Title: Rather Unexpected
Author: Kytten
Pairing: Lucien x ofc
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Don't own. Obviously.
Author's Note: Lucien likes to play with the character creation wizard too. XD Oh, and the NaNo cut off starts at the end of this chapter. I've only just got around to writing Hanarai again, so I'm trying to shoulder my way back in. Beware of possible stylechange next chapter.
Dressed in commoner's clothing, Lucien met the first woman in the Arboretum. They sat together on a stone bench, her head on his shoulder, the two of them looking like lovers. They were both watching the man in the distance, dancing around the statues of the gods with a waif of an elf, their laughter melding together.
"That's him?" Lucien asked with a subtle incline of the head towards them.
The woman nodded, pulling her feet up beside her on the bench before reaching over to arrange her dress.
"That's him. Primo Antonius."
"Young," he commented, without really thinking.
"And an idiot," the woman snapped bitterly. "Look at him there with his little whore. Putting me by as if I were the other woman."
Lucien made a noncommittal noise and began to stroke her hair as Antonius caught sight of them and stopped.
"Have you any… requirements?" he asked, locking eyes with the boy, making sure the spell that distorted his features was firmly in place.
"Make him suffer," she growled and closed her eyes, relaxing into him. "I want his last thought to be of me, and how much he regrets having put me aside for that empty headed idiot of his."
Lucien smirked, eyes still locked with Antonius'.
"Done, madam."
They stood then, and walked together as far as the Market District. He knew the boy was following behind. His unsubtle stare and too-loud footsteps gave him dead away. Antonius wanted a confrontation, but it was far too late for that. Perhaps he should have thought of such things before his fiancé summoned the Dark Brotherhood.
Smiling, Lucien left the lady at the doorstep to her home and ducked into an alley, letting his chameleon spell drift over him as soon as he was gone from public view A moment later he strode out, heading for the stables, leaving the baffled Antonius to flounder in his wake.
Lucien sat in the very corner of the inn at Aleswell, nursing a pint of ale and trying to discern why exactly they kept a mad Dunmer around anyway. So far, the crazed mer had been talking non-stop about the beautiful Bosmer girl who'd come the week before to remove that bloody stupid wizard's curse. Apparently, he'd been invisible for a whole week. Can you believe it? And Lucien was beginning to understand why the barmaids looked close to suicide.
They were probably related.
Lucien made sure the shadow of his hood covered his face and set about playing with his features. This was one part of his job he did enjoy— making himself out to be unmistakable half-breeds and distinctive, murderous looking old men. There was no way any of his clients would forget the face he showed them. And so they would never mistake the hideous Orc-Khajiit they'd hired to murder their mate for the dashingly handsome Imperial fellow over in the corner.
He'd just finished when his client walked in— an Imperial man in dirt stained clothing. And, Lucien realized with a sudden jolt, a Legion Forrester. Slipping one hand under the table, he readied a powerful paralysis, all the while cursing that bloody Phillida. They'd not had trouble with the man for ages and now he wanted to start this old war again? Well, he'd give them a war. He'd give them a blood bath.
But the man ordered an ale and came to his table without incident. Unarmed. Unarmored. A show of trust.
"I admit," Lucien purred in a distinctive Khajiiti drawl. "I wasn't expecting a member of the guard."
He almost laughed at the look on the man's face— obviously torn between disgust at his profession and raging shock at his appearance.
"I wouldn't normally do this, you understand," he growled finally, dropping inelegantly into his seat. "But Lex says if I get involved in this he'll dock my pay. And that's the last thing I need with Syloria in her condition."
"Condition?" He allowed himself a smirk then, enjoying his goading this man into open disgust.
"She's pregnant."
There was venom in the word. Lucien's smirk broadened.
"It is not your son?"
The Forrester snorted.
"Oh, I doubt it. That fetching Nord got her drunk and knocked up, I'll bet money on it. But she's my wife, damnit. I have to do something. Fetching Lex won't even let me protect my own godsdamned wife!" his voice cracked and he looked away abruptly, taking a long swig to steady his nerves.
Lucien couldn't help but notice his hands were shaking.
"This man?"
"Nels. Calls himself Nels the Naughty now, the pig." He swung around to look Lucien in his mismatched eyes, never mind they were drifting in two different directions. "When you catch him, make him suffer."
Lucien nodded and finished his ale, rising from the table.
"Consider it done."
And as he walked outside, he couldn't help but dwell a moment on the raw pain in the man's eyes. But it was nothing— a trifling matter that had nothing at all to do with him. So he pressed it away and whistled to his horse, coming close enough to let her snuffle at his collar until she was satisfied this hideous crossbreed was him.
Only three more to go today. It was possible he'd even be able to make it home before midnight. Cheering slightly, Lucien jumped into the saddle and spurred his horse on. The faster he got back to Cheydinhal, the faster he got his work done. The faster he got his work done, the sooner he could ride off to Chorrol and play.
Laughing at the thought, Lucien dropped the illusion and straightened his hood. Perhaps today wouldn't be as wretched as he thought.
"I needed help," the witch woman spat, striding from cauldron to table and back again. "There were goblins ravaging the area, you see, but he wouldn't so much as lift a hand to help. Called me a liar."
