was only awake for a minute or two when an entourage arrived at the cell, a group of Blades escorting... Oh Talos, that's the Emperor. He had to be dreaming. But the headache reminded him that no, this was not a dream, and he began to feel like he was in way over his head. One of the Blades told them that they were pardoned for their crimes, Antonius wondering for a moment just exactly what crime he had committed considering he got knocked out as soon as the fight began, and that they were free to head up the stairs or follow them through the tunnel that had been opened within their cell. Either way, they'd be facing opposition.

Quickly, people began to pile through the tunnel, the Blades leading the Emperor up front and followed close behind by the rest of this ragtag group of lowlifes. The group traveled through the tunnel which gave way to a cistern with different tunnels stretching below the Imperial City. The Captain of the Blades went to speak to the giant Khajiit and Antonius couldn't quite pick up the details of their conversation. What he did pick up as the rest followed in behind them was that their belongings had arrived, and he quickly made his way over to secure his sword and bow. He fastened the quiver to his hip and stored the bow and sword on his back, giving a sigh of relief that his gear was unharmed.

Antonius looked around for a moment before speaking to himself out loud for anyone nearby to hear: "Not exactly how I pictured my day going..."

The stone beneath Yarmira’s feet was dead. No breath of the Green in these walls, no root nor creeping vine, only the cold weight of rock pressing down from above, lifeless and still. There were caves in her homeland, but no Bosmer delved their depths. Her elders spoke of such places in hushed voices, crevices forsaken by The Great Spinner, places where malevolent spirits prowled. Languishing in the absence of the Green, waiting in the dark and still air for their next victims. To steal the breath from their lungs, the flesh from their bones, and walk again in the daylight as shambling mockeries of life, like crude puppets.

The stories crept into her mind like shadows, dark and unsettling. The weight of them pressed on her chest, urging her to move faster, to dash through the cold corridors before the spirits of the cave caught up.

Her feet itched to run, but Yarmira stayed in step. She found her confidence in the familiar bone grip of the daggers in either hand, the familiar weight of the bow slung across her chest. Surrounded on either side by similarly armed men and women, most who towered above her, the young Bosmer silently dared the twisted cave spirits or crimson demons to test their mettle. She prowled low and quiet through the tight caverns, one ear listening intently for the anguished howls of lost spirits and the other caching snippets of her companion's conversations. The Bosmer dropped back in the pack, a desperate attempt to avoid the veritable duststorm stirred up by Kiffar-Nirthal.

A voice cut through the dim. "Not exactly how I pictured my day going..."

Her head swiveled like an owl's and she fixed her gaze on the speaker, a cellmate who had gone unnoticed until now. Tall, bronzed skin, and with those same alien, rounded ears that seemed common in these parts. He carried what looked to her like a giant, two-handed dagger, with a strange bow slung across his back. Unfamiliar attire, but the bow marked him as a fellow hunter. She fell in step with him, staring up at the Imperial inquisitively before speaking.

"It would be a dull life if you knew the shape of your story before it was sung," she said, voice high and piping, black eyes bright with a kind of incipient good will. "Y’ffre delights in twists and turns. A tale without surprise is like a hunt where the prey falls willingly into your jaws."

Her gaze kept returning to his bow. It was familiar in shape, yet foreign in spirit. She knew bows of sinew and bone, carved from the gifts of the hunt. Shaped by careful hands and honored in use. But this was something else entirely. She couldn’t help but feel a twist of discomfort in her throat as she studied it. Yarmira tried to move past the feeling.

"I've found many such creatures in this strange country, who might give up their life without a chase," Yarmira continued her previous thought. "Great, lowing beasts, some with horns atop their huge heads this long," she spread her arms wide. "They they live in herds, but will walk right up to a hunter, no fear in their eyes. As if they've forgotten they are prey."

Yarmira addressed the companions nearest to her, hoping to gain some insight into the things that pursued them. "Tell me friends, have any of you encountered these red demons before? Are they Mer or beast? A hunter must know their quarry."

