"And so what if we are all you ever get to have, at least you will never be truly alone. You will never have to wonder if anyone cares because we do! If that fool never returns, never wants to see you again, who cares! We will stay by your side until the end!" Ellery's shout seemed to fill the room, shocking me as I had never heard him quite like this before.

But Ellery... I care.

"Faith... Juniper. I-... I'm sorry," he spoke softly, his eyes wide before he turned away and moved to kneel before the low burning fire, muttering quietly that someone needed to bring in more wood.

He hadn't called me Juniper in a long time, not since I'd first told him of who I used to be. Why call me that now? I wasn't her anymore, hadn't been since I left Bruma. Juniper had still been a child in so many ways, unknowing of just how large and frightening Tamriel could be. Sure, she had her skills at thieving, but once she had seen a city, she'd been lost in the crowd in more ways than one. It was sad she had to die, but how else was Valencia to have been born? Ahh, now she knew how to survive in a city. But she'd had to meet her end in turn as well, just as Patience had in time.

I was Faith now, grown and knowing how easily one's life could be ended by even something so simple as having what someone else wants, be it coins, power, food, or perhaps even just the shoes on your feet. The world was a cruel place and to survive in it you either became strong enough to defeat those who would take you down... or you learned how to slip into the shadows so quietly that nobody knew you had even been there in the first place.

After all, nobody is going to attack something they don't even know is there.

--------

I had slept most of that first day, waking up to the smell of warm broth from the nightstand beside me. After finishing the meal, I had found myself quickly growing bored, even with my two companions to converse with. However, as soon as Amicus gently turned my head towards the pack sitting on the floor beside the bed, that problem was solved. A variety of my things had been carefully packed within, from a couple of books to my sewing kit and a bundle of cloth.

I knew exactly what I would pass the time with as I waited, feeling the almost desperate need to stitch myself back together while I had the chance. After all, maybe if I had my stitches back, I wouldn't feel so lost anymore. They had always given me something familiar to remind me of who and what I was. Sometimes, those stitches were all that had kept me from giving up, since they reminded me I had something left to live for.

Grabbing the sewing kit and taking out my favorite needle, already threaded with a somber black, I pulled aside the blankets and began.

--------

It wasn't until the third day that someone finally came into the room while I was awake, other than Ellery and Amicus who seemed to almost always be there with me, keeping me company. It seemed that the Jester Assassin had brought me back to Whiterun yet again for healing. However, this did not look like the temple I'd been to before. No, even the large man that had come into the room to check on me had looked nothing like a priest, even for a Nord.

The one thing I was truly glad for had been that I had been reading instead of stitching at the time, not wanting to face another person judging me for that which helped me stay sane. Even if my choice of books had him sending me a look of concern, at least it was only for my reading material and nothing more.

Well, maybe my health, but that wasn't anything I was too concerned with. I could already tell that I was pretty much fully healed, the only thing left from the wounds having been a few scars. No, it was the physical exhaustion that worried me. I shouldn't still be so tired after having slept so much, but the strange man tried to explain it as merely an after effect of the blood loss before he'd finally left. Shouldn't the priest or whatever potions were used have taken care of that?

Sighing, I turned the page in my book and nearly felt my heart freeze as a slightly yellowed parchment fell into my lap. It hadn't been in this book. I hadn't kept it in this one, why was it here? It had been in a book I hadn't opened in years, one old and worn from years and years of having been passed from one person to another. But how had the parchment made its way from A Kiss, Sweet Mother into The Locked Room?

Could it have been Cicero? But why? Why would he move this particulate letter from one book to the other and then place it in the pack left in the room for me? Why not leave it where it was? Why would he think I wanted to read the letter I wrote so long ago?

Oh, Ellery... Why didn't you take it with you back then? Why did I keep it? I should have burned this letter after what I did to you...

Even as the tears began to fall, I could make out the slightly faded words 'My Dearest Ellery'...