Chapter 1
"Pathetic"
The slim figured redguard sat slouching on the rickety wooden chair; chin resting on his left palm; arm slumped onto the wooden table in front. A disarray of alchemy ingredients, spoiled clay pots and bowls and mountains of books and scrolls cluttered the table and the corner was the only place in which he found he could rest without a mountain of the chaos tumbling down on him. He crossed his legs under the table, trying to get comfortable but never breaking the cold stare directed at the man across from him.
A smirk protruded across the man's face and he mimicked the redguards actions by crossing his legs also, almost mockingly.
That attitude had been getting to Nazir for weeks now ever since he had been brought back. Well, 'brought back' sounds a little too weak for the situation actually; more like reconstructed and violently pulled out of either Oblivion or the Dread Fathers domain, he had been scarce with the details.
"Why, my dear Nazir, I have no idea what you're speaking of"
The mans voice was as cold and dark as the void but strangely seductive, whilst it had no effects on Nazir he could see why the man was so popular back in his….previous lifetime, based on rumour anyway. His eyes appeared to stare straight through you as if there was something far more interesting happening behind your head, after being dead for almost 200 years perhaps it was something only he could see.
A twitch. Nazir found the man more difficult to handle than any of the contacts he had ever received. Sithis knows why the listener wanted him to go to such lengths to reanimate this nuisance, especially after all the recent trouble with the Legion attack, half of the family had already been wiped out and now we introduce this menace to the equation? It didn't seem entirely sane to him but neither did sparing that jester Cicero.
"I have no idea what the listener is thinking by bringing you back. Do you understand the trouble we had to go through to find the remains of your pathetic self in Cyrodiil and bring you bring from the void? There were only ashes left! Sithis knows why they never bothered to get rid of that old farmhouse or even remove your corpse from it! I care not that it was lucky for you but since the listener was so keen on the idea I can only just put up with you."
Nazir got up and stepped away from his seat so that he was starring down at the man, this visually annoyed him which pleased Nazir.
"The great Lucien Lachance! You've been here three months and haven't done a thing to help in terms of contracts or even helping around the sanctuary. So what is so great about you that the listener has placed so much trust?"
Lucien abruptly stood up and coldly glared at the redguard, his eyes like a piecing needle of ice.
"I don't recall ever instructing anyone to bring me back from my service to Sithis. It's funny you should mention the listener however, three months in this crumbling place and yet I have still to spot him. Are you sure he's not lying dead somewhere?"
"Why don't you tell me? After all you were the one always spouting the garbage about being 'joined by the power of the void' so shouldn't you know him better than anyone else? Got to say you were far more polite in your summon spectral form."
A bigger grin formed across Lucien's face as he appeared to be recalling the events.
"And that personality I had; to die for."
Nazir broke from the glare nonchalantly and began down the hallway to the torture chambers yelling behind him as he went.
"The listener is probably very busy with his other obligations to see you straight away, he is the leader of the Mages College, the thieves' guild, the companions and I think he said he had plans to join the Legion for some reason the last time I saw him"
And with that Nazir was gone, followed by the cries of the torture prisoners down the hallway.
Lucien sighed looking around the sanctuary; he spotted Cicero the Night Mothers' keeper upstairs doing some sort of strange dance in front of the Night Mothers' coffin.
"A good purification is EXACTLY what this sanctuary needs!"
He trudged up the steps to the alchemy station, there was nothing much to do apart from this after all.
"I do hope you aren't planning to use my alchemy station after I banned you from it last time my dearest brother"
Lucien turned to spot the 'child' wandering up the steps towards him with a curious smirk on her face.
"Ah, Babette. How nice to see you finally got up"
Babette was the only one Lucien respected in this place, after all she was older and more knowledgeable than him, being a 300 year old vampire and all.
"I presume you remember the strife you gave me last time with…..whatever it was you failed to create"
Lucien looked up to his left, recalling the burning wood, poison acids and little critters that plagued the alchemy station after his last project, most of which signs can still be seen around the area.
"Actually…..i'd say it was quite a success"
A large sigh left the imperials' mouth as he drowsily stared at the aggravatingly persistent nord to the side of him. His once slouched arms reached up to rub at his temple as he spoke wearily to the man beside him.
"I already told you I'm not interested."
Apparently that was not enough persuasion for the man, as per usual. He smirked and held up his mug of nord mead to the imperials face.
"Surly you're not scared you'll lose, don't you want to win the staff?"
Clear annoyance stemmed onto the imperials face as he turned his head from the man and stared into the distance at nothing really in particular. He knew what would happen if he accepted his so called 'drinking contest', he'd either be robbed senseless or end up waking up in the middle on a bandit camp in just his undergarments…or maybe even someone else's. He shuddered at the thought.
"No, I don't care what staff you're offering so go bother someone else"
He twitched. He could still feel the man staring expectantly at him, just as he was pondering how long it would take for the guards to arrive if he were to stab the man and cut his eyes out, he noticed the nord stand up and wander to the other side of the room, probably to his next victim.
After he was completely out of sight, the imperial slumped onto the bench in front of him half due to exhaustion and the other half pure boredom. The Winking Skeever was one of his favourite places to spend his time in Solitude, General Tullius never looked for him here and it was dark and cool like the sanctuary.
How he missed the sanctuary, how he missed his family (however small it now was) and how he missed the murder. He had only joined the imperial legion because he was sick of the stormcloaks constant racism towards the other races of Tamriel but had not realised how utterly boring the tasks would be. If it were up to him he could easily barge into Windhelm and slice Ulfric up until his breath stopped, this seemed like the easier option to him really.
"Ah, if it isn't Deem, hiding from General Tullius again?"
