//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: Why not to lock up a thief. 
// Story: Song of the Nightingale. 
// by ArchAIngel 
//------------------------------//

	Theresa awoke,  grumbling slightly that she had been beaten by a "Fucking winged unicorn with a sun fetish" She attempted to stand up, and heard clinks, feeling a pressure around her lower legs. "...The fuck is this? Why would they put chains around my legs? Really, my opinion of these horses is dropping down like a dragon with a missing head." She grumbled, noticing that they, for some reason, hadn't taken her armor. "Hmph. So, did they seal off the little pocket dimension where I keep my stuff?" She reached behind her back, under her cloak, and pulled out a set of lockpicking tools. "Nope! Now, to leave, get my weapons, and then find that fucking winged unicorn that beat me. Might be able to beat me in a straight fight, but most things die if they have no time to react. If it is as tough as the blue one though, I probably should- why the hell am I talking to myself?" She bent over, crouching slightly to properly reach the locks on the chains. She felt around them, and they felt like the work of an apprentice, and were easily bypassed. The chains slid off with a THUNK, rather louder then steel should make. "The fuck? That sounded like gold!"

She carefully concealed her hands, and cast a bound dagger spell, quickly hiding the blade under the cloak. She sat and waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom, otherwise she might strike sparks, which would attract guards, possible more of the winged unicorns. She could take one at a time, but multiple might actually be able to kill her, which was rather unusual for her opponents. Having of stolen the body of a world-devouring dragon by letting herself die so he absorbed her soul then overriding his soul with her own, then forcing it into a relatively human shape, generally did that to a person. Admittedly, she had gotten rather cocky, but that was rather justified. While she thought about this, her night vision came back. "Finally!" She gently slipped the blade along the chains edge, the daedric blade cutting the steel like butter, revealing a familiar metallic sheen. "They make chains out of gold here? Jeez, I've heard of golden cages, but this is insane! Do they have any CLUE how to restrain people? Then again, the steel was pretty bad too, so maybe they are just shit metalworkers. Hooves would be a pain to work with in a forge. Hard enough with hands." She stood up, and carefully examined the bars. Could they be this steel over gold mix as well? She drew the blade along the edge of the bar, and again the metallic sheen of gold showed up. "Ok, at this point, I am seriously considering just stealing all the chains and selling them.

She neatly cut the bars off, making a redguard-turned part dragon-sized hole. She pulled them out, and silently walked through the hole. She turned around, and lightly put the bars back in the hole, welding them back on with a simple flames spell, concentrated into a tiny, one-inch flame that burned blue. Best not to make whatever guards this place had suspicious, if the winged unicorns were the guards, then she would be FUCKED if she ran into a bunch of them. She blended in with the shadows, carefully avoiding even the tiniest glints of light. She slipped by a ordinary horse, this one armored with the unicorns and the winged horses she had encountered earlier, and kept going. Were the unicorns and winged ones the ones who fought, and the ones without either relegated to prison duty? It would make sense, prison duty was boring as hell from what she heard, and was considered a job that the shittiest guards were given as a punishment. Without a horn, or wings, the ordinary horses must have a big disadvantage in this place.

She quietly slipped by a total of 3 more armored normal horses, easily avoiding them. They were a bit like the falmer reversed, instead of being incredibly ugly, they were so cute that it broke the scale and went to ugly, instead of being blind, they had impossibly huge eyes, and instead of having incredible hearing, they seemed to have the ears of a dead duck. She sighed, it was really fucking annoying. She was used to having to disguise her noise, because she could simply stay behind someone and if she was silent, they never saw here. With these, she had to blend in, and look like the background, which was difficult in a location of which her knowledge could be summarized as: Stupid horses. Some unicorns, some with wings, some unicorns with wings. Unicorns with wings very dangerous. Make steel-coated gold chains. Not much to go on, for blending in with the background. Especially as the eyes would let them see behind themselves, like a prey animal. Most prey, like deer, had eyes to see all around them, to spot approaching predators, and predators had forward-facing eyes, to focus more on the prey.

She walked around, and found a strange hole in the wall. The horses walked right by it, as if it were not there. She closed her eyes, then opened her eyes, then opened her eyes again. Everything, even the air gleamed, like it was full of magicka, and the hole had a VERY powerful illusion spell on it, apparently keyed to the eyes of the horses, although it was hard to tell. It 'tasted' different when she looked at it. Almost like her own, but not the same, as if another her had done it, but was not a exact copy. It felt like a similar spell to invisibility, but directed towards eyes instead of light. Invisibility made light ignore you, this made the targets of the spell ignore you. It was fascinating, but she had to disable her eyes. She closed her eyes, and closed them again, then opened them. Now she could see normally, looking at magic for a while was NOT good for the eyes. She knew that strange tunnels generally led to loot, and loot was always good, so long as it was not too heavy. She crawled into there, dispelling the bound dagger in a tiny flash of purple. She crawled for what she estimated was fifteen minutes or so, noting the odd bits of chitin that littered the place. Was this a chaurus tunnel? She finally reached the end, and met a trapdoor. Not really a barrier, it wasn't even locked, and she pushed it aside with ease. She clambered up, and looked right into the face of a thing that looked like a chaurus and one of the winged unicorns screwed each other, then gave birth to something far too weird to be real. "What are you, creature?" It asked. "HOLY FUCK! You speak nordic!"