So this is the new an improved chapter that doesn't really suck... I am so sorry for all those that read this before I rewrote it. Thank you so much Lisa for bringing how much of a pile of crap this was, you saved my butt my friend! Now people, don't listen to your friends when they tell you at four in the morning with no sleep the night before that what you wrote in around an hour is good to post online... DONT TRUST THEM!

Okay so prior to reading this I hint at it in the story but I'll satisfy it before you read. The two worlds that this is in, are on two separate continents on opposite ends of the world. Duncan is searching for the Black Brotherhood for a new recruit. He was sent a letter from someone in the Brotherhood that there would be a good recruit. Alistair is with him, but he doesn't know that his new brother or sister is going to be an assassin. So Alistair is clueless to what they are looking for, and Duncan knows what he has to find.

Okay, so without further a due... Read and Review. Tell me about stuff and I hope that this chapter is better Lisa... thank you again for the review :)

This writing is the flashback within a flashback

This is a flashback!

It was cold. Sure Ferelden was cold this time of year but this country made Ferelden look like summer even in her harshest winters. Clouds of mist and steam erupted from Alistair's mouth as he slowly took breath, even the act of breathing made his lungs ache and it just made him colder. This land was harsh and he wanted to go home. Who was he kidding? Home was almost four months across the ocean, home was on a completely different land with completely different people, filled with completely different rules and completely different magic.

He sighed and then cursed as he had to take another breath. His mount was not fairing as well as he was, stumbling as it was walking on the icy ground. Alistair had absolutely no idea where they were going, in fact he suspected that they were heading around in circles.

Alistair looked ahead at his Commander. He too wore a silver cloak like Alistair. They wore the only thing that would symbolize that they were Grey Wardens, the symbolistic armor and cloaks. That didn't help one bit against the cold in this land.

He started to shiver again. At first when it stopped he was worried that he had caught cold and that his body would soon feel the sleepiness that came with feeling that cold but none came. He urged his horse to ride next to Duncan, secretly hopping that in doing this he could feed off of the warmth from Duncan.

"Duncan, how much longer until we get to the town?"

"Not far, Alistair, not far."

Alistair resisted the urge to snort. If he snorted then he would have to take an extra breath. Duncan had said that two hours ago. He pulled his horse behind Duncan leaving some room on the trail for if another rider had to get around them. He looked at the trail, how this could be considered such was just… insane! There was almost no path among the snow and there was a sheer drop on one side.

Thats when he saw the town. He sagged in relief as he saw it. Oh thank the Maker! Thats when his horse balked and started to freak out. Truth be told Alistair hated horses. He never could get the feel of a giant beast like this one, and his horse didn't like him either. He would've thought that his horse was just being fussy if not for Duncan's doing the exact same thing.

Thats when he saw it. A strong wind whipped snow over the giant beast. It walked slowly, the ground crunching beneath its thick black hooves that seemed to be coated in sheen. It was completely black and void of all the snow that was swirling around it. He felt himself swallow and his hand instinctively go for his sword. That when it stopped looking ahead and looked at him. Thats when he felt true fear, the horses eyes glowed red, and it looked like it was warning him.

There was a shift in the reins and Alistair looked at the rider. If he thought that the horse was scary then the bloody rider was even worse. It was female, but there was nothing nice about this little lady. Her armor fit her like a glove, red leather on her hands and feet with studs and spikes. Black leather clothed everything else but her head. He looked into the hooded and masked face as the the woman looked down at him with eyes colder than the air. A red open furred cloak billowed in the wind and snow and Alistair saw a black handprint on it. The rider looked upon them one more time before urging her horse foreword and Alistair heard the jingling of a chain and saw that the Rider was dragging something behind her.

Alistair wished that he could've taken everything back. He could handle the cold, he could handle the giant beasts but this he could not take. She was dragging a dead body behind her. No head attached but the cold had already frozen the neck so no blood leaked out of the severed neck.