Lucien sat in a chair next to the fire, facing the door with his back comfortably against the wall, looking something like a cross between a Bosmer and a troll.
"A woman of your caliber, surely you could take care of such a matter yourself?" he asked delicately. He had so much work to do as it was. Why couldn't the witch take care of her own bloody murder?
But she simply smiled and shook her head before turning back to her mandrake.
"Oh, there are things I could do to him. Poisons. Dreams. Little nightmares wrapped in pretty paper. But they aren't enough, you see. He's been in the legion twenty years, you know. I could send him visions of creatures so terrible as to have scattered armies with the breath of a word, but no doubt he'd have seen such things before."
She sighed and shrugged, scraping the slivered mandrake off and into the pot. Lucien recognized the poison she was making by the smell, but chose to ignore it.
"Is there a way you'd like him killed?"
"Yes," the witch woman turned to fix him with a gold studded smile. "Slowly."
There were not many things that could faze a cold-blooded assassin of the Dark Brotherhood. Walking into a large herd of Sheogorath's worshippers… reveling was one of those things. To be honest, he'd never seen so many naked people in such extravagant headwear before in his life.
Fortunately, he didn't have to see it for very long. A Breton man pulled away from the crowd and snatched a simple cotton robe up from the ground before coming to meet him.
"You're the assassin?" he asked without batting an eye at Lucien's new bird-nose.
Rather disappointed he hadn't managed to get a reaction out of this one, Lucien nodded, arms crossed.
"I am. Why did you summon me?"
"I need you to kill a nasty little Breton woman for me. Matilde Petit."
"Oh?" Lucien asked and leaned back subtly as the Breton leaned in.
"Yes, she's been spreading gossip about me. It's all true, of course, but that's not the sort of thing I like people to know about," he said and smiled.
There was lettuce stuck between his teeth. Lucien closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath through his nose to keep himself from laughing at the funny little man.
"What sort of thing is that?"
"You know," the man sidled closer, his eyes sparkling. "Sheogorath and his… fun. Have I seen you here before?"
"I doubt that," Lucien said, suddenly very aware how Hanarai must have felt every time she came within twenty feet of that Indarys boy.
"Why don't you join us?" The man asked and grinned in a way Lucien assumed he thought was seductive. "We haven't had anyone as handsome as you here in ages."
"As lovely as that offer sounds, I'll have to decline," he smiled and elegantly sidestepped. "I've… business to attend to, after all."
The man laughed and sat down on one of the benches.
"I don't think that stupid old woman'll take up too much of your time. Why don't you send someone else to take care of her and come right back, hmm? We'll be waiting."
"Perhaps I will," Lucien purred with a nod of the head and promptly retreated to where he'd left his horse.
From now on, he was going to take every contract involving Sheogorath, sneak into the Bruma sanctuary and slip them all into Uvani's contract pile. Because there was no way in hell he was coming back this way again.
Though he couldn't help but wonder what Hanarai would think of the funny, sex-crazed little man.
The last client was a wealthy Imperial woman. She was quite lovely with her long brown hair and enchanting, dark eyes. Or she would have been had her bearing not been tainted with grief.
"You're the one I sent for?" she asked, rising as the servant showed him in.
Lucien nodded, remembering in time he had to make the motion deeper when masquerading as an Altmer. Or half Altmer anyway…
"Good." There was a fierce determination in her eyes as she shook his hand and led him to a seat before the fire.
Outside, snow was just beginning to fall, turning the windowsill outside a funny sort of brownish-gray.
"Our business, madam?" he asked, with a sharp nod in the direction of the door.
The servant hadn't left.
"Oh, that's no matter." She sighed and stood again, turning towards the bookshelf to pull at an empty sconce. Silently, the bookshelf slipped back and aside, revealing the tiny office within.
Gently, the woman took his hand again and led him inside, shutting the bookshelf just as quietly.
"He thinks he's very clever," she murmured, sinking down into an over stuffed chair. "Thinks he's left no sign of his little affair. Sends the servants to keep tabs on me and report to him if they so much as suspect I know. I don't know what he'll do if I find out. I don't care to know. I just want the woman gone."
"The woman?" Lucien stopped his inspection of the cleverly hidden door and turned. "Not your husband?"
She shook her head, and the lines grief had etched in her face grew that much more prominent.
"I love him," she whispered, staring at nothing. "I don't know what I'd do without him."
"Find someone more suited to your loyalty, I suspect," Lucien said with a smile, sitting down across from her. "Are you certain—"
"Yes," she snapped, a little life flaring into her eyes. "I want that whore of a Dunmer dead."
A small corner of Lucien's heart froze.
A Dunmer woman who liked to play with powerful, wealthy men…
"Her name?" he asked, as inside a dark corner of his mind laughed.
And what will you do if she says Hanarai Arvel? Will you refuse? Can you?
"Dovesi Dran."
He relaxed, smiling.
"Any particular way you want her killed? Poison? Blade?"
But the Imperial woman shrugged and stood, restless.
"She's destroyed me. I've aged ten years since she took up with my husband. I want her to pay that time back, to know what it feels like…"
"To suffer?" Lucien asked. It wasn't, apparently, a pleasant day in Cyrodiil.
The Imperial woman turned with a sad, sleek smile.
"Yes. Make her suffer."
