Title: Mourner's Dawn
Author: Kytten
Pairing: Lucien Lachance/OMC
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Author's Note: Wheeeee! Confetti!
The bloody Altmer had finally recanted, but only under threat of sever bodily harm. Hieronymus rammed his shoulder into the door, cursing whoever's foresight it'd been to block it.
Bloody Bosmers.
The door gave a little under his weight, something crashing to the floor inside.
Bloody Altmers.
Another shattering attempt at unblocking the door and the hinges were beginning to give way.
Bloody random Imperials carrying off the bloody Bosmer he was after.
The door finally broke, crashing down to balance like a scale over the still unmoved chest of drawers.
The room was empty. Or rather, looked empty. He'd been in the watch long enough to know they weren't the same thing.
Sword out, he stared slowly around the room, straining for a shimmer of magic or the whisper of cloth.
"Stand at the door," he barked without turning. "Let nothing past."
"He's not here. The room's empty."
"Looks empty."
"Often you'll find it's the same thing."
Hieronymus glanced back in time to see the purple mist around his head fade away.
"Detect life?"
Gilgondorin glowered.
"Empty room. Broken door. Idiot guard. Do you make a habit of speaking only two words at a time?"
Hieronymus ignored him and went to the window, sheathing his sword. The ivy had been disturbed. Sam was long gone.
Turning to leave, he found an irate Altmer blocking the door, a rather painful looking frost spell arcing between his fingers.
"You owe me a new door."
May painted idle patterns on Vicente's chest, musing on her next plan of action. She needed something clever, something so incredibly brilliant as to leave Vicente amazed in the dust.
Grinning, she waited as a ghost of a plan began to form. There were certain things Bosmers were simply naturally immune to. Potions on the market that set people ablaze often only made her eyes a little shiny.
Vicente would never willingly ingest a potion he wasn't completely sure the use of.
Slowly, May smirked.
There was always more than one way to catch the clever cat.
Shadowmere was being unusually pleasant. She took great care in staying on the road, she'd actually ignored a forester and his horse and had quite calmly crushed a bandit beneath her hooves before he could open his mouth to demand money.
Absurdly grateful that his horse was acting like a proper member of Brotherhood transportation, Sam rode on towards Cheydinhal. He didn't look forward to seeing Arquen again.
Hopefully, she'd be sleeping when he arrived, so his leaving a note would seem polite rather than unusual. The last thing he wanted was to explain his current situation to her. She'd probably attempt to take over the entire guild under some made up clause or another.
What he'd really like, unfortunately enough, was Lucien. There was really no denying he missed the man. His heat, his sarcastic arrogance, the comfort of knowing here is a man that can match me blow for blow.
It was that sarcastic arrogance keeping him away, no doubt. He'd been beyond pissed at Murderer. He'd be planning something now, a trick or a ploy that would force Sam to return him to Speaker.
He would, eventually. He knew better than to think he could keep his end of the game up indefinitely. Gods knew when a Lachance wanted something…
Sam sighed and focused on the road, that wretched ache creeping back into his stomach.
What would it be like, he wondered, for a Lachance to want him?
It was an idiotic, too sentimental thought. The only Lachance he'd consider bedding wanted him only for what he could give him.
It figured.
Creeping out of bed had been disappointingly easy. Once properly tired, Vicente slept and he slept hard.
Like the dead, she thought with an ironic twist of the mouth as she set about brewing her potion. It was a simple brew. Only a few ingredients. But it did what it was supposed to. No fuss, no muss.
She grinned as she set the crushed leaves and flower petals to the flame, slowly adding in the broth she'd made from glow dust. Once it had all combined, she couldn't help pausing for a quick, secretive victory dance before bottling.
Juggling it between her hands in a mad attempt to cool it, she nearly panicked at the rustling in the next room.
Vicente was up.
Risking a nasty burn, she iced her mouth and downed the contents of the bottle, shoving a few nightshade flowers into the open flame to mask the perfume scent.
"May?" Vicente stepped into the room, nose wrinkling at the acrid scent of charred nightshade. "What are you doing? Come back to bed."
She flashed a sweet smile and turned back to her equipment.
"I couldn't sleep."
"So you set to making poisons?" he laughed, coming to wrap his arms around her from behind, pulling her into a backwards embrace. "I can help you, you know," he murmured, lips just brushing her neck. "I'm very good with insomnia."
"Mmm?" She leaned back into him, groaning at the sharp pressure, pain and blinding pleasure of the bite, sinking further into him until she felt she'd disappear.
A moment later Vicente had staggered back, eyes dark, breathing heavy.
"What did you do?"
May laughed, breathless and lightheaded.
"I imagine you'll find out shortly," she said, trying hard to keep a straight face. "Unfortunately, just at the moment, I'm feeling rather tired."
"Oh, you wretched little minx," Vicente growled, torn between laughter and desperate arousal.
May grinned. Aphrodisiacs were wonderful things.
Ocato stopped. He'd found it. The passage he'd been looking for was here, in the oldest of tomes. Difficult to translate the old language. Difficult still to pry it from the ancient pages. But it was here.
There came a time when woman's magic was far too valuable in the field of war to remain in the houses of man. The lives of the Kadule could not be risked in petty games of war and so a number of men found to possess the proper spark, entered themselves into their service.
Kadule are not a gentle breed. They will fight without a thought, killing whomever they deem unworthy. Many men, initiates, died in such service, found lacking by their masters.
Angered by this treatment and the needless loss of men, the initiates broke free of their bonds of servitude taking what knowledge they had gleaned to raise their comrades. Only they knew not how to call to a soul, the song to draw it forward, nor how to separate from body to wade through the mire of death. They used force, and in the animation of the body, any hope of a soul's return was cast asunder. They had failed in their final, and most important task.
The Kadule, insulted by such desecration of their teachings, renounced these men, naming them servants of death— Necromancer.
But these men were not disheartened. They did not learn from their mistake. They found the raw power of a ruined body to be to their liking and soon used their mindless hoard to wage war against the Kadule themselves.
It was a slow and bloody battle. Many Kadule, many men, were lost. For where a necromancer may raise a corpse to his degenerate liking, soulless and barbaric, a Kadule must find the soul belonging to the body. Such a search could not compete with the ease and recklessness of the Necromancers's quick work.
In the end, the Kadule fell. The war was lost.
But few escaped the carnage, bearing many daughters in the eras following. And while the original teaching have been lost, the soul of the Kadule live on.
Peer into the eyes of a fire-tressed woman. Find there the gleam that power brings, and you will find the remnants of the true Kadule.
Ocato leaned back, feeling absurdly close to laughter.
Taerose Kadule
Red-haired woman