This woman… who the hell was she? He didn't know the standard protocol of this place but a woman wearing dark armor on a dark horse carrying or dragging a body was pretty much a sign of a bloody killer! Why wasn't this woman being pursued by guards? Why wasn't she being arrested?

"Hey you!" was called followed by loud sounds of the jingling of armor.

Alistair looked at the purple uniform of the guard. He still didn't know who could freaking run around in short sleeves in this weather but that was what most guards that he had seen wearing.

When the guard came closer he drew his sword and Alistair moved to assist him but Duncan moved in front of him, and Alistair felt a restraining hand on his sword arm.

"We are guests in this land Alistair, we cannot interfere with their conflicts."

Alistair sighed and winced when he took a deep breath. Grey Wardens and their neutral stance. He hated it at this moment. Thats when he noticed the Duncan was looking up at the cliffs not at the direct threat.

"Duncan?"

He looked up and he noticed a shimmer. Like something was distorting the actual picture of the mountain. He squinted and he saw something step out of the shimmer and he gasped when he saw the black figure clothed in the same armor as the scary rider but it didn't have a cloak. It drew something from its back and Alistair was about to yell to the guard about the archer but Duncan's grip warned him not to say anything.

An innocent man was about to be killed! Why wasn't Duncan doing anything?

As soon as the man came close the archer let loose the arrow. Alistair watched in slow motion as the arrow flew straight and true to the man's head. His mouth dropped open and he forgot the fact that it would give away some of his warmth because the arrow blew through the man's head. It wasn't a clean shot, it was like the head had exploded. Alistair had never seen anything like it and struggled not to heave as lines of steam and warmth floated off of the blood. His horse had a delayed reaction to the blood because it chose that time to rear and scream as it smelled the blood. He struggled to gain control of his mount and by the time he did the archer was no longer there and the rider had moved on.

"Well, come one Alistair." Duncan said, his voice grave after what he just saw but he was taking it better than Alistair was.

He urged his horse who didn't want to go foreword to go foreword. He winced when the horse bloodied its hooves in the red snow but not as much as when he saw the body. How could a normal arrow do that?

He was right next to the body when his Templar instincts kicked in, he could smell the spice of magic. A mage archer? This land was really. really strange.

Dawnstar. This was Dawnstar? Alistair couldn't believe it! This was a great city in this land? It looked like a bunch of huddled buildings that together couldn't even compare of the size of the Alienage in Denerim. Duncan didn't seem to mind and quickly alerted the nearest guard about the body on the road. The guard sighed and muttered something that Alistair couldn't catch before going up the road.

The town was… well bustling. It was light and cheery despite the cold and the dead body not even a click up the road. Children screamed and played around the horses and as they passed a blacksmith they waved a hammer in greeting at the Grey Wardens. Alistair gave a small smile as Duncan waved back. He wondered if anyone here knew Duncan, or if they were just really, really friendly. No, Duncan was old but he hadn't been everywhere…

They stopped by a building with a sign that had an mug of ale on it. Duncan took his horse around the back and put it in the stables and Alistair dismounted with him and gave the stableboy a smile as Duncan gave him a few coins. The boy quickly got to work by pulling both of their mounts into the stable while Alistair had to quickly grab his pack from him mount before it was dragged away.

He followed Duncan through the back entrance and breathed a sigh of relief when warmth engulfed him. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to actually not be cold. He took off his hood and saw that Duncan was two steps ahead of him as he approached the barmaid and she nodded and smiled as she gave him a key and gestured like she was giving him directions.

Alistair could care less, he saw what he wanted to do. He made a bee line for the bar and quickly ordered an ale. The whole downstairs of the inn was happy. Conversations came and went, happy laughter echoed in his ears and he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked at Duncan who was looking with disapproval at his mug of ale. Alistair gave an unhappy sigh and drained his mug and payed for it before following Duncan.

The wooden stairs had been built on the other side of the bar and going of the narrow corridor Alistair found that the noise of downstairs was almost completely muffled. He followed to the top of the stairs and Duncan led him to the far right door in the set of three.

