A/N: I'm not one for one-shots myself. I prefer doing massive, multi-chaptered ones. Once I get started, I never want to stop. But, I wanted to try just once. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It doesn't really matter. So, this is a little thing from Arquen's POV after the end of the Dark Brotherhood questline. I don't mind Arquen, actually. I mean, sure she was involved in Lucien's death, but she didn't know he was framed.

So, this is me trying to show her in a better light than she's normally portrayed.

True Sisters

You bastard. You bastard. You cold-hearted, two-faced bastard. Those words repeated on a constant loop in my head as I just stabbed blindly at whatever bit of flesh my dagger got in the way of. I could have been stabbing the other three Speakers for all the notice I paid to what I was doing. And you would have liked that, wouldn't you? For me to lose my mind rather than accept that my beloved was a traitor.

Well, I won't give you the satisfaction. Definitely not. So, when you were strung up by the ankles, I didn't shed a tear. My face was too covered in blood to be any tears there. As if I could weep over that mangled scrap of flash hanging from the ceiling. It bore no likeness to you at all. Nothing handsome, nothing dashing, nothing so exquisitely powerful and charasmatic about it. Like I said, just a scrap of flesh.

I admired the skinny, hurried Silencer that burst in just as everything settled. She ran outside after I had finished talking to her and I could see her crying at the gate when I glanced through the window. She could leave this place by just running outside, away from the scene. Not I. No, I had been involved. It would always be with me. I could never get to a place away from this grotty little farmhouse. I could never cry like that.

So, all I could do was pretend I didn't care. Of course, being in the Dark Brotherhood meant I was good at pretending. No one noticed the difference. Not that those men would notice anything even if I didn't. Banus and Belisarius were both just chatting away, squabbling over who did what to him. Bellamont just stared into space like he always did, not paying attention to anyone.

All the way to the Night Mother's resting place, I felt like the body was always hanging behind me. From a tree, from a gate, from the sky. I'd look around and there was nothing. But, I could feel it. Like his ghost hovering over me. I prayed that Sithis could keep a hold of him and stop him haunting me. Sithis could always keep hold of them now. None of my victims had ever bothered me before so why now?

I chanted the incantation to reveal the Night Mother's tomb. All the while, I felt watched. Glancing back as the statue withered, I saw it was not Lachance. Not him but her. That scrawny Silencer-now-Speaker, staring at me from under her hood with large, all-seeing eyes. She knew, of course. She knew what I was thinking. I could see it on her face.

The Night Mother made me tremble. Like my every sin, my every crime was laid bare before her but I kept my stand. I couldn't fall. Not yet.

It didn't really hit me that I was wrong straight away. When she said the words, "Lucien Lachance served Sithis 'til his dying breath..." it didn't really go in at first. It was only when I heard the unsheathing of a dagger and screams from behind. I could only watch as Banus, whom I had trained and squabbled with ever since we came into the Brotherhood, fell to the ground. I had barely laid my hand on my own blade when Belisarius, my old Speaker who had secured my place on the Black Hand, crumple in a heap. And, I only had my weapon ready when the Silencer had cut down Bellamont.

She had done it. She had got revenge. She had won. So, I didn't question it when she became Listener over me and when the Night Mother spoke in gentler tones to her than she had to me. All that was left for me to do was stand there, staring at the bodies before me. I had wanted to stay and take Banus and Belisarius out of this place. I wanted to give them the proper burial they deserved rather than leave them lying there like dogs. But, the Night Mother would not allow us and I was only allowed a small glimpse of them before I was whisked away to the Cheydinhal Sanctuary.

Sending me there was a punishment, I just knew it. Everywhere I went, there seemed to be the ghosts of Lachance, Belisarius, Banus and all the others that had died by Bellamont behind me. They weren't visible but I knew they were there. I could feel them at the back of my neck. Even with my hood up, it didn't stop the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

Outwardly, I was the diligent Speaker I needed to be in the turbulent time. I recruited members, I took the Night Mother's orders from the Listener and put them into action. But, I wouldn't talk about it. I wouldn't talk about anything but work. Everything else was dangerous. Everything else reminded me of the past. I couldn't go out, I couldn't have fun. I could only work and work for Sithis and the Night Mother to try and make up for it. To stop them all haunting me.

I certainly couldn't speak to the Listener. She was too connected to Lucien, to the dead Sanctuary and to that whole affair. One word to her and I was sure I would not be able to cope. She tried to talk me, of course. She tried to invite me out on distracting, clean events but I always refused, mumbling something about 'no time for idleness'. She always looked hurt every time but I always hurried off to my quarters before she could try to tempt me.

