Title: Rather Unexpected
Author: Kytten
Pairing: Lucien x ofc
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Don't own. Obviously.
If there was one thing in this world that Hanarai would do anything to avoid it was heights. It was a ridiculous fear for a Telvanni to have and she'd worked very hard through her childhood to hide it. Oh, it wasn't bad when scaling the levels of a Tel or cheating one's way through her father's maze of a library. That wasn't a particularly frightening height at all. To be honest, she quite liked being a few feet off the ground.
It was the memory of standing silenced at the top of a Tel, looking down at all the tiny people winding their way below and knowing that if her brother found her before his silence spell wore off she was going to die.
Hanarai did not like heights. Following the two men up Gnoll mountain she swore someone was going to pay for dragging her up here. Now, she didn't want to take it out on Lucien. But if it turned out that Arquen and Bellamont were both sitting cozy in nice, sea level Anvil, someone was going to get beaten into a pulp.
"You know, I remember you. I remember everyone."
Lucien frowned at the voice drifting down from above them. Bellamont. There was no mistaking it.
"You laughed at me," it continued. "You laughed and laughed and laughed. But I'm not crazy. I wouldn't remember if I were crazy, would I?"
He smirked at the irony of it to mask the mad jitters in his stomach. Heavily enchanted as he was, he did not want to do this. Dying really wasn't on his list of things to do today. But Bellamont was after him and as such, he was the only one that could properly distract them.
"Look who's come to join us!" Arquen laughed wickedly, clapping her hands as he crested the peak. "Welcome, Lachance," and then, spotting the invisible Ungolim some twenty feet off, "And you as well, most reverend Listener. You're just in time to see the birth of a new Brotherhood."
Internally, Lucien swore.
He was going to die.
Hanarai watched them approach from behind the tent, masking her own life energy with little difficulty. It wasn't a very hard spell. If she'd have thought of it, she'd have enchanted Lucien when he wasn't looking. But Ungolim… Now she was disappointed with him. As a friend of Father's that was so a spell he should have known.
But she kept her distance nonetheless, watching as Bellamont circled around the paralyzed Nord.
"Look at this, look at this," he purred. "Lachance come to me. And here I thought it would be difficult."
Arquen laughed again, cradling a spell in her arms like a child.
"I told you it wouldn't. Lachance is an idiot."
"No effort at all!" Bellamont crowed. "None! A letter to your Sanctuary and your idiot Silencer galloped off to do as I said! I'm the Speaker now! And when you're dead, when you're dead, I'll be left. We'll rule this little guild of yours. A new life, Lachance! You stole mine and now I'll have yours!"
"Really?" Lucien purred and loosed the whirlwind he'd been feeding.
It rampaged through the little clearing, startling the spell from Arquen's hands and tearing the tent from its posts and throwing it down the mountain.
"No more games, Mattieu!" she screamed and dodged Ungolim's attack, launching one of her own.
The Bosmer pitched backwards, falling into the whirlwind where he was thrown, unconscious at Lucien's boots. Arquen laughed and turned to face him.
"Oh dear. It seems you're the only one left now. Except for dear Hoar-Blood, of course. But he's a bit… out of sorts at the moment."
"Let me do it, darling," Bellamont pleaded. "I want to cut out his lying tongue."
Lucien didn't wait for him to come any closer. He fired a wicked frost spell into the center of Bellamont's chest and spun away, shooting another at Arquen. But she only laughed and reflected it back at him, sending him sprawling nearly off the edge of the mountain.
And Hanarai was livid.
"That wasn't very smart," she said, deadly quiet as she dropped her invisibility.
Arquen spun, startled into fear at the moment. She was the best mage the Dark Brotherhood had—better, some said, than Traven himself. How was it this elf could hide from her so utterly?
"Who the hell are you?" she snapped, backing up a pace, lighting arching between her fingers.
"Me?" Hanarai laughed, pure hatred in her eyes. "Oh, no one important."
And as Bellamont collected himself enough to lunge in her direction, she lashed out with her strongest telekinesis, throwing him from the side of the mountain as easily as a child throwing her toys.
He screamed as he fell, shattered into the sharp slope of the mountain and went silent—the only sound that of the minor rockslide his corpse caused as it fell.
"Oops," Hanarai purred. "You should really keep your pets on a tighter leash."
Hoar-Blood was struggling out of his paralysis, Ungolim was beginning to wake, and Lucien had pulled away from the edge of the mountain and moved, invisibly around as she spoke. Bellamont had nearly taken him over as well, flying no more than a few inches from his nose.
"Nice trick, sweetheart," Arquen purred. "But I'm afraid I'm not impressed."