Alistair sighed and sat on one of the two beds. Duncan had yet to take off his armor or cloak but Alistair went ahead and changed into a comfortable three layers of clothing and clean pants and boots. Duncan handed him the room key and Alistair looked at hi with confusion.

"We are staying here a few days."

Wait, what? Duncan had only stayed in each town that they had gone through for the night, just to get some rest. Did that mean that he was closer to finding the people that he was looking for? Alistair realized that Duncan had yet to tell him just who the lucky recruit was, or where they were located. Well he guessed that they moved around a lot because of the moving that Alistair and Duncan had done. Or maybe Duncan had a lead.

"Alistair!"

Alistair snapped out of thoughts to quickly look at Duncan.

"Sorry Duncan, what?"

"I said that I'll be back in the 'morrow. I shouldn't be more than a day, two at the most."

"What?"

So Duncan had gotten a lead after all.

"Were you not paying attention again?"

Alistair felt his face heat up, "No!"

Duncan raised an eyebrow, and Alistair quickly moved to cover up his denial.

"Its just, well shouldn't I go with you?"

"No, just stay here and keep warm. We aren't leaving for a few days yet."

He didn't say anything else and Alistair didn't stop him when he left the room. He felt a little stung that Duncan was going to do this without him. He was now a Grey Warden and a seasoned warrior not a child that couldn't handle things. He thought to the guard from earlier and shuttered, he could handle most things.

He sighed and closed his eyes. It had been a long journey from Ferelden. He missed the others already. He opened them, there was no way that he could sleep right now. Every time he closed his eyes he saw that guard having his head blown off. Magic. It had been a magic arrow or something. A very skilled mage must've done that, and he had never heard of someone with that sort of power.

Then again he wasn't a templar for… well any time at all. He had left before he could become addicted to lyrim. The face of the Revered Mother flashed before his eyes and he smirked. Then the dead guard flashed again and he snarled. If Duncan wasn't leaving for a few days then he was gonna get drunk.

Alistair was not the man to drink that often, but when he did feel the need he hardly drank anything, just enough to become warm and fuzzy inside. But warm and fuzzy was still not enough to drown out the image of the guard or the horse or scary rider. So he kept it up and drank. Unknown to Alistair but the friendly banter and laughter had been put on hold. In fact the laughing conversations turned into hushed whispers as the whole pub looked at one table who had filled the room with their own laughter and conversation.

Alistair would be lying if he wasn't listening to them.

"So he lands on the meat and turns it around… Its Evan!"

Laughter filled the room as the others laughed, and Alistair didn't even know what they were talking about. It made no sense to him.

"So you were hunting a little kitty cat and you went after the human? That's a bad dog!"

More laughter filled and Alistair stole a glance at the table.

Despite their laughter there was a sinister dark aura that filled the air around them. Alistair had a nagging feeling that he had felt it before but he was too warm and fuzzy to care. They all wore the colors red, white or black. Two of them looked almost identical with their ruffled black hair and too green eyes. One had a turban and looked sort've like Duncan… he chuckled wait till he told him he had a lookalike. Then he saw the child. He just stared. Since when have children been allowed in here? She had on a simple red dress and was… sewing? Alistair must be drunker than he thought.

"Maybe they shouldn't let children drink, hmmmm?" It was a smooth voice and female. He whipped his head to see a woman sitting next to him… had she always been there?

She had long black hair that was done up in a neat ponytail with beautiful thick lashes framing ice blue eyes. He couldn't help but to stare at her lack of clothing, wondering if it was an illusion because there was no way that someone could survive cold in what she was wearing. He blushed when he realized that he was staring at her. She had bandages wrapped around her… ample chest and she wore low riding loose black and red pants. She wore nothing else, except a smile on her black lips, and he noticed that she had a black tattoo on her stomach over her navel. It was of a black hand. Why did that seem familiar?

