Chapter 2: Recollections
Lucien Lachance smiled in the night. Finally, a contract. Being Speaker is dull in the way that your duties almost always equate to recruiting. Now he was given not one, but two victims? He grinned a second time. This was his sphere, his speciality. Not even needing a cloaking spell, he crept forwards towards the tiny village. He had been surprised when the Listener had told him that fairies, the legendary Sidhe existed. The ancestors of all modern elves, he said. Proud as anything, arrogant as Altmer, if not more. And now, he was to kill two of their numbers.
The two he needed to strike down were called Beatrix and Darius Tellerae. A young married couple, in fairy years, with a 5-year-old daughter. Well, a 50-year-old, but he had been informed that they aged much slower than humans. Lucky basterds, he thought. One of the little fairy friends wanted the Chiefs of the fairy guards dead. He had thought that something at least would be dramatic. Instead, his first contract in ten months is the result of petty jealousy. But, a kill is still a kill.
The fairy village – oh how he hated the word fairy – was just outside Cheydinhal, less than a mile away. It lit up in the dark, some festival or another. The architecture stunned him. It was a mini Cheydinhal, with the same purple and white design, same house shapes. There was however no castle, and no river with bridges, but it was striking all the same. He spotted a similarity in something – a variety of the little people with snow white hair. Now that he realized it, all of them had bizarrely colored hair. But there – he heard the name Darius. He strained his well-trained ears to find the voice. There. Lachance wrinkled his nose and bit back the urge to sneeze. The stupid Sidhe's wings were letting off some kind of dust that smelled funny. But he found at least one of his victims, so things were not all bad. Deciding to get a better look, he sheaths his dagger and climbs a nearby tree, listening to the merry making of those below.
Darius Tellerae was having a great time. He ran a chocolate brown hand through his white hair and sighed. He glanced at the surrounding forest. Nothing quite out of place… besides a shivering feeling that he was being watched. He shrugged it off and went to find his daughter and wife.
Beatrix was sitting on a chequered blanket with Moth and Trixie. Moth and her cousin had gotten a hold of a pair of wooden daggers and were whacking each other with them, with little cries and whooping when they got in a hit. Beatrix was laughing at the pair and encouraging them. That's just like her, Darius thought wryly, to spur them on rather than tell them to stop. He jumped into the air and quickly buzzed his way over to sit with his family. Beatrix put her arm over his shoulder and sighed.
"Mama?" She looked down to see their pink-haired daughter pulling on her sleeve.
"Yes darling?"
"Why do Mama and Papa have white hair, but I have pink hair?"
"Well sweetie, Mama and Papa are in the Fairy Guard. When you join, you have to dye your hair white so that people can recognize you."
"Die? You have to kill your hair?" Tears welled up in the little girl's eyes. "Why would you kill them though?"
"Not die, dye. Its spelled different, you dummy." Her cousin Trixie corrected.
"Hey! I am not a dummy!" and they launched into yet another round of melee as they wrestled playfully, rolling each other in the mud.
The parents laughed.
"Sometimes I feel like I've been given a nephew and a son, rather than a niece and a daughter." Darius laughed. Then he paused… Something wasn't quite right…. He felt an ominous presence, one that meant to harm him and his family. He stood to do another round.
When he fell, it wasn't him that hit the ground, but rather his corpse.
A chain of events happened all at the same time. His wife Beatrix sprung up, ready to battle, but was felled by a similar blow of magic. The fairies stopped their dancing and ran for their houses, screaming. The guard jumped up, helping those who were unwell or drunk get home safe. Trixie burst into tears and started shaking the bodies. And Moth… changed.
Gone was the cute fairy girl who had played with her cousins and cried over her mother's hair seconds ago. Her pink iris were no longer cute and welcoming, they burned with a fire that was as fearsome as it was hard and cruel. Moth stood and bent over to pick up her parent's daggers as the wind crumbled their dead wings into nothingness.
"Here," she said, tossing her father's ebony dagger to Trixie. "This is yours now."
She collected the elfin dagger that always hung at her mother's belt and unsheathed it.
"The humans did this… I can tell. And I swear that I'm going to hunt down the one that did this, and I'm going to make his life hell."
Lucien didn't stay to see the chaos that ensued. He had completed the contract, and that was all he really cared about. He was half-way to Cheydinhal when his nose picked up on a lingering scent of cinnamon and pepper. He sneezed. Scowling, Lachance turned around to stab whatever it was that had made him reveal his presence in such an embarrassing way, he saw not some stupid animal or a farmer working late, but a tiny fairy lass, thin as a weed and tiny height. But what struck him were her eyes. They burned like a pink flame, with maniacal glints in her eyes as she stabbed an elfin dagger into his arm.
"You're the one that did this! You're the one that killed Mama and Papa!"
A jolt travelled his body as the shock enchantment of the tiny blade took effect. He plucked the girl from the air and took her cranium between his forefinger and thumb.
"Listen here, lass, you are going to forget that, and you will now." He growled, a command spell amplifying his words. She slowly closed her eyes.
He dropped her. As he turned back towards the darkness, he heard a faint shattering sound, and the screaming chaos of the village. He smiled a truly frightening smirk, and moved on.
A.N/ o.O Creepy.
Poar Moth ! This is, of course, a flashback scene if you guys didn't get it already. But remember: The Elder Scrolls are waay out of my league ! I don't own them ! I only own my characters, my locations, and my plot.