"Shall I try harder then?" she asked sweetly, and with a perfect grin, summoned her two Xilivai.
Lucien swore and lurched away from the beasts as one pulled a huge claymore from his back and turned to attack.
"Oh no, darlings!" Hanarai called. "Just the Altmer, please."
And Lucien watched as they rounded on her, one with a giant hammer, the other with his claymore.
"You little bitch," Arquen growled in white-hot anger and fired off her worst spell.
What happened next could not classify as thought. Lucien knew he was warded by a dozen strong enchantments. He knew Hanarai was not expecting the shot. He knew he could not let that shot hit home.
So Lucien followed instinct and put himself in the way.
Hanarai watched with wide, terrified eyes as Lucien fell sideways into the snow.
How dare she how dare shehowdareshehowdaresheHOWDARESHE!?
She lost all control at that point, her eyes flashing a bloody red. She whistled, long and low, stopping the Xilivai in their tracks. Arquen laughed.
"How sweet. You actually think Lucien loves you." She laughed again, cruelty embodied in the sound. "He's a heartless son of a bitch, sweetheart. He cannot love. Oh, but I imagine you are incredibly useful… for the moment. But trust me, when your usefulness wears out—"
"Shut. Up." Hanarai growled, hands clenched, power rippling over her closed fists. "Do you really think yourself so powerful? Do you honestly believe you can match me?"
Arquen laughed, but there was a hint of nerves to it now.
"I'm the most powerful mage you'll ever see."
"Sweetheart," Hanarai purred, fire in her eyes. "I own a lot of mirrors."
And with that, she set Arquen aflame with a fire that could not be put out, tossing off her counterattacks with some small effort. After a moment, the Nord shook off the remnants of his paralysis, but remained where he was. Because Hanarai had set her Xilivai back onto the wreathing Altmer. And while he couldn't be certain, he rather suspected they were feasting on her entrails.
It took a good ten minutes before her screams trailed away into quiet sobs, and from there, silence. Lucien stood, pulling free from the silencing paralysis Arquen had shot at him. Had he not been so heavily enchanted…
But Hanarai, he noticed, was shaking worse than Redmaw as he hid behind his master's legs.
"You're certainly full of surprises, aren't you?" he murmured, pulling her close, her back to his front.
"I thought you were dead," she said, sounding mildly surprised and more than a little relieved.
Lucien chuckled.
"Is that why you're shaking? Darling, I'm touched the thought of my death would affect you so much."
"I'm a Telvanni, sweetheart," she snapped. "I don't care if you're dead or not. But I'm terrified of heights and if you laugh at me, my Xilivai will have at you next."
"Yes, dear," he purred, hiding his smirk in her hair and breathing in the scent of her as a few paces off, Ungolim laughed.
She didn't have to say it. Her actions spoke loudly enough. She hadn't worried about Falcar getting himself killed, after all. She did not stop her drug-addict from drinking himself to death. She didn't care that her boy in the Arena could die at any moment. But gods forbid he go off to his death at the hands of a powerful mage and a madman with only a cantankerous old Bosmer for support.
If that wasn't love, what was?
Clilias dropped down into the sanctuary, only to find Vicente there waiting for her, her last contract in hand, looking pissed as hell.
"Why, exactly," he purred in a predatory sort of way, "did you not show this to me?"
"It was… just another contract?" she offered, not sure why she was in trouble, simply knowing that she was.
"A contract with the wrong seal, the wrong writing, contracting the death of a member of the Black Hand."
"Oh." Clilias looked at him with wide eyes, her pack dropping from numb fingers. "Bugger."
"You there! Halt! You're under arrest!"
It wouldn't be the first time something of the sort had happened to him. It certainly wouldn't be much of a problem. A change of the face and a you must be mistaken, sir usually got him off and on his way within a minute. But as the Chorrol guard charged towards them, Hanarai was overtaken with a fit of giggles, and Lucien knew somewhere in the very core of his being, she'd just won.
"Oh, you think you're clever, do you?" he growled, ignoring the insistent smile that tugged at a corner of his mouth. "Just wait until your aphrodisiac sets in."
"You'll be in jail, Lucien," she laughed, basking in her own cleverness. She'd slipped it in his wine, meaning for it to hit him on the road. But for it to get to him in prison. "You won't have anyone to—"
And then she stopped, feeling the telltale heat of her aphrodisiac winding through her, trading rational thought for there's a nice shady corner over there.
"You son of a bitch." She tried to make it sound threatening, but she was too aroused and close to laughter to manage. "I cannot believe you switched the wine."
Lucien grinned and graced her with that perfect, lopsided smile.
"I'm sure I mentioned my being a quick study," he said as the guard approached. "Such a pity then you failed to listen."
END