"She isn't drinking…" He said realizing that the woman was waiting for an answer for her question.

"Yes, but you are…" She teased and a small smile was back.

"Are you calling me a child?"

She leaned in and Alistair almost jerked back when she looked at him up and down and slowly her tongue came out to lick her lips and he saw that none of the paint that was on them came off.

"I wouldn't go that far."

He smiled and felt goofy. Was she flirting with him? He blushed again and looked at his mug hoping that he wouldn't make a fool of himself.

"Oi Lucia!"

The woman turned and Alistair did too. One of the men at the table, one of the twins waved at her. She rolled her eyes and grabbed her mug.

"Get your fat cow ass over here and tell us about that one girl… the pretty one that Evan and I helped you with!"

Lucia, or the woman took a deep calming breath.

"Would you excuse me for just a moment?" She asked sweetly and he found himself nodding.

Her words… her words were laced with something. He found himself reaching out for her. In that he didn't realize that he was actually physically doing just that and he found himself falling off of his stool and onto the hard ground and he found himself surrounded by darkness.

Lucia was dreaming. Back when she was first changed. All the new things were so different. Her magic was easier to control, her eyesight was better, and she never felt…well cold. She felt like she had been reborn.

She knew she was dreaming or remembering because one: Astrid was in front of her, two she was in the Falkreth sanctuary and three… well she just had that feeling. She was dreaming of her first kill, well after the change into a vampire. She was younger and jumped when she saw the younger versions of the actual Brotherhood with her. Those faces, those eyes.

The dream shifted, she was in the tree with Victoria. Those green eyes wrapped in the darkness of the hood and her body clothed in the Brotherhood armor. They had climbed it so that they could watch the people passing by the trail that lead to the Sanctuary. They were laughing and smiling, or Lucia thought that she was smiling, it was hard to tell because of the masks.

Lucia felt her body in the present time shed a tear. Victoria would move on to become the Listener of the Black Brotherhood, to rebuild what Astrid soon destroyed. She remembered that she always wanted to become what others hated, she wanted to live and be young forever. She and Victoria had this conversation about it.

"So… what do you think about Babette?"

"She's cold and calculating, you know the perfect assassin… but if your talking about her Vampirism, I would never want that."

"What? I would love it, staying young forever and being able to control my magic, not to mention the strength and stuff."

"It would be useful… but its not something that I would ever do."

There was a brief silence before she answered.

"I'm gonna ask her tonight… you know to change me."

"What? But what about love? What about having a future? You can't do that with this uncurable disease!"

"I am an assassin. And she offered, it's not like I'm gonna y'know push this on her."

"But what if you fall in love? He won't accept that part of you, in fact he'll kill you."

"I don't see Astrid killing her husband!"

"It's quite different! Werewolves age, vampires are stuck! Plus Astrid and her husband are both assassins, we have a hard enough time finding love outside of this world because of what we are, your just making it harder."

"Then I'll be stuck at the beautiful age of nineteen summers. I don't need love!"

"Just… think about it before you decide. If you do it, then you'll have to live frozen in time while everyone else dies of old age or sickness."

She had done it. Victoria had been not as happy as Lucia had been when she woke up after three days of being sick. She had immediately wanted to go outside and Victoria had followed her up this tree to do watch. They hadn't talked about it. They took their watch in silence. Lucia could smell everything, even the burning from a forge in Falkreath and the snow in the nearby mountains. She could see perfectly in the shadows of the dark, and she hadn't even broken a sweat from running and climbing this tree.

She felt free. Like she could do anything, well except run through fire that would kill her. But she felt so amazing. She looked to the road and found that she could see each pebble of mud, each scuff in the stone. Then she heard it.

If she could hear the blacksmith from several leagues away then the wagons traveling there were like thunder. She felt her eyes widen as she heard it, it was all so amazing. She heard the heartbeats and conversations of the travelers. But she could smell something else in the air.

"They're slavers."

