Author's Note: I originally wrote and published this piece on my personal blog on Tumblr. Just a little drabble that came to me thinking about Skyrim's DB questline and missing everybody's favourite Speaker. I'm still bad at naming fics.
"Would y'do it differently?"
Lucien turns to raise a brow at the upstart - the young Listener, somehow the most competent and worthy of the title in this age long after his. How far they've fallen.
But there's potential here. The Night Mother would never have spoken, otherwise.
"And what do you mean by that, Listener?"
"I mean - " He gestures grandly as he speaks, the young man, all sweeping arms and wide expressions that swallow his narrow face. "I mean, you know. Everyone knows you were one of the best assassins there was, before - before you were betrayed. But you were betrayed." Lines crease his face, a wince. "You told me how you died. How it all fell apart."
Ah, yes. He feels his lips, even spectral as they are, twist into a smirk. Hanging by his feet, blood rushing into his eyes, his nares, drowning him slowly. That whore, Arquen whispering sweet nothings as she sawed into his gut, pulled out steaming entrails and sunk in her teeth.
"What if you'd never joined at all? Become, I dunno, a merchant or something." The young man - boy, a part of Lucien sneers, but he relents that this is his superior now - shakes his head. "Do you ever wish you'd lived differently? Died differently? It wasn't your fault, what happened, but - don't you regret it?"
Insecurity. Fear. The boy feels safe sharing these things with him - he's only a phantom, after all. And out of the incompetent selection left by the scouring of the Brotherhood over the years, who else could he turn to? The ancient child? The smug contractor? The jester?
Besides, he has to confess - he sees something of himself in him. Not as he is now, of course, but as he was. When he first came to the Dark Brotherhood as a whelp himself and found his Family, his purpose. So awed by everything around him, awed by the honour bestowed. By the power of taking a life.
So Lucien stays patient, dark eyes surveying him. The boy stares back, hands raised helplessly.
"I - I don't regret becoming an assassin, Lucien. I was meant for this. I feel it - I know it. But it's all on me. I'm the Listener. I have to rebuild, and - everyone else is dead." His face falls "Veezara, Gabriella, Astrid. My friends." His voice sinks low, hoarse. "My family."
"You are not the first to lose a Family. You will not be the last." There's a weight to the word, more than blood shared but blood spilled that binds them. The boy frowns, tilting his head.
"… You?"
Memories are as clear in death as they were in life, and creep in against his will. A chess game with Vicente, quietly cursing the vampire even while complimenting his taste in wine. Antoinetta's doting nature, how she hung on his every word, how her worship of him near bordered on heresy next to her worship of their Mother. His twins, his proteges, Ocheeva the matriarch, Teinaava a deadly whisper in even the most treacherous swamps. How proud he'd been of them. All of them, and how proud even as his Silencer was forced to kill them all…
"I'm sorry, Lucien." The boy swallows, the apple in his throat visibly bobbing. So scrawny. Even now, it was clear that but months ago he had been living off the streets. "But then - you must regret it. Right? You lost everything."
Everything, yes, to that sniveling little Bellamont and his schemes, his poisons that coursed through the veins of his family and dismantled the sanctuaries, one by one.
And the injustice, the rage of it is almost enough to bring bile that doesn't exist up in his spectral throat. But then, comfort.
The utter velvety blackness. The peace. 'Cold as winter ice', he'd once described it, to the woman who would become Listener after he died. And his Mother's voice, comforting, congratulating him. Telling him he had not died in vain.
It was now this boy who heard those whispers, his eyes wide and desperate as he awaits an answer. And Lucien smiles.
"No. I do not."
"But - " He stands and paces, bare feet clapping against stone. Jittery like a sparrow on a branch, dragging spidery fingers through a thick tangle of curls. "… What if I can't do it? Why did She choose me? Nazir would've been better, right?" His voice has a twang of hysteria, his hands shaking. "Smarter, more experienced. Hell, even Babette - "
"Listener."
The boy freezes, turning slowly at the only half-tangible feel of a hand on his shoulder. He swallows hard and stares at the old Speaker.
"Lucien?"
"The Night Mother chose you. Do you doubt Her sight? Her will?"
"No." His jaw clenches tight and he tries to stand taller, as though in Lucien's presence he feels small. "No. I just…"
"You will rise to the occasion. You are not the first to have a shattered Brotherhood to rebuild." Again he thinks of his Silencer, the remnants she'd inherited after the poison had been cleansed. "Have faith. If not in yourself, then in Her, and our Dread Father. In those who rose you up. Do well by their memory."
And the boy does stand taller still, not with lack of confidence now, but with a glimmer of pride. "I will."
"Yes. You will. You have my guidance, and the Night Mother's voice."
"Thank you. Thanks, Lucien." The boy smiles, weak and relieved and toothy. "So, uh - any guidance for your Listener?"
Lucien pauses, looking him up and down. An ever so subtle grimace. "Your frame suits this work well, but the lack of muscle does not. You are a street rat no longer. Eat properly." A smirk slithers onto his lips and he bows his head. "… With all due respect, Listener."
"Hah!" And he claps Lucien on the back as though he's an old friend, the sensation seeming to ripple through his ghostly form. "You're right. I can - I will handle this. For my Family. For the Dread Father. In the mean time…"
And something on his face changes. He's the anxious, tittering boy no longer. Something darker flickers in his eyes, and Lucien understands why he was chosen in the first place.
"Rumour has it Commander Maro survived the attack on The Katariah. A fluke, I s'pose - I was more interested in getting to the Emperor. But I think we owe him a visit, don't we?"
Oh, yes, he will rise. And he will bring the Brotherhood with him, make them the force whispered and feared they were so very long ago. Lucien smiles wide, and bows to his Listener.
"My blade is yours."