Early Morning, 4 Hearthfire, 3E433
After nearly an hour of mindless tossing and turning, Sabine finally sat up in her rented bed. She pushed her curtain of too-long wavy hair away from her face and squinted at the daylight coming through the window. To her surprise, Martin was already awake. His bed across the room was freshly made, and he sat at the desk nearby, absorbed in a book he'd likely found laying around the room. He looked over at her with a hesitant smile, raising his book a little.
"I hope I didn't wake you. It is quite early."
She yawned, stretching wide, then shook her head. "I've slept terribly the last fortnight. It's not your fault."
He made a small hum of acknowledgement as he closed his book. "Yes, you did a great deal of tossing and turning last night." When he looked up, his too-blue eyes seemed to stare right through her. "You mumble in your sleep. Is everything all right?"
She groaned. Talking in her sleep? That was all she needed. When she looked back up, he was waiting patiently at the desk for an answer. She sighed, pulling her boots out from under the bed and putting them on.
"In all honesty? No, I suspect not." She straightened out her boot, then stood up. "We should get walking if we're going to get to Weynon Priory before dark. Jauffre is likely already sick of waiting."
Martin studied her for a moment, then placed his book on the desk with a sigh. "You aren't one for sharing, are you?"
"No, not really." She shrugged, pulling out her pack and removing a few septims from her coinpurse. "My last job was a bit more dangerous than this. Loose lips sink ships and all that."
"More dangerous?"
"Well, there were no literal doors to Oblivion, but there was a lot of fighting, digging around in things I shouldn't've, and the heavy risk of incarceration or betrayal."
"How did you get out of that?"
She shook her head. "I was betrayed, arrested, and fought my way out." When he leaned back in his chair to stare at her, she nodded her head toward the door. "Are you ready to leave? I need to pick up a few minor supplies before he head out. We can talk on the way."
"Very well, then." Martin rose and gestured to the door. "I should like to get on to Weynon Priory as well. Lead the way, my friend."
On the long walk to Weynon Priory, Sabine began telling Martin of her escape from the Imperial Prison. Instead of the judgemental stares she had expected, he seemed fully engrossed in her story, hanging on to her every word. When she concluded with the assassination of the Emperor, he grew very quiet.
"That's not the end of it though," she said quietly. "Nearly every night for the last two weeks I've relived that night in my sleep. I see his face before me again. I hear his voice in my head." She took a deep breath, then recited the lines that had haunted her so.
"Find my son, and close shut the jaws of Oblivion." She looked over at Martin. "And now you know why it was so imperative I get to you before the daedra did." She gave a nervous laugh. "I don't doubt how crazy I sound. If someone had told me when I was arrested that this would be where I ended up, I'd have probably laughed in their faces or had them committed."
"And now?" He was watching her face curiously.
"Now I feel like I'm the one that needs committing," she admitted, stepping around a cluster of branches at the edge of the road. "I've been to Oblivion, heard the voices of Daedric Princes, and done a lot of things I'm not proud of. But even I, in all my skepticism, have to admit that storming a city was never something I expected to do."
Martin chuckled quietly. "According to the stories I heard outside Kvatch, it's as though you've never done anything else in your life." He looked sidelong at her. "Did you really slap the Captain?"
"And Menien Goneld." When he laughed again, she shrugged. "He was trying to be a martyr, demanding I leave him behind, and all that nonsense. I knocked a little sense into him."
He looked very much the part of eager listener when he looked at her again. "I would very much like to hear that tale, I think."
She grinned. "As you wish, my liege."
Her mocking bow made him scoff and protest, but she launched into the tale anyway. As she retold her journey through the gate and back, the trees around them grew closer together, turning the bright sunlight into a soft mottled green. Deer bounded through the undergrowth, startling away at their approach, and here and there the fluttering of birds' wings echoed overhead. The general quiet of the forest made it sound as though the land itself were listening to her story, and she gestured widely as she talked. When she finally recounted her reappearance into Cyrodiil, and her abrasive greeting to Captain Matius, Martin began laughing again.
"You really did it." He sounded incredulous. "I thought they were exaggerating." When she shrugged again, he shook his head. "You even made him show deference to you, I saw that for myself in the chapel. He isn't one to roll over easily, that much is apparent by how well he defended against the daedra. Yet you show up and he simply steps aside." He shook his head. "Have you ever considered that you might be in the wrong line of work?"
"Not really," she admitted. "Though I haven't really thought about it. I enjoyed my last job, and I worked with some good people." She hesitated. "Well, not good in the sense you're used to, I'm sure, but they were good to me all the same. There are three in particular that I'm very fond of, and even a retired member of our group I still hear from on occassion." She smiled. "When I'm through here, I'll likely go back to them."
"You speak as if they're family to you."
"In a way, they are. I was still struggling when I found them, and they gave me purpose. The retired member, he and a friend of his, they picked me out and taught me what I needed to know to survive. They gave me work, somewhere to stay. When I got better and better at the job, they were proud of me. I'd never had that before." She laughed a little. "Now, I have free reign over what I do. I answer to no one anymore, save the late Emperor, it seems." She paused here to wrinkle her nose. "I shall be glad indeed when he stops haunting my sleep. It makes it very difficult to do my preferred work."
