Title: Mourner's Dawn
Author: Kytten
Pairing: Lucien Lachance/OMC
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: I don't own Elder Scrolls.
Summary: Without him, they'd be nothing. Without them, he would still be alive. They should have known better. Lucien does not pick his silencers idly.
Author's Note: Well, we seem to be moving along quite nicely.
"Stop it," Sam snapped, pulling Shadowmare back on the road for the fourth time. "I know it's stupid, but I am not turning around."
She whinnied, and tossed her head to better glare at him from one blood red eye, a sure sign he was about to be bucked off.
"No. Don't you dare or I will send you back to Lucien and take to riding one of those Imperial Legion stallions you keep eyeing."
She grunted and put her head down, but blessedly, moved forward. Sam sighed.
"I must be going crazy, talking to a horse."
And that was, apparently, all the opportunity she needed, as a moment later Sam found himself face first in a very uncomfortable bush.
"Lovely. Bloody brilliant," he muttered, spitting out leaves. "My day just couldn't get better."
"A hundred gold or your life," grunted a voice behind him, slightly masked by the sound of a weapon being drawn.
Sam closed his eyes.
Why, Sithis? Why today?
"You know, if you didn't mumble quite so much, you'd probably make more money," he said, turning to face an orc twice his size.
"Did I ask for talk, tree rat? Two hundred gold or you can kiss your head goodbye."
Sam sighed, and swept a strand of hair from his eyes, wondering where an orc with pigtails got off threatening people.
Maybe he doesn't know he has them…
"Look, I'm having a really shit day, and I really don't feel like fighting. If you could just—"
"Fighting?" The orc roared with laughter, showing a mouthful of yellow, ill kept teeth. "You? Fight? Oh, that's a good one. Don't even come up t' my armpit an' he thinks he can fight. You just made my day, little man!"
Sam smiled and lit him on fire.
Vicente checked Lucien's pulse for the third time, making sure it hadn't weakened in the time it took him to slip past Arquen's raging battle and into the Listener's quarters. Had his bloodlust not awakened quite so fiercely, he may have found it unnerving to watch the ghosts of his former brothers and sisters cheering on the Wrath of Sithis as it attempted to cleave off Arquen's head. The shade of what was formerly Antoinetta Marie was having a ball, tripping and pushing the Speaker at every opportunity. It was her laughter he heard above the rest, the one that carried belllike down the hallways.
But he didn't have time to stop and watch. He had less than an hour before the sun rose and if he didn't feed soon he was going to rip the next living soul apart. Sithis knew it had been a test of will pulling away from Lucien.
Sweet blood for a murderer…
As it was, he rather had a taste for a member of the guard tonight.
Swift and feral, bloodshot eyes almost glowing, Vicente leapt up the ladder and into the fast approaching dawn.
"You could have jumped in any time, you know." Sam glared at his horse, carefully stepping around the foul-smelling body of a rather charred orc. "How much eaiser would it have been on both of us if you'd just smashed him like you did the last one?"
If horses could smirk, she was smirking.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm not going back to Cheydinhal," he said, jumping into the saddle and urdging her forward.
Shadowmare didn't move.
"Oh, alright. Very funny. What? If you're not going to Cheydinhal, I'm not going to the Imperial City, is that it?"
She snorted, throwing her head in a gesture eerily reminicent to a nod.
"Well we can go to Cheydinhal as soon as I see Ocato. Now move."
She didn't. Sam sighed, resting his face in her mane.
"I know you don't like Ocato. You don't have to so much as look at him. You get to stay in the stables. And if you're lucky, the foresters will have come in for a drink and left their mounts there."
She whinned.
"Yes, I know it's seven in the morning!" he snapped. "They've been out all night, then, and are going home to bed."
She tossed her head and stamped. Sam tried once more to move her and failing that, jumped down.
"Fine. You win."
There was no doubt about it, she looked smug. Sam glared, looking her in the eye.
"But I am not going back to Cheydinhal."
With a snort, she pranced around him until she was facing the way they'd come and began to chew at his collar.
"No," he said and swatted her off. "You can go back to Cheydinhal, Fort Farragut or wherever it is you get off to when I'm not looking. I have to see Ocato."
The chewing resumed, more insistant now. Sam sighed, glanced around for a sign and set off towards the Imperial City. Behind him, Shadowmare laughed and galloped away at full speed.
"Damn you, Lucien," he muttered, trudging down the path. "Gift from the Dark Brotherhood, my ass. You couldn't handle her, could you? Try to tell me she never ran down foresters with you. Bullshit."
Down the path, an associate of the orc popped his filthy head around the corner of an old ruin before springing out into the path.
"A hundred gold, or—" was as far as he got before the spell Sam had sent careening lazily through the air hit home with a dull thunk-hissss.
"I bet you had a great bloody laugh about that, you fetcher," he continued without pause. "I'm just a never ending source of amusement for you. Hell, for everyone."
He paused, dodging a bit of falling masonry that had been jarred loose by the bandit's unhappy collision with the wall behind him.
"I bet Martin's up there just laughing his ass off," and here he paused again to mimick Martin's accent. "Murderer? By the nine, he's frightened of scamps."
Sam found another sign post for the Imperial City and kicked it for good measure.
"Ocato too. At least he's decent enough not to hide it. Thinks it's bloody hilarious the Champion of Cyrodill comes up to his navel." Sam growled. "I am not short," he muttered, kicking viciously at a rock in his path. "Everyone else is too damn tall."
Off in the distance, he heard a startled cry from a Legion Forester as Shadowmare caught up with his horse. Sam snorted.
"Serves you right."
And continued on his way.
Lucien woke alone to silence and an unlocked door. He remembered a mad light in Vicente's eyes, just before he attacked, and the absolute fury that had come with his inability to resist.
Bloody vampiric strength.
He hadn't the faintest idea what time it was though, and in his anger at Sam, he'd completely missed Arquen's fight with the Wrath of Sithis. A pity, really, but just at the moment it was slightly more important he find the boy.
Once the rage at being taken off guard had subsided, he realized it was probably more his fault than the boy's. That wasn't the first time Sam had shot off a spell at having been woke up abruptly. There was more than a few singes on Farragut's tapestries to prove it.
What really worried him was Vicente's comment that he had not yet been reinstated. He'd simply assumed…
Once a Speaker, always a Speaker.
And that was increadibly untrue. But in his case? Nothing like it had ever happened before. Shouldn't life function as though he had never been dead?
But it didn't matter. It was best to manage things in a way that made everyone happy. It tended to save a great deal of hardship later on.
Lucien sighed and rolled out of bed. He had yet to fix the mess Bellamont had made of his hair, and there was no way he could risk his hood slipping off before it was perfect. Smiling slighty when he saw Sam hadn't fled with his knife as well, Lucien picked it up from the floor and made his way back to the mirror.
He had all the time in the world.
Sam always entered the Imperial City through the Talos Plaza entrance. Today was no exception. But today he loathed and despised every inch of the big hill.
"Could have gone through the Waterfront. Would have made my life a hell of a lot eaiser. But no." He pursed his lips as he staggered slightly on a pocket of loose gravel. "This is entirely your fault, Martin," he grumbled. "I'm not sure exactly how, but it is."
Finally, at long last, he reached the gates and slipped inside, making his way for the Imperial Palace. Halfway there, he caught site of Hieronymus Lex flying down the street after someone. Whoever it was, was both increadibly fast and strangely blurry.
Curiousity peaked, Sam gave chase.
Yes, I am an Antoinetta Marie fan. I don't know why everyone hates her. She was always very nice to me… Vicente has a right to complain though. XD
