"Non-Heroes"
Chap. 01: Under the moonlight.
On the first impression basis, she had been quite lovely.
Lovely as long as she kept her big mouth shut, though.
He had been bored and she had been drunk. And half naked. And accompanied by the most hulking orc woman he had ever seen.
Around the beginning of Frostfall, business had been quite down for a while and the daily routine of paperwork at some point had been so extremely dull that his body was literally screaming for some action. So he had unglued his ass off his chairdesk and went to consult the calendar.
He remembered the day had been Fredas quite well because most Fredas tended to be a bit… more entertaining as of late.
The reason? Leyawiin.
Leyawiin and its women.
He had been present at these licentious, forbidden parties as soon as his last Silencer had become missing. And he had this feeling that she wasn't returning any time soon. Or ever.
A small bunch of low-ranking Brothers and Sisters had kept disappearing without a trace and, after the third disappearance, that had been the very moment he, besides the Listener himself, had known that something wasn't right. That something really fucked up was happening within the Dark Brotherhood's ranks. He smelled betrayal.
The Listener was furious, baffled by the uncanny yet worrying situation that, among whispers in the dark, many Family members were actually afraid of being next like sheep in front of the wolf. And he wasn't happy in the slightest with the current situation.
But he was still a man after all, and the company and bed-warming his Silencer had provided until her late disappearance was missing, so he went on a search of some kind of fleeting, casual substitute.
One night standings weren't neither alien, neither unusual in his agenda, but they needed some pre-warming up most of the times to work nicely and he, being in his forties, found this quite inconvenient.
Not that he wasn't still attractive, because he was and he damn well knew it… but with age came the need of some degree of stability, to fuck whenever he damn pleased without a tedious pre-working where you better got the silver tongue and the necessary funds for some beers and other alcoholic beverages he of course had in order to get under the skirts of the chosen lady-fling.
Not that by "stability" he meant "serious relationship", because he didn't fit in that category. Not with his line of work.
He admitted he had become a bit lazy and his choosing in regard of his last three Silencers had been purely based, instead of their skills, on their gender and the degree of attraction he had experimented towards them. Ambition by the ladies' part had done the rest.
It had been easy and very convenient for both parts: he gave them a nice rank and plenty of well-remunerated work and they gave him occasional outlet for his basic needs. Everything nice and easy, with two consenting adults having some fun amidst the grim business of delivering death. Perfectly healthy.
Maybe that was why they tend to last so very little time under his wing until they got killed, but… Maria, the last one, had been different. So centered, so skilled… and the last contract hadn't been anything so special, really: just poisoning some high dignitary from the Elder Council who had been accused from corruption and rape several times and he had got away always without serving a single day in jail.
Nothing that a skillful assassin like Maria couldn't manage. She had been an expert in infiltration.
However, she had been missing for almost a whole month and he already knew what that meant.
But at this moment he couldn't do a thing to remedy the situation and certainly his brains functioned better after working out some steam. He just needed a quick fix and he would put all his energies to investigate further into these disappearances.
For the Listener had given him an ultimatum already.
- Contain those rumors within our Family members. Silence them, Lachance! – the man had spat, venom dripping not just by his mere words, but from his very eyes, green as a serpent's – You're the expert in defamatory matters, I am wrong? After all are yours, and no others', the rumors that jump from lips to lips in the streets.
He had felt utterly affronted, disrespected; and he had abandoned the room almost throwing the chair he had been seated on backwards, suppressing a wave of violence product of his wounded huge ego, a murderous fire playing within his dark eyes.
But before he had opened the door of that somber room, the Listener's last words had felt like a bucket of cold water over his head.
- Remember, Speaker… - had said the man at his back pointing at him from the shadows with an infuriating judgmental finger – It's your aptitudes and your wit what are being tested now.
He had wanted to choke the insufferable little twit until his snake-like eyes had popped out of his skull.
Shame that the Tenets prevented him from doing so.