---

As Antonius readjusted his gear he heard the Bosmer speak to him. A little chuckle escaped his lips as she mentioned how Y'ffre enjoyed the unexpected detours that life loved to throw at people. "I suppose one must also learn to love it, but I'm not quite sure I can enjoy this turn." He looked at the Emperor for a moment, a feeling of unease gripping him. Something bad was happening right now, that was for certain. He only hoped that the Blades and even this group of misfits could protect the Emperor from whoever was after him.

The wood elf continued to speak, describing... Some kind of beast. Minotaurs, maybe? He hadn't had the displeasure of running into one in his travels. But no, minotaurs are territorial and dangerous beasts, nothing like what she's describing. He kept racking his mind trying to figure out what creatures she had seen when it hit him: cows. She was talking about cows. "... Those are farm animals."

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Allowing himself a snort as the Khajiit made his opinions on the state of the tunnels known, Caddach nonetheless kept his mouth shut as he walked, giving the Emperor and his Blades a respectably wide berth, opting instead to watch the flanks. Knowing full well that Kiffar still stood far, far above his station in their ramshackle band of misfits, even 'Unbound' as he was... and also that Elara Renault of the Blades didn't appreciate his presence at the best of times, so now was hardly the time to rock the boat by cracking a joke. What with the Emperor present, assassins on their asses and the Imperial Prison behind them under active attack by lunatics in funny robes and spooky armour, and all that.

...Well, maybe the lad could allow himself just a bit of humor, as long as it was helpful.

<"Places like this— beneath the Imperial City and it's surrounding islands— have been built up and over, layer by layer since the days of the Ayleids and the Alessian Empire, friend."> Caddach explained in Ta'agra so that maybe Renault wouldn't give him the business about it, his accent and dialect more akin to what you'd find among Khajiit growing up in the Imperial City markets than anything out of Elsweyr. <"And if these tunnels connect to what's beneath the main island itself? You could get lost down here for months and never see the light of day even once... if something very old and very angry doesn't get ya first. You'd need a small army of us 'clean-makers' to scrub it properly, and a whole lotta soldiers to watch our backs.">

Turning his head to face the Cathay-Raht, he then adds with a little shrug;

<"...And having that many eyes down here kinda defeats the point of having a secret tunnel, dunnit?">

Carrying on ahead before Renault could scold him for talking too much, Caddach allowed his hand to rest on the hilt of the sword Glenroy had managed to get for him— standard legion issue, good steel but nothing extravagant— feeling the familiar weight of a weapon on his belt with just a tiny hint of resigned incredulity. Growing up as he did, in a Breton family of such strong Knightly tradition, he was no stranger to weapons, despite his best efforts. It was... almost hilarious at this point how, try as he might to do literally anything else in life— joining the Arcane University, becoming a groundskeeper at the palace— the lad always somehow wound up with a fucking sword in his hand. Even before today, when the Palace Guards and the occasional Noble would hear his surname and ask to spar when he was off-duty. So Caddach was... confident he could defend himself if those robed bastards caught up with them and was more than willing to throw down if it kept the Emperor safe, but, well... there was just a bit of trepidation there in the back of his mind; As comfortable as he was holding a blade, Caddach had never actually killed another person before. And with the way his day was going, that was likely going to be something he'd have to deal with in the very uncomfortably immediate future.

Frowning a little and shaking his head a bit to clear that unpleasant dread from his mind, our lad Caddach instead allowed himself to be distracted by the exchange between the Imperial and the wild Bosmer, pulling his lips up into a little smirk as the smaller figure expressed her confusion about what sounded an awful lot like cows. Before turning his head slightly towards the Imperial and calmly interjecting;

"I... don't think they have farms where she's from, mate." He said with a slight shake of his head, before facing the Bosmer and adding. "The creatures you speak of are not... 'prey' as you'd know them; We raise them ourselves for their meat, hides and milk. But we take care of them, so they tend not to fear us, more often than not."

Cocking his head to the side slightly and taking a step closer, he fixed the Bosmer with a curious gaze before continuing;

"And I mean no offense by it, but I'm curious... how did someone who follows the Green Pact so strictly wind up here, anyway?" He asks, his brow raising slightly. "Those like yourself usually don't bother coming to Cyrodiil, Never mind the Imperial City."