AN: Happy Valentine's Day you all! I've decided to celebrate it with a short story about a sadly neglected pairing. Copyright of everything belongs to Bethesda; please leave a review and tell me how you've liked the story!
She's wearing white when she arrives, although the dress is torn and stained with dirt and blood. Blood and dirt also cover her bare arms to the elbows, and her white-knuckled fingers are clenched around the hilt of a dagger. He watches, hidden in the shadows, as she looks around with eyes as wide as Masser and chews on her already torn lower lip. He sees her flinch as the Speaker puts an arm around her shoulders to lead her away.
(She doesn't see him, and if she does, she forgets him immediately. The world consists of many faces blurring, merging with the darkness everywhere, and softly whispered words that comfort her confused mind.)
She leaves the Sister's dorm two days later, long soft hair now clean and braided. She's still thin, he notices, and her skin seems white in contrast to her armour. When she answers his grin in passing with a smile, his heart leaps in his chest.
(She sees him for the first time but his smile is wonderful and her lips form a mirror image without her wanting to. He has a smile that makes the world smile back, she thinks.)
She is training, swinging her blade without skill but enthusiastic. He sneaks up behind her without meaning to, or maybe he walks so quietly on purpose so he can admire the grace of her movements undisturbed for some time. He has to smile again – she always makes him smile it seems – as he watches her. She reminds him of a kitten, with the ferocity of a hunter but the clumsiness of a child. With a polite cough he finally makes his presence known.
(She loves this, fighting, feeling the weight of a blade in her hand. It's security, a defence against the world.)
She whirls around, startled, eyes wide, dagger raised, and he easily catches her wrist. Although her skin looks like snow it's so soft and so warm and so alive it almost drives him mad to feel her pulse under his fingers. She relaxes and he lets her go, hiding his reluctance. Instead he shows her how to hold the weapon – it's the one she's had at her arrival – and guides her through the movements. They are all alone in the training room, he suddenly notices as he shows her a complicated slash, and he twitches and disturbs the motion. He flees the room with a murmured excuse but she calls after him. I'm Maria, by the way, she says. I know, he wants to answer – he has remembered her name from her arrival – but he just tells her his name and leaves.
(She too can't forget the moment when they touched. He's a bit strange in her opinion but rather normal compared to some of the other assassins and anyway, it's nice how he's helped her. He's no instructor, not officially, but he did it well. Mathieu. Now she has a name to the smile.)
She is on his mind day and night. Her name haunts his dream like a song, makes him nervous and restless but also calms the storms that sometimes rage inside him in the darkest, silent hours.
(She is just a friend to him, she keeps telling the others. But they say something different. They spend so much time – practicing, for the love of Sithis! They haven't even touched since the first time. They don't talk about anything personal, just about the techniques of killing. The closest they come is when they're both smiling. She really likes his smile. See? the others say. He never smiles except when he's with you.)
She'll look breath-taking in the dress, although she manages to be that even in normal clothes. It's long and white and as soft as her voice.
(She's terrified when she opens the package and sees the white fabric, just for a moment. White has been her favourite colour until…well, now she prefers the black and red of the Brotherhood. Still it's a nice gesture and the dress is wonderful. Maybe she could dye it, although it would be a shame…)
She is with him, he can feel her beside him, as he fulfils a contract – a young Imperial who looks so like him that he begins to scream and to cry as he stabs and rips and tears the man apart. But when it's over and he's sitting next to the corpse, both of them covered in blood, it's her name that guides him to sleep. He dreams of her and tears run down his cheeks.
(She's been asked to gather ingredients for the alchemists, and it's such a sunny day – it reminds her of her childhood. So she puts on the dress. White and clean. This day is full of light and bright memories. For a few hours she can forget the blood.)
She is sitting in the grass on the hill, wearing the dress. He doesn't know how he's found her out here, why he has instinctively turned to this meadow full of bees and flowers and sunlight. His dark clothes seem like an ugly stain on the brightness and he can feel his eyes fill with tears.
(She hears him sobbing and when she turns around he is standing right behind her, crying like a little boy startled awake from a nightmare. She lets the flowers she's been collecting drop to the ground, embraces him without hesitation, and he holds her like she's the anchor that holds his ship steady in a storm.)
She is so near and so soft and so warm. Her shine fills his world, is his world, and he leans forward and…
(She is surprised when she feels his lips on hers but when he tries to pull away she doesn't let him go and he whispers her name as-)
She is everywhere, around him, above him, beneath him…
(She says his name, again and again, because to her it's the sound of a smile.)
She is with him. He is happy.
(She knows it. Now she knows it, and he has erased the memories, wiped them away like a bad dream and showed her the light of the day.)
She meets him, sometimes in the city, sometimes outside, but almost always in the sunlight. Even when she's away from him she is with him, in his thoughts.
(She thinks the others suspect something but she doesn't care. Although he's superior both in age and rank she doesn't care.)
She comes to him with a smile, but the news she bears are as dark as the Void.
(She has finally been assigned her first contract! After all the time, she thought he'd be happy.)
She can't! She mustn't! Those bright hours – were they a lie? He thought she was different!
(She doesn't understand what he's talking about, but when he asks her, she agrees.)
She is waiting in the shadow of the chapel, and like shadows they leave the city. She's with him. He is happy.
(She is scared. For the first time she is scared in his company. She follows him to the cave and-)
She is screaming! Why is she screaming?
(She has never seen something so revolting. She could scream for an eternity. She has to get away, away from the sick man with the severed-)
She says terrible things about Mother! Oh, he loves her, but nobody says such things about Mother!
(She sees red.)
She is…