Martin gave another of his quiet chuckles, then looked up at the top of the hill they were climbing. He frowned. "Do you hear shouting?"
Sabine looked up, and her expression soured. "Shit." She drew her mace. "The Priory is under attack. Stay back!"
Without looking at Martin, she ran the rest of the way up, skidding to a halt when she saw her nightmares once again before her. Three men clothed in red cloth and black bound armor were trying to break down the chapel doors, while two more chased after the shepherd.
The poor Dunmer saw Sabine and came running, waving his arms to get her attention. "Help!"
Sabine waited for him to pass her, then intercepted the closest of the assassins with her mace, knocking the man off balance. He roared at her, swinging his blade. Sabine brought her mace up, the metal clanging against his dagger. Blood pounded in her ears as she turned, swinging the blunt weapon around. A heavy crack echoed the jarring in her arms when the mace made contact with his side. The assassin staggered hard, swinging at her again. She knocked him down with another blow from her mace, then raised it up to finish him off.
Something hard and heavy collided with her side, knocking her to the ground. Her weapon clattered across the cobblestones as the second assassin loomed over her. He raised his blade, sneer wide behind his mask. Sabine's hands caught his forearms as she struggled to hold the blade away. He continued bearing down on her, the tip inching closer to her throat. Hot breath blew across her face as the dagger caught on the collar of her shirt. A burning pain scratched its way across her shoulder. She cried out, pushing harder against his hands as she struggled to throw him off. Why was he so heavy? His armor wasn't even real.
A second blade, tinged with frost, appeared at the corner of her vision. The assassin jerked, grunted, then fell limp against her. The dagger in his hands cut her cheek on its way to the ground, then someone was pulling the body off of her. When she looked up, Martin was holding his hand out to her.
"Are you all right?" He pulled her to her feet, looking her over.
She gave a weak nod, trying to catch her breath. "Thank you," she wheezed.
Before he could respond, the shepherd spoke up. "Brother Jauffre is in the chapel! Three more of them went inside after him!"
Sabine picked up her mace and shook herself. "Come on."
Martin nodded and followed her, his dagger at the ready. The doors to the chapel had been forced open, and the sound of fighting could be heard inside. They jumped over the splintered wood at the threshold and joined the fray. Sabine managed to catch her assassin by surprise, bringing him down with minimal fuss. When she turned toward the other one, Martin was cleaning off his dagger with the hem of the dead man's robe. He looked up to see her staring, and shrugged.
"I wasn't always a priest," he said quietly.
Sabine pointed a finger at him. "Now that is a story you're going to have to tell me one day." She turned to look at Jauffre, who stepped over the nearest of his three corpses and approached her. She put away her mace. "Are you hurt?"
"No." He looked over at Martin with a frown, then back at Sabine. "It was my understanding you would not fetch him."
She crossed her arms. "I said I was not yours to command."
"And yet you have brought him."
"He asked to come here. I told him what had happened, and he agreed to meet with you."
"If he hadn't, would you have simply wandered with him indefinitely?"
"Well it isn't as though Weynon Priory is any safer than Kvatch, is it?" Sabine's voice rose slightly.
"Peace, friends." Martin's deeper, soothing voice washed over her as he stepped between them. "This isn't the time or the place to fight."
Sabine hesitated, then sighed. "Yes, of course. You're right." She brushed a lock of bloody hair away from her face. "We need somewhere to lay low. Preferably somewhere that doesn't take in strangers at a moment's notice." She looked back at Jauffre. "I hope you have something already planned."
"I do, in fact." He gestured toward the chapel's broken doors. "We should leave. Prior Maborel was killed in the attack, but his horse is still stabled outside. Come."
At the stable behind the Priory, Sabine stopped to speak with the shepherd again. "Will the two of you be all right?"
He gave a tired smile. "Yes, I believe so. Brother Piner has family in another city. We shall head there first, then decide where to go from there."
She nodded, then pressed a small bag into his hands. "Be careful, then."
"Thank you." He squeezed her uncut shoulder. "Do try not to get yourselves killed."
"We shall do our best." She forced a smile and hauled herself up into the saddle, then nodded to Jauffre.
"It shouldn't take long," he said as their horses started forward. "Cloud Ruler Temple isn't far."
A/N: Holy SHIT, you guys! Over 380 views! I did a little dance in front of my computer this morning, I got so excited. *cough* Anyway, on to my actual note. . . (You guys are awesome.)
*COUGH* Sup! Sorry to those of you that really like Jauffre, this isn't really intended to be bashing, per se, I just always thought he was kind of a dick. He's just sort of gruff and 'superior', you know? No matter who you are or what you've done before the main quest starts, he always sounds like he's better than you, and you're just some nobody that wandered in off the street with the Amulet of Kings. It was really annoying for my character who was Champion of the Arena and Guildmaster of the Fighter's Guild, and fairly famous for helping people and solving problems. He was a good guy, and Jauffre acted like he was a criminal.
Okay, soap box over, I promise lol. Anyway, this chapter is a bit shorter than the last one, I know, but it still clocks in at 2,035 words, so we're good. Martin's first attempt at public speaking comes next, so stay tuned!
