Disclaimer: I do not own Elder Scrolls or anything within it; Bethesda does.
An Impossible Treasure
The only thing around him was sorrow.
His hands were stained crimson; his boots, too, standing on a shallow pool of it. Looking down at the red, he felt sick. Looking around only to find more blood and more death, he felt fearful. But why should he be feeling like this? He should be used to the blood and death, after so many years being taught how to kill.
Yet he wasn't.
It was still too much. Too much, when the death was inescapable.
With quivering legs Mathieu lowered himself to sit down on the cold cave floor, in the blood. He didn't care that it got on his clothes. He didn't care that the stench of the tragedy he sowed festered in the musty air. He was too familiar with it; not entirely accepting of it, but acquainted enough with the despair sticking to him, surrounding him, that it felt impossible to run away.
Then Bellamont felt a hand on his'. Mathieu? He heard. Are you alright?
He looked up, surprised. Mathieu had forgotten Maria was there with him. Her smile was kind and friendly despite the morbid scene around them; her hand was warm and gentle; her voice was soft. Mathieu did not answer her, for he quietly contemplated how such warm cheerfulness could be present in such a depressing atmosphere. How such a thing could be present in front of him.
It felt unreal at this moment. Impossible.
Maria must have found this awkward, as she released her grip and turned back to the tunnel to exit the cave, and that foreign warmth was just a distant thought that might not have happened. Mathieu soon decided to follow, because he knew that there was no use dwelling in the melancholy here when he'd only see it outside, as well.
They traveled through Rivenspire; perpetually glum, bitter showers blanketing the dead trees and grass. Despite never being here before he felt as if he knew ever inch of it. Could empathize with its gloom and storms as though it were a close friend. After all, the region's features seemed to mirror what he frequently felt like internally - and just like in his mind, he could get lost in it... but he didn't.
Instead, Maria led him past the region's bounds, and Mathieu couldn't believe his eyes. The landscape of Glenumbra shone under the summer sun in lively colors. Flowers danced to the flowing of the wind. There was not a storm in sight.
He could tell Maria was jovial to be out of the rain. She shook it off as if she had never ventured there in the first place, to Bellamont's curiosity. As she smiled, laughed, and commented on the beauty here with them, Mathieu started to see the treasure in it as well, when he thought he would only get lost in the storm.
However, that didn't last long when they reached the city.
Too many people. People crowding the streets. People chatting, people going about their normal lives. They were not bothering him - why should he bother with them? Well, those many people weren't shrouded in the garb of Sithis, with crimson staining their clothes and murder staining their psyche. Even if he rid himself of these robes he could not be like them. They looked so... genuine. Plain. Carefree. Normal. Such a thing seemed unreachable. Impossible.
But Maria... Maria took him into the crowd, into the life of the city, without any mind to how different her and Mathieu were from these people. She took him to drink, to browse and sightsee - it didn't matter, she said. We'd have to wash our hands of crime no more this trip. Why don't we take a break?
A break? He hadn't known such a thing. He'd only known steady work and ambition since ten. It seemed impossible to pull the burdens away for even a moment - but Maria was nothing if not dedicated. He found her pushing away his unmovable despondency with her buoyant attitude; he found her averting his attention from the normal people around them, loneliness forgotten as he began to feel a comfortable company in only her.
One of those days she donned a dress as vibrant as Glenumbra itself, and he found her making herself a treasure before his eyes. Mathieu became drawn. The way she looked, moved, smiled, spoke... and at that, he realized he loved her.
But that was unreal. Impossible. Yet like before, she had shown him a spark of light in the darkness. Something to treasure when the rest of the world seemed so dark and uncertain. She was that treasure; an impossible treasure that he sought to make fully tangible.
And he soon found the perfect moment to do so.
A pleasantly cool, calm morning. Mathieu followed Maria out onto lonely fields of bountiful flowers. They sat in silence. He kept looking back at her, noting how perfect she fit into the scenery - no blood on her hands, no death on her conscience. It seemed impossible! A trick of the mind! A trick of hope and life!
Thus, he tried to find out. Reached out for her.
Bellamont only touched her face to turn her head. Underneath his fingertips she wasn't impossible. She was real, and tangible, and oh so beautiful...
They shared no words as they looked into each other's eyes. They need not. For the first time, he felt the burdens of dread and dreariness were impossible instead, surrounded by light and hope and love. Contentment wasn't impossible, he realized. Not around her. And that gave him the motivation. He leaned forward, closed his eyes - touched his lips to hers', caressed them against his own, and treasured them.
He pulled back, and upon seeing her pleased by his action, smiled genuinely for the first time in years. At last he had gotten an impossible treasure - love and happiness in the face of despair.
A/N: This was made as an entry for a writing contest over on Deviantart, the prompt being "The Impossible Treasure!" There was a lot of flexibility to this prompt. Here, I chose to take a more nuanced, emotional approach to the theme: finding happiness when one is seemingly stuck in a dark, depressing place. I hope the theme is recognizable throughout - I'm confident it is, but it can be tricky to make sure when writing in this less direct style.
Yes I did another Mathieu Bellamont thing but someone has to write about the little bastard.
Also, this is partially inspired by another, older (and literally only other) Maria x Mathieu story here called "White". I implore you to check it out if you enjoyed this one!