Victoria grunted and Lucia took out her bow and put an arrow into the string. They would pass the trail oblivious of the two that sat in the tree watching them… but it was a good precaution.

Lucia opened her eyes, that had been almost ten summers ago. She sighed and got out of her stone bed. The sun had gone down and she was still wearing what she had when she had gone to the bar. She took a deep breath and listened. The others were either out at the bar again or out on missions.

She opened the stone slab that sheltered her and Babette's room from the rest of the stone sanctuary. She breathed in deep smelling the moss and fresh water. Her feet made no sound as she walked along the hall to the giant circular room that took her to the room just below the Night Mother's coffin. She still had flashes of memories dotting her vision and she allowed herself to stare off into space while her feet took to the destination.

After she had made the choice to be a vampire Victoria had started to sleep in her stone room with Babette and Lucia. She had still continued the friendship even though her friend was now a blood-sucking killer. But everything changed… When the Night Mother arrived.

Victoria would wake up speaking about voices in her head. How someone was speaking to her and after Astrid had made her do that stupid spying mission on Cicero she slowly became a different person. She would no longer allow anyone to call her by her name Victoria and would call people by their tittles. Lucia was the only one that could speak her name in the privacy of no one else being there. It had scared her how much her friend had changed from that day. Both of them had changed over the years…

Lucia walked in to the main living area, a roaring fireplace with banners of the Black Hand hanging with the glass window of Sithis with the secret entrance to Dawnstar. The room had the stale scent of dinner. Distantly she could hear the torture room and the moans that were coming from it. The long wooden table was set with plates and utensils and seated at its head was the Listener. Victoria no longer had those vivid green eyes, they were cold like green sea glass. She had a white scar on her upper lip and faint lines on her face. She was aging.

"Your up early, Lucia."

Her cue, they were alone in the sanctuary.

"Yes, I had a dream."

"About what?"

"My first day."

The memory came back.

"Lucia, one of their slaves broke free and is going toward the sanctuary."

Lucia closed one of her eyes, looking at the target who was hobbling on broken legs with almost no clothing.

"She's getting closer!"

Lucia held her breath as she zoomed in.

"Lucia!"

She aimed, pointing her arrow at the head of the slave.

"Take the Sithis damned shot!"

"I'm taking aim, stop being worried I always make my mark!"

"She's getting away…"

Take a deep breath and aim.

"She's running!"

Almost got it… concentrate your magic.

"Your gonna miss her!"

Lucia let go of the arrow and her partner gave her a satisfied smirk as the head of the girl exploded coating everyone in a layer of gore and blood.

"There I took the bloody shot! She's dead and there's blood everywhere! Happy?"

They both sat there for a moment. Then burst out laughing as the door to the sanctuary opened and Astrid came out with several others to hunt the slavers in the woods. How Astrid knew about them was a complete mystery but it was still a fond day.

Lucia would never forget that day. It was one of her more fonder memories of the friend that she had since then lost. She missed Victoria and sometimes she would see her come out behind the mask that the Listener put on, but it was only on rare occasions.

"Your not going to the inn with the others?"

Her friend didn't look up from her book but she ignored the question.

"Did you do as I asked?"

"Yes, I watched the younger Grey Warden as you and the elder one asked. He's sleeping off the effects of the potion that I gave him, I will give him the same one tonight so that he will not leave."

"Then why are you still here, Silencer. Do what your Listener commands."

Lucia through years of practice did not flinch. She didn't show any emotion that the Listener would or could pick at. She just stood and with a bow she left the room. She struggled to hold it all in. Her emotions were raging as she went back to the room the her and Babette shared and began to prepare the potion that was needed. She didn't notice that she was crying until she saw that droplets come from her eyes. She quickly gripped ahold of herself and stopped the tears.

She's not going to come back, no matter how much you wish that she would….

She ignored that thought and continued to make the potion.

She continued to hope that her friend would come back, but it had been five years since she had called Lucia by her actual name and not rank as Silencer. She sighed, she feared that her friend was lost to her, forever.