»THEPRINCIPLSOFREASONINGDEDUCTION«
As a boy he knew of seventy three ways in which he could kill a grown man. Eight years on and the Kvatch City Guard Investigator knows of two hundred and forty six, period. From the bloodied building blocks of his youth to the crimson slicked profession of his manhood - how a boy becomes a monster, and a monster, a man.
Disclaimer:
TES: Oblivion related characters and content all belong to Bethesda. Avis and Kat belong to me, so, unless you want to be missing fingers...
Authors Note:
Welp. Here we go agaaaaaaaiiiin~
Much like it's original, this version of TRoPD is just as gruesome, horrifying and generally all around psychopathic, therefore it will be knocked up to an M pretty early on. The prologue should be pretty decent for the sake of everyone and everything - but if the description wasn't enough of a warning, consider this;
If you don't like blood, guts, violence of anything bloody or gruesome - this fic is NOT for you. I don't believe in the whole "You gotta be eighteen or older, lies lies lies" stuff, but if you aren't comfortable with it, I quite simply wouldn't recommend it. I don't want to go upsetting people.
Honest!
Well... enjoy, I guess. Please remember to keep all arms inside the carriage at all times, fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the ride. The story begins 'in media res', or in laymans terms, near the end of the story - and kiddes? Cover your eyes, because thar be monsters in these lands.
| PART ONE |
PROLOGUE
HE GETS IT FROM HIS FATHER
Although he would prefer not to, he'll recall the day he met his Bodyguard, in perfectly clarity despite the gravity of the situation. Sat in the pews of the Chapel of Akatosh while a handful of his friends slowly die in the rooms surrounding him. He was with them when it happened and despite the mass slaughter, the sheer bloody violence, he suffered not but a scratch.
Part of him wishes that he was dying with them — he certainly deserves it.
It's odd though, he thinks, how people both defecate and fornicate all in one building. He's never been massively religious, especially not recently — far from it, but he doesn't find himself particularly surprised when he brings his hands up and proceeds to bow his head in silent prayer. He knows how; he grew up not far from here, he attended services with his father, and well, what else can he do? What could he possibly do to help those he unintentionally doomed?
He's not in a phenomenal form either, though he's hardly in a position to complain. Twenty-three years next winter, practically on the threshold of life and yet he's completely lost, unemployed, and to make matters all the better, Kvatch is far more... different then he last remembers it. What has he got to his name? A few years of Mage's Guild education and a knack for Conjuration. It's not much, but before now, it was everything he ever needed. So praying to the gods he's previously denied for the past half a decade seems like a small, but never the less good step in the right direction.
Or, well. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
"Well... that's a pitiful sight and a fetching half."
Letting his jaw go slack, he jerks his head around to see the man — well, he's hardly a man at this point. He's a boy, if anything, at this current time. Though, that boy who speaks these words will one day become his impromptu Bodyguard, one of his closest confidants — one of the best Imperial Agents in modern history. Despite his whining, and his complaining, that boy will stick by his side through the worst of it, believe it or not... but, for now, he's none of these things. At this current moment in time, the boy is just a stranger wearing an unfamiliar face from the past. A stranger in a Kvatch City Guard uniform, a man caught in a boy's skin, with an impeccably shaved chin and a really bad attitude to boot. There's blood on the left sleeve of his uniform and his nose is completely busted, crimson colours the bridge of his nose, smearing across towards his right cheekbone. His hands are covered in it too. Soaked.
Although he doesn't know it yet, it's a sight he'll come to get used to. You can only expect so much from Aurelius, after all.
You can only expect so much from Aurelius, after all.
"Praying is just some form of acquiescence that your too damn pathetic to do anything for them yourself." The Investigator says, dully and clinically, straight to the point with a clipped merciless bite. He walks forwards with an air of casual disinterest, one eyebrow ticking upwards when he scowls.
Of course, the Investigator is not always being unnecessarily cruel. It's just that he never needed to understand the gravity behind what he says, therefore never developed much empathy as a direct result. How could he? But he's not a lost case entirely; give the boy a few years and he'll learn the consequences. Even if, it would be a miracle if he decided to care about it either way.
He knows this from bitter experience.
But he doesn't. Not yet anyway. So he responds the same way as any other decent person would.
Astounded, or perhaps just disgusted, he shifts to glare at the Investigator properly. "And who are you to judge?" he nigh on spits, because there are people sick and dying and everything in between around them, and here the boy stands, all self-righteousness with a look of firm indifference plastered all-over his uneven adolescent face. At this point, he's actually nothing special. He has the markings of handsomeness, granted, the signs of prominent cheekbones and a strong jaw — but aside from that, he's nothing to pause over. Dark haired, a good amount of it at on the left side is disturbed and coarse. When he looks harder at the odd parting, he realises that the roots are red and matted with a fresh abrasion.
