Title: Rather Unexpected
Author: Kytten
Pairing: Lucien x ofc
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Don't own. Obviously.
Author's Note: I am stealing every last one of Pheonicia's semicolons to write this chapter.
Time was of the essence.
There were no words to describe how much Lucien hated that phrase and everything it implied.
Motierre had gotten himself into trouble, so of course they sent him to sort it out. Well, he'd killed the man's nearly dead mother— more mercy than murder— and now he had to return to Cheydinhal to assign the rest of this and a hundred other contracts.
Let one of the newer recruits ferret the idiot out of the city. He had more important duties to tend to. And however much he'd love to return to Chorrol and tend to Hanarai, he couldn't.
Which put him in a very foul mood indeed.
Glaring at the world in general, Lucien made his way past the Roxey Inn and stopped, intrigued at the cacophony of noise issuing from the ramshackle building.
Ignoring the Imperial Forrester horse sitting just beside the door, Lucien slipped into his shadows and stepped inside.
"Calm down, you crazy old woman!" A thick build Nord was shouting. "What in the hell's gotten into you?"
Lucien sidled closer just as she held up the latest Black Horse Courier.
EMPEROR AND HEIRS ASSASSINATED!
Hanarai frowned at the preist, not quite understanding the problem.
"He was human, dear."
The preist stared at her as though she'd grown a third arm.
"He's dead! His heirs have all been killed, the dragon fires blown out—" he spun, tearing at his hair. "Everything's coming to an end!"
Standing to one side, she watched the chubby little Breton flutter and fret, still not all together certain why the course of nature was suddenly a problem.
"All things do," she said at last, patting his arm. "By now one would think you'd expect this sort of thing."
This was not turning out to be the best of weeks, Modryn decided, staring at the overgrown field, his back to the wall of his house. Not only had he lost the position he'd worked so hard for, inadvertantly sent Viranus Donton off to his death, but now the entire empire was theatening to crumble into ruin.
Brilliant. An absolutly brilliant week.
Modryn sighed and rested his head in his hands. There was nothing to be done really, and so no point in dwelling on it. But he couldn't help feeling increadibly guilty.
Bloody Blackwood company.
Hanarai creapt around the corner of the little house, dressed in Modryn's stolen tunic and a simple pair of black breeches. She'd come here for a few reasons, the most important being that Gadayn was moping about the house, dropping the temperature to nearly freezing. She'd have to do something to perk him up a bit.
A good soultrap spell would work. Problem being the little bugger had gotten into the walls and she couldn't get at him.
So she'd decided to go visiting, thinking it would get the little mer angry enough to come out. And if it didn't, well, she hadn't visited Modryn for quite a while. Spells, she knew, only went so far in battle.
Not that she intended to go into battle. It was simply nice to have such skills handy. After all, she knew many a noble who'd been killed with a sharp sword and a well aimed silence spell.
"Modryn?" she ventured, peeking around the corner of the house. He didn't look very receptive to company at the moment, sitting there like the world was falling down around him.
But he smiled and turned at the sound of his name, gesturing to the spot next to him.
"Wasn't expecting to see you so soon."
"When do I ever let that husband of mine keep me away?"
A flicker of a smile as Modryn leaned his head back against the wall, twining his fingers through hers.
"You see rather off today," she pressed carefully. "What's happened?"
"Donton's dead." There was an odd look in his eyes as he said it— desperation, depression, greif. She almost flinched to see it, not used to Modryn as anything other than the epitome of control.
"The woman or…?"
"Her son." It was barely a whisper.
Hanarai did flinch then. Ever since Darius Donton had died, Modryn had acted as father to those boys. And now with both of them dead…
"I suppose now is a bad time?" she asked and jumped as Modryn sent the small shock spell she'd taught him rippling into her hand.
"Now," he said with a wicked grin, "is the perfect time."
"It makes me uncomfortable," Lucien snapped, pacing the floor of Vicente's quarters, the vampire continuing on in his meticulous sorting of contracts.