So he had been angry and feeling like shit lately. And no sex, to aggravate the situation further.
He needed to get some and by Sithis he damn would get some.
So that Fredas, instead of being just the relaxed, mute witness he had been the last month in these celebrations, he had started the night with the clear intention of finding easy prey among the weekly party where first the local Leyawiin women would give offerings to the huge bonfire they later will be dancing around so the men could join them in a late private and more… intimate way of keeping going with the party. Everything wrapped in a sort of pagan-celebration-like atmosphere.
Searching lazily with his sharp, hawk-like eyes around the party while considering this redhead wood elf girl with the lute, he was about to make his move… until he had caught sight of her.
She was younger than most of the present women and womer there and she had this long pale slender legs that had been the first thing that had got his immediate attention. He loved long legs in a female.
She was wearing her modest undergarments in a way so casual that, if he hadn't been so sure that loose and oversized tank top was actually cheap lingerie, no doubt robbed or lent by a woman at least four times bigger her size, he would have mistaken it as a nearly-indecent short summer dress.
She had been dancing clumsily but beautifully around the bonfire and he had caught sight of her hair as the flames had enlightened her features: long, straight and green.
Yes, green. The exact shade of Nirnroot leaves and with an almost insane hypnotic quality.
He had wanted to grab a handful of it and inhale deeply to catch its smell the very moment he had seen it flow along her pale slender frame as she danced.
She was a tiny thing: way shorter than most Breton women (although this may be a consequence of her young age, though), slender and flat-chested like a young mer girl despite she being human from head to toe, without hips, not a trace of a belly and bony joints.
Her shape was not a first choice for his personal tastes in women, for he liked some meat to grab, but… somehow her nymph body type along with her body language and that clumsy, adorable dance she was performing around the fire in whole had looked… mesmerizing.
And he wasn't the kind of man who found something, less someone, mesmerizing so easily.
So he had risked a sideway approach while he took mental note of her imperial, sprite-like features. She sported bright electric blue eyes and a set of eyebrows and eyelashes the same color as her hair.
So the girl (for it was clear it was a girl and not a woman) had natural green hair? How interesting… He briefly entertained the funny thought that if the carpet matched the drapes that would be so damn hot…
He had "accidentally" collided with her after a while and she had watched him with a heavily intoxicated sight from head to toe before starting to giggle.
- Whoa, watch'out bro! – she slurred, happy in her cloud of drunkenness – I've got lotta booze here n' my tummy's feelin' funny. Might puke on that fancy creepy dark robe ye wore if ye don't watch'ya step. – after that, she had giggled again madly as some little girl.
That very moment some of the magic had suddenly vanished. For a face so cute she got quite the big mouth.
But her cheeks were adorably flushed, her pale little hands daintily twisting nervously a green strand of hair, her petite breasts under the slight camisole rising and downing as she drew breath in the cold darkness of the night… and her rosy parted lips… so inviting…
She looked pretty and delicate enough… despite her words and manner of speech not being so.
- Oh, but what a shame and a poor presentation card for such a lovely encounter. – he said with that deep voice of his, twisting a bit his pronunciation as he sometimes got caught away with his half breton heritage – Let's start anew, shall we? My name is Lucien. What is yours, my dear?
She cocked a thin, very green eyebrow.
- That sounds like breton name, dude. – even in her inebriated state, she managed to look like she were actually giving him a critical look – But ya're imperial. Shouldn'tcha be a "Lucius" or sumthin' of the like? – she giggled again – Name's Child of the Tempest, by the way.
Now was his time to cock an eyebrow.
- What kind of name is that? - he found himself asking instead of going forward with his plan.
- The one good ole' Waterfront gents will put ya if ya've gotta green'ead like me. – she answered straightly, pointing a small index finger to her strange hair.
Waterfront. That was where this girl got her mixed up lowclass accent.
Her strange choice of undergarments now made much more sense. If this wasn't a beggar, who she clearly wasn't, he was likely facing either a prostitute or a thief.
