AN: I recently picked up Oblivion for the Steam sale, and I'm really glad I did. There are so many things in this chapter that I guessed at that were not true at all. So hopefully, I actually kind of know what I'm talking about now. Yay!
Chapter One:
The New Beginning
Fire. It had all ended with fire. The Bruma Sanctuary, burned to the ground, taking everything Cicero had ever known or loved with it. His family, his friends, and his darling Camilla, all gone, snatched before his eyes by the hungry yellow flames.
He'd been taking care of a contract in Anvil when it happened. By the time he'd returned, everything had disintegrated to ash. The contract was the only thing that had kept him from suffering the same fate. His damned contract. Though he felt grateful to Lord Sithis for sparing his life, but at the same time he wished that he had perished with them. He was all alone without them.
Now, he gazed upon the only home he'd ever known for the last time. Well, the burned remains of his home, he supposed, but his home none the less. He was an orphan, stranded, a single seed spared the horrid fate of his others. The only survivor. But he was not alone. The Black Hand had sent word, told him of the other sanctuary, a place for him to live and continue his contracts for the Dark Brotherhood. It was in Cheydinhal, all the way across the north of Cyrodiil.
So here he stood, surveying his one true home for what would be the final time. He saw the burned tapestries and the stone that was too solid to burn. It almost seemed like a metaphor. You could burn the tapestries but you can't burn the stone? Cicero shrugged. He was never one for metaphors.
It had come as a shock to know that the purification had spread even to Cyrodiil, the unofficial capital of crime, a stinking cesspit of corruption and deceit. In other words, the perfect place for an assassin to ply his trade. And yet, someone had wanted them gone, the Bruma sanctuary wiped right off of the map. It could have been a righteous holy man, or the family member or friend of someone whom the Brotherhood had been hired to eliminate; they had many enemies. Any one of them could end the lives of the assassins with a snap of their fingers, if only they could have found them. But somehow, they had. It was terrifying to think about just how precipitous the cliff was that Cicero had been standing over for all of these years.
He trudged slowly up the stone steps that had been carved into the earth after a millennia of use, savouring the echo that his made in the vast silence of the sanctuary. So many times had he climbed these stairs, often pondering a tricky problem that a new contract caused him, that he couldn't actually conceive the idea in his mind that this would be the last time. His mind almost tricked him into thinking that he was just going out on a contract, and he would be back soon. But the staircase was short, and too soon, Cicero reached the door of the sanctuary.
From the inside, it looked like a plain slab of stone, carved from the rock face; the one notable feature being an indent in the stone shaped like a hand, a hand worn deep into the rock by the countless brothers and sisters who had come before him. Now there would be none, the sanctuary left to be forgotten, alone, lost in the folds of time. Cicero sighed, never had he thought that his hand would be the last to push open the Black Door.
Grey, hard light flooded into the deep peace of the sanctuary, along with a harsh, snowy wind that bit at Cicero's cheeks and nose. He had the push hard for the door to open amid the deep snow. The north of Cyrodiil was a cold, harsh place, but it was the perfect location to hide a den of assassins. It was a place for a family to hide from the harsh realities of life, a place where they could live, and kill, together away from the fear of discovery.
Someone, somehow, had come across it, someone with reason to order it burned to the ground. How it had happened Cicero couldn't even begin to guess. The possibility of a traitor in their midst had crossed his mind, he was ashamed to admit. But as he thought of his poor brothers and sisters, of Camilla, he knew that none of them could have ever betrayed them.
"What is the goal of life?" Cicero paused, and turned back to the Black Door. It had asked him the passcode, although he had answered the password long ago. The door seemed sad, lonely even, as if it didn't want Cicero to leave. But it couldn't have, a door couldn't think.
Cicero sighed, turning away from the Bruma sanctuary, never to return. He was about to head into a terrifying, huge world, starting with the snowy forest before him. Before he walked off into the world he turned back to the door, feeling as if he owed it one final answer: "Death, my brother".