"There's nothing to be done about it, Lucien," he said without looking up from his piles. "Pacing certainly won't help."
"Keeps me occupied." He glared as he turned, pacing to the far wall.
Silence for a long moment before Lucien spoke again.
"I don't like this."
Vicente sighed and leaned back in his chair, having finished his sorting.
"You're worrying for nothing."
Rounding on him, Lucien crossed the room to slam his hands down on the centuries old table.
"Nothing? Half our contracts come from angry nobles, Valtiere. Without them, where are we?"
Vicente only shrugged and leaned his head in his hands, tapping a finger absently in the hollow of his cheek.
"Feast or famine, there will always be call for murder. These may be lean times, perhaps, but it's not as though the Brotherhood will fall."
And that was enough to send Lucien pacing again— ladder wall to stone slab, over and over again.
Vicente sighed.
"Would you stop, for Sithis' sake? You're accomplishing nothing but wearing a hole in my floor. Go back to your fort and sulk, Lachance."
Slowly, he came to a stop and turned. But Vicente's face betrayed no emotion. It was like expecting to see recognition in a corpse. After twenty years training with this man, he knew better.
"Give the rest of Motierre's contract to that new Imperial."
"Your idiot protégé?" Vicente asked with a smirk. "I'm becoming rather fond of her, actually."
Lucien frowned.
"Oh?"
In his experience, a smiling Vicente never boded well.
"She didn't realize I was a vampire."
Lucien laughed, tension easing from the flat of his shoulders.
"And how exactly did she justify your appearance?"
Vicente chuckled and turned to retrieve his book from the edge of the table.
"Collywobbles," he said, voice thick with amusement. "She thought I had collywobbles."
Hours later found Modryn's house a complete and total mess. Their training sessions were rarely contained, but this one had been exceptionally… sprawling. The ceiling had frozen solid somewhere after Modryn's mace lost a spike; the mattress had pulled completely from the bed and onto the floor, one corner badly singed. Even the table was missing a leg, standing by luck and pure stubbornness as a disturbingly green fire crackled merrily in the corner of the room.
Hanarai had draped herself over one edge of the mattress, head resting on the floor, clothing torn to shreds, the broken neck of a wine bottle dangling from her fingers. Modryn lay with his head on her stomach, his crest crushed flat and jumbled in ten different directions, barely covered by the haphazard sheet draped over his stomach.
The house smelt of sex and spilt wine, and the odd, muddy scent that comes from excessive magic in a confined space.
Grinning to herself, Hanarai reached for the half filled wine glass, and realizing she couldn't move without dislodging her companion, nearly spilled it yanking it towards her with still trembling telekinesis.
If only she had some chocolates, this scene of sin and debauchery would be complete.
Lucien lay on the floor of his quarters in Farragut, staring up at the ceiling, his head pillowed on his arms. There was a dwindling stack of contracts on his desk that he was ignoring in favor of a few more wicked plots.
Hanarai…
Those crimson eyes haunted him, lit with laughter as she stole his hair ribbon. This was beginning to become the rule to their meetings. Lucien idly scratched his jaw, listening to the scritshik noise his nails made against a few days' worth of stubble.
He'd been too busy to remember to find another razor. To be honest, between the traitor in the guild, Ungolim's suspicions and Hanarai there hadn't been much time for anything.
Hanarai…
That woman was a problem unto herself. But if he could just get close to her, he could win her.
He knew he could. There wasn't a woman alive that could resist a Lachance's charm, much less his. It was nearly a magic within itself. One sentence, one word and he could have women falling at his feet. Hanarai was simply more resistant than most. But Lucien was confident that even if she'd slept with every man and mer in Cyrodill, she'd never found one to match him.
Smirking to himself now, he traced idle patterns in the air in the wispy, lavender scented circles of a silence spell.
Oh yes, he would have this woman.
Again and again and again…