The latter, given her clean, fresh skin lacking the due abuse prostitutes usually got from harsh clients, was the most fitting option.
So, a thief then. Pretty nimble fingers for a thief she got if the twisting of her hair was any indication.
Maybe he should watch his purse from now on forward, Lucien thought, for he really wouldn't want to make himself to took those pretty big baby blue eyes she had in exchange of it.
And, given the case, he wouldn't hesitate to do it. Back in his youth, when he was a Silencer, his Speaker was fond of giving him odd jobs that implied traveling all around the Empire from province to province where the Brotherhood had firm presence.
And one of those jobs had put him in the Nordic province of Skyrim, specifically in Riften, home of many corrupt nobility and lowly cutpurses in almost equal quantity.
Then a thief had taken his purse while studying his target's daily schedule.
The little shit had been this young bosmeri lad to who he had waited until he had found him alone in the dark corner of a deserted street in the docks.
It had been swift and a bit messy, perhaps, but he had managed to catch the poor bastard unguarded, effortlessly subduing him given his bigger imperial frame, and… taking out his very eyeballs with the point of his knife.
He had taken great care in making sure the unfortunate boy lived after leaving a cure potion by his side while the other clutched miserably his face.
- Why…? – had been the tearful, full of fear and sorrow, question the lad had directed to him.
- You took my purse. – had been his dark answer while taking his leave – So it is just fair that I take whatever I please from you. – as his steps went further away from the dark alley in where he had left the boy, he had added - Consider yourself lucky that I've not decided to invoke the Blood Pact between the Brotherhood and your Guild, thief. Not many can pay a debt a member of the Black Hand demands without losing a little more than just their eyes.
He had been capable of doing so at the tender age of twenty and he would do it again, no matter how pretty… or mesmerizing the thief could be.
It wasn't a matter of cruelty; it was just a reminder to the other Guild to check twice before robbing a Brotherhood member.
- Waterfront, eh? – he said setting aside his dangerous thoughts in an amiable, yet suggesting tone while picking casually a strand of green hair between his thumb and index finger, cursing the minute he had let his gloves on since the moment the party had gotten interesting – I didn't know a rathole of such caliber could spawn a lovely little bird like you. It seems there's always the exception that confirms the rule. – he added, closing the already closed space between their bodies, feeling the deliciously inviting heat irradiating from her tiny form.
- Hum… - she mumbled, the cute little thing she was with her rosy cheeks and her blue gaze, now shy as a schoolgirl – Uh… uhuh…
But out of the blue, the said cute little thing was suddenly backed by a hulking, greenish frame that putted their big calloused hands over her tiny shoulders.
Big sharp tusks moved as a rough female voice found Lucien's ears.
- Holy Hell, Nirn! – the said hulking womer, the hugest orc the man had ever seen, exclaimed with acrid breath, no doubt product of Sithis knows how many pints of cheap ale – Got me eyes off ya a few minutes and ye're already gettin' more than ye can chew. - and directing an accusatory glance towards the imperial man her friend was so close to, she asked – Who's this guy?
But before he could even give her a cheeky performance of his friendly and oh-so-pure intentions towards the little bird, the said girl spoke.
- He's makin' me blush, dude. – she whispered into her friend's pointed ear while trying to sustain her weight on her two feet without swaying – Dunno whut this guy's deal is, but he's gotta this amazin' voice with the weird accent I can hear off all nite. Look. – and getting her electric, now fiery eyes on him again, she said something that got the man totally low-guarded – Speak.
Lucien blinked a couple of times.
- Excuse me? – he asked, completely baffled.
Then the green-haired girl and the orcish woman started to roar with laugh.
Then he was starting to feel outrageously insulted, no less because of his voice, an aspect of his personality he took pride in, when the girl stumbled over him, took the shirtfront of his black robe between her little fists and put her playful sprite-like face a few inches of his.
- Speak again, ye smooth talker. – she said with a smile so cheeky he couldn't believe it – Gimme words n' maybe I'll give ya a kiss. Deal?