Deem didn't even need to look up to know who it was, he was such a regular at the tavern now that he knew Vinius' voice off by heart.
"Yeah, I'm thinking of abandoning duties and heading off somewhere else"
He glanced up to see the imperial solemnly shaking his head in his direction. He usually told Vinius about the quests he was given….and the ones he abandoned.
"At some point you'll have to come back and finish it up you know, especially if you want this ridiculous war to finally end."
Another deep sigh left Deem's lips.
"Yeah but that's later, later comes after now and now is when I want to leave."
Vinius chuckled to himself whilst motioning towards the door. It was a real deep imperial chuckle, that sounds strange but it was the only way you could really describe it.
"Go then, I'll head over to the barracks and make some excuse for you"
Deem grinned brightly. For the sacred position of the listener, which is caked in blood and death, he sure was a cheerful person. He swiftly leaped from this seat and rushed to the door yelling behind him as he went.
"No need, just tell him I left to find something more interesting to do!"
He heard another chuckle before he leaped out of the door and began heading home, to his true home, the sanctuary of Dawnstar.
Travelling there from Solitude was quite easy, he kept to the shore line and just headed east until he saw the town, and normally he'd only come into contact with a few horkers and maybe a handful of wolves.
The trip normally took about two days if he stopped to rest; he cut it in half this time with this eagerness to return as quickly as possible. He could have been there within a few hours on horse but Shadowmere had decided to have a tantrum along the way and through him off to chase after a group of bandits that had come too close to her proximity. So he made it there on foot, no matter that his feet were almost bleeding by the time he got there.
"Parsimonious horse"
Shadowmere stood leisurely outside the sanctuary doors, clearly having got here hours before Deem. She neighed and made a few strange snuffling noises under her breath which Deem figured was either insults or excuses, probably the former.
"Yeah, well I get to go inside whilst you have to stay out in the cold cruel world, what have you got to say to that?!"
Dead silence. It was quite an awkward moment now that he realised Lucien had been standing to the side of the horse the entire time and seemed very amused that he was standing outside having an argument with a horse and, judging by the look on Shadowmere's face, was actually losing.
"It's been some time hasn't it? Good to finally meet the one who pulled me out of the void"
There was a level of sarcasm to his voice that was quite nipping, a high level that is. Deem smirked to himself and tried to recreate an illusion of mystery and professionalism, which was a difficult task considering what had just transpired.
The day was looking up already.
After having been shooed off from the alchemy station by Babette, Lucien decided that maybe he should just go and search for the listener himself. Whilst he didn't want the others to know, especially Nazir who seemed to hold some resentment towards him, he was actually rather looking toward to meeting the listener.
He had seen his skill as an assassin whilst in his spectral form though hadn't been able to control his own speech for some reason. He chuckled to himself recalling the many times Deem had tried to get him to be silent whilst trying to remain unseen by enemies or his next theft victims. He had ended up having to abandon a lot of those jobs and kill a lot more people due to this.
He looked up at the sanctuary door he was heading to whilst pondering. Why did the listener put up with all that? If he had been the listener he would have slashed down such an annoyance and yet all Deem did afterward was sigh, stare at him for a moment and sometimes mutter under his breath about having to fix the problem. He could never determine if the botched jobs were what he was referring to or the lack of silence the spectral form had 'allowed'.
Pushing open the heavy sanctuary door he was surprise to find Shadowmere on the other side, looking quite pleased with herself. He laughed wholeheartedly.
"So you're here but where is the listener? I see you're giving him just as much trouble as you used to give me."
Shadowmere simply through her head in the direction of Solitude and strolled up to Lucien, expecting all the treats she'd missed out on after his death.
"So he's coming here from Solitude right now…..shouldn't be too long then. Oh yes, yes! It's good to see you too!"
Whilst the horse had a tendency of causing trouble to its owners, she really was a loyal, and surprisingly loving, companion. Lucien began to stroke her neck when he noticed a figure approaching the sanctuary at full pelt. He stepped to the side just so much that he was out of sight and watched the approaching figure.
Thorough amusement swept over him as he realised it was a rather angry limping Deem who had appeared to have run the entire way here just to begin an argument with his stead. He chuckled to himself as the two begun a truly heated quarrel, knowing that Shadowmere would be the one to win. Then he noticed it had become completely silent, the listener had spotted him and seemed to be going bright red with embarrassment. Funny how such a cold blooded killer can show such emotion; the listener was a certainly interesting type.
He had meant he hide himself more thoroughly but having seen that the approaching figure was just Deem had caused him to lower his guard, he made I mental note to fix that and began he decide how he should begin conversation. He decided a sarcasm level of at least 9 seemed appropriate for the current situation.
"It's been some time hasn't it? Good to finally meet the one who pulled me out of the void"
Seeing the listener smirk and try to compose himself after the events had just proved to amuse Lucien further. The look he now held was the one he usually had whilst dealing with his contracts or any professional business that occurred in his travels.
He looked quite handsome, or rather gorgeous, wearing that steadfast emotion but it kind of annoyed Lucien. After all as they had already spent so much time together, well technically anyway, he thought that the fact he was being so professional about their meeting to be quite unnecessary.
Ah, he cast his eyes down as he remembered that the listener had not really learnt much about him or even been able to speak with him, it was really more that only Lucien knew much about the listener. The relations between the two would be quite different and maybe even difficult; he wouldn't want someone to know so much about him without the return knowledge after all. He felt a little saddened by this fact.
Of course the emotion did not last long when he realised he could use this knowledge to his advantage and, in response, a giant smirk appeared on his face.
"Well then, how about we go inside to continue this conversation?"
Lucien returned his vision to Deem who was clearly restless about getting inside out of the cold so he could sit down and rest after such a long footed journey back.
"Most certainly, my listener"