None of it worked. I was just a dog chasing its tail. Running around in circles and never getting what I wanted. So, in the end, I decided to give in. If I was going to lose my mind, I told myself, I might as well do it all at once. So, I waited until the Listener was asleep (she was sure to try and stop me) and walked all the way from Cheydinhal to Applewatch. Every blister was deserved. Every pain and chill in my bones was retribution. I should have walked on my hands and knees like the she-dog I was.

When I reached Bruma, I was near collapse but I pushed myself on. My once regal Black Hand robes were little more than rags. Another crime to my list, defacing such honourable clothes that I had no right to wear anyway. Nothing short of vandalism with a breath-taking impertenance. Applewatch was innocent-looking enough. Deceptively calling me in with its dark windows. As dark as they had been that night. Deceptively trying to offer me a chance to undo the damage like it never happened.

Of course, it cruelly snatched that prospect from me in the form of the rotting flesh dangling from the ceiling like bait on a line. That was it. The snap. Well, more a crash, as I fell to the floor, screaming in despair. Screaming like he had. Feeling like I was ripping apart like he did. Realising that there was no chance of salvation like he must have.

In my insanity, I didn't hear the door open behind me. All assassin's caution had left me at point and it could have been a platoon of Legion soldiers for all I knew or cared. I only noticed when I looked up to Lucien's body...only to find it gone. Panicking, I stared around and saw a hooded figure carrying it upon its shoulders, slowly but inexorably away.

I cried out and reached for my dagger. Whatever this stranger was going to do, I would not add the sin of letting something worse happen to his body to my list,

"That's enough, Speaker Arquen." The voice from the hood was slow and deep, so achingly like his but very female. It was the Listener, "Help me if you wish but do not hinder me."

Confused (not much was making sense in my brain at that point anyway), I tried to piece my sobs into asking what was going on. Then, in my tear-blinded eyes, I could pick out a dark shape on the floor by the light of a candle I did not bring with me. The Listener was laying Lucien into it with a remarkable strength. How could she even look upon him without falling like I fell?

My brain eventually pieced together that this was a coffin and she was dragging it out the door. As soon as this little bit of information sank in, everything else began working again. Like someone had flicked the switch that set everything running again. What on earth was I doing feeling sorry for myself and bawling like a baby? I should be atoning for this, I should be trying to make amends.

I grabbed the back end of the coffin and helped the Listener lift it up off the floor instead of dragging it. Out, we went into the snowy front garden. The overturned earth of a vegetable garden had been completely uprooted, all the produce left to rot in a pile. It was no longer a vegetable plot, I realised, but a grave. Stones were set at body-length intervals and names were carved there. As the Listener set about digging, I walked around them, reading the names.

Antoinetta Marie, Teinaava, Vicente Valtieri; all of these I had seen last on death records. All had died in the Treachery (as it was now called among the Murderers). My heart jumped when I saw Banus Alor's name next to Alval Uvani. Probably seeing me looking, the Listener explained, "I kept asking the Night Mother to let me have their bodies until she agreed."

So, she felt the same way as me. And, she had been the one to act first. She had been doing the right thing right from the start. She hadn't tried to pretend it never happened. At once, I felt such an admiration for her and realisation hit me that maybe I was not the one that suffered the most. I wondered how on earth she could stand it all and keep going as though nothing happened.

Lucien's body was buried without any of us saying a word. Then again, that was better. Lucien always said he preferred silence many times. No eulogy was needed or anything else but the name put on his gravestone. When the work was done and we were wiping the icy earth off our hands, we stood in silence for a while. In any other situation, someone might have said something. But, not now. Nothing needed to be said.

After a few minutes, our hands joined and we left the place to where Shadowmere was tied to a tree. I was worried about approaching her at first but she allowed me to mount her and it was such a comfort to me. I began to feel a little like I was forgiven. As they set off back to Cheydinhal, the Listener began speaking,

"Speaker Arquen, you should not think that you are the only survivor and sufferer. You are not the only one who took a dagger to a fellow brother, who broke the Fifth Tenet and was not punished."

"I see that now." I nodded, holding her around the waist a little tighter than necessary. It was remarkable; although I was taller and older than her, I felt like the little sister and she was the supporting older sister. Yes, that's what we were now: sisters.

A/N: Ah, a happy-ish ending!