First looking astonished to the tiny thing upon him, then to her seemingly bodyguard friend, the Speaker of the Dark Brotherhood Lucien Lachance didn't remember feel and being so fooled since his teens, when young women and girls had been a shameful weakness that had gotten him in more than one trouble.
Frowning, he felt stupid and deceived. He had thought he was playing well his cards, that he had everything under control…
And this puny little thief, this child, was making fun of him?
Definitely he had been out of the game for a tad too long, it seems.
- Awwwww… ye're not funny, Talkin' Man. – she slurred, cute and cocky even in her inebriated state – Don't get mad, okydoky? Tell ya whut: I'm givin' ye a sample n' then ye talk smooth to me again… - then, without any warning, her lips collided with his.
If brief and more chaste than he would had preferred, the almost erotic softness he felt combined with an interesting taste, although not unpleasant at all, of honey and alcohol, probably from the mead the "Five Claws" lodge in Leyawiin was famous for, Lucien found himself suddenly paralyzed and wanting for more once the orcish woman disentangled her friend's arms off his neck.
- Okay, enough's enough for tonight. – the orsimer said quickly as she just picked the little girl like she weighted nothing while the shameless greenhead wiggled her naked toes in the air and moaned like a child deprived of her favorite toy – Time for ye to goin' to bed, Nirn.
- Awwwww… ye're neither funny, Sir Mazoga. – she giggled as she was carried over the hulking womer's shoulders like some potato sack as the muscled orc bent effortlessly to pick her discarded clothes from the grass, getting away and away from the still paralyzed Lucien.
- Yeah, tell me that when ye're sober and I'll remind ye how ye kissed a complete stranger right after breaking with yer stupid officer ex-boyfriend. Because I totally will.
Tracing her friend's muscled back with one finger, she giggled for the hundredth time in that night.
- Pretty hot stranger, ain't he? – she said smiling stupidly.
- Please, ye barely saw 'im with that creepy black robe he wore. – scolded Mazoga while she set course to their now official residence: the White Stallion Lodge, North of Leyawiin, half an hour walking from where they were now in the woods – Admit it: ye wanted to bed his voice alone, not 'im, ye mischievous drunkard.
- Awwwww… but I've gotta good feelin' of 'is muscles, ya know. – the other laughed – Chest as hard as a rock, tha fucker.
- Holy shit, Nirn, that fella got at least twice yer age!
- Ain't stop 'im of bein' a whole lotta hunk.
- Allrighty, that's it, I'm officially not listenin' yer whinin' over some sugar daddy ye got while high on booze, Nirn.
- Now that I think 'bout it he tasted spicy…
- Nirn, I'm warnin' ye!
And so on, they went downhill singing, laughing and squeaking like two little girls until their silhouettes disappeared in the still of the night.
But a certain hooded figure had followed them at a prudential distance so he took good note where they lived and eyed the not-so-impressive building with critical eye, pensive.
Not far away, several howls chanted their Hunt Call to their Lord as the two moons coupled as one crimson red star like a bleeding stab in the starless sky.
And Hircine called them all in answer.
Author's note: whew, hope I've got your interest, because this first chapter had been Hell to me since I am non-native English speaker and the colloquial vocabulary between Mazoga and my heroine was difficult to come out with.
First one first: this is NOT meant to be a side story for my main fic "Hija de la Tempestad" (yeah, Spanish readers, gotcha) even if I'm using the same heroine with the same background and - almost - the same circumstances. This is meant to be a totally independent fic mainly focusing in the Dark Brotherhood Questline (yep, this is your average DB fic, sorry) while not being SO average and having a good laugh at the situations. This is meant to be funny and a bit sexy, that's all.
This is my experiment in English and it will be short, so don't expect a bunch of chapters because that wouldn't happen. I do hope you'll like it, you have a good time reading it and just let me know your thoughts. I wanted to do this experiment for so long that I'm a bit nervous.
Enjoy!