Someone took a good shot at him, but that amber eyed gaze doesn't seem to care either way. There's nothing special about him outwardly, but he's entirely unique.
"I am merely stating," he says, tone even and utterly void of anything even remotely compassionate. "That it will not work. So you might as well not."
The Investigator stares at him for a few moments, considering his gaze and then huffs.
"S'not that bad, you welp." and with that, his calculative gaze locks onto his face with attentive force "It's just blood."
It's just blood. It's just pain. It's not just pain. It's just life. Just death. Just everything, and just nothing.
Although the reasonably intelligent part of his mind decides against it, he turns towards a rather harassed looking brother and indicates towards the Investigator. "Can I get a bowl and some cloth?" The Investigator, in turn, looks at him with thinly veiled curiosity, which is all the better, because — now, he knows that if anyone was to get his full attention... it doesn't end well. Never does. As he turns back to look at him, he begins to wonder if the smugness is just a permanent dent in his face. "Don't get me wrong, I'm just a good person."
The Investigator doesn't do anything, doesn't blink, doesn't move. Just stares at him like he's some kind of enigma.
A few minutes of this pass, three eventually, before he grunts and indicates for the boy to sit down. He does, walking further along with that same expression of mild petulance. It's a very controlled series of motions, all of his steps are completely calculated and the sheer intensity of his gaze brings to light the genius pent up inside his head. As he dips the cloth into the bowl and hesitantly presses it to his skull, there is nothing either, not so much as a complaint, even when he deliberately presses down too hard. Placing his other hand against the back of the Investigator's head, he notices that the boy's hair is very sticky, so he takes pulls it away. His palm comes away red.
"You've had some form of medical training." The Investigator states, unblinking. "A healer, I presume. Though with little restoration experience... leaves me to believe you're a mage of a different calibre. Destruction perhaps? Or was it Conjuration?"
"I'm not in the mood for small talk."
"I don't care."
Expecting some kind of conflict, he looks straight at the Investigator, but the boy isn't looking at him anymore. His fiery amber gaze is locked on the bloody red cloth dangling just over his brow. As he continues to work on the wound, a few blessed moments pass in silence, or rather, the Investigator keeps his mouth shut, leaving nothing but the sound of water and the sounds of wet cloth against skin. He finds himself thinking back. Twenty-three years of age, twenty-three hours without sleep, twenty-three minutes until his friends pass away, twenty-three seconds until his life changes forever.
Of course, he doesn't know that — the Investigator tells him, two years and three months from this very day exactly. Aurelius marks the anniversaries of things with the fervour of a man possessed. In place of the scars, he thinks. It's a way for him to validate those fragile links to his humanity that he, like a few, blessedly present, people so desperately try to cultivate.
The Investigator smiles a mad, wide grin and moves toward him slightly, scanning his face with an almost cruel sense of observation. But under that there's something that doesn't quite match the intense ardour — it's the look of a, genuinely, pleased child and it doesn't match. Not in the slightest.
"Wanna know something good?"
"No, I don't." He grunts in the way of reply, looking away slowly and instead, stares determinedly at a pillar towards his left. Of course, the Investigator doesn't take the sodding hint. He never does.
He just chuckles.
"I've just lost my neighbour."
The words that come out of the boy's mouth are cold, empty — but while this is in no way strange, considering the level of disinterested detachment — there is something else in those words. Something very, very wrong. So he turns his head again to find that they are practically nose to nose. The most he can do is stare in this position, but some part of him manages to licks his bottom lip unconsciously. "Well, that was rather careless of you." He eventually spits out, guardedly. He's not sure where this is going. Nor does he want to know.
"Well, that was rather careless of you." He eventually spits out, guardedly. He's not sure where this is going. Nor does he want to know.
At this, the Investigator suddenly bursts out laughing, very nearly kicking the bowl off the pew and sending the bloodied cloth from out of his hands with a sharp smack. It goes flying, only to rest in a sad rejected pile.
"No." He moves back then, suddenly expressionless. Thinking. Calculating. He narrows his eyes into slits and his voice lowers into something bank and heavy. And quiet, hushed. "I killed him."
Silence.
"Stabbed him between the neck and the shoulder, before slitting his throat with his own butter knife. I dumped his corpse in the moat by the side of the castle." He smiles, as if it's some sort of notifiable achievement. "He had a rather unconventional relationship with his step-daughter, if it's any consolation."
With this — all of this, he realises that this meeting was so much more treacherous than originally perceived. The Investigator knew this all along, he often does. For when it comes to the varying degrees of cold calculation — he will always know. The world is his toybox, his little experiment and like the wretched, calculating bastard he is, he knows exactly how much it takes to topple, how long before he steps over the line... but, like a boy with a spyglass he'll push it all to a new limit, to a new chapter of observation.
And, it all starts with messing with a man who doesn't know he's being messed around with.
"So, what're gonna do now, Pretty Boy?"
Martin Septim never stood a chance.