DARK BROTHERHOOD FOREVER

The fire finally ebbed. I don't know how much longer I was out. It was fire, then relief. Someone was pouring blood down my throat. I pull against the chains to get every last drop, not caring that I was now getting blood all over my face and clothes, even though it was wasteful.

"Slower, you don't want to lose all of it on your clothes." He chuckles.

"Nazir?" I open my eyes to see the rugged Redguard holding a pitcher out to me.

"Expecting the jester? Or maybe Babette? I thought she would be a better servant for this kind of thing, but Cicero had…other needs for her. She's helping him with the preparations."

"For what?" My voice is raw. I can barely understand myself.

Nazir just shrugs, his brown gaze turns hard when I press on.

"Nazir, what is this? Let me out. I can get out of here and away…."

"No, Eve. I'm going to admit, I'm not entirely sure what's happening here but I think Cicero is right on this. He thinks you've been through a lot and are having…a mental break of sorts." His eyes rake my body, where all the wounds were healing. More slowly than I thought though, I still couldn't pull myself from the chains.

"Then explain these!" I shake the chains around. "If he's so accommodating why have me tied up like a pig?"

Nazir just shrugs, and then at once looks remorseful. I was getting through to him. "Let me out please. I don't know what she wants with me, but I can tell it won't be good." I add hastily.

I see the conflict. He looks to the chains then to the room at large, judging.

"Nazir! You're needed." Babette yells. Nazir gives me a pitying look. "I'll be back, might send Babette in for a little bit."

They trade places after he takes the long walk out of the rectangular room. The little girl sighs when she sees my state. "I told Cicero not to chain you up like this, it only makes the hunger worse."

She could say that again. "Babette. What's going on? Let me out!"

"If I could, I would. See, the other day I was working on my new scrapbook. I decided it might be good to start pressing some flowers like my mother always said little girls do. Then I heard the voice. It was the Night Mother. She told me and Nazir to bring her here at once. So, here we are. I would let you go. You look quite sad like that…but…" For once the girl was at a loss for words.

"You've felt it." I state.

The power. "Yes. She won't let us do certain things, just tells us to follow her and it will all be okay."

What was that she said? "You brought her coffin here…"

"Yes. We were told to, weren't you listening?"

She is hunting something, and she is close. Something in the dungeons. Those words haunt me.

"Let me out, please." I plead. I don't want to beg, don't want to lower myself but I'm desperate.

"I can't, this is for the good of the Dark Brotherhood, Eve. You're a very good leader, a little better than Astrid. But the Night Mother is who we should be following…and frankly Cicero is right. We can't have people defying her." She pouts down at me, almost like I spilled milk when I shouldn't have.

"So, this is punishment?" Hope springs in my heart. If that's all this is then I still have a chance to get to the Soul Cairn when I get out.

"No. Nazir said something. Cicero said something else. I forgot, was thinking about my flowers when they talked to me. This is all quite boring…but there was one thing. He said we get to live in the Castle now. It gets to be the main Sanctuary."

What the hell is going on? I open my mouth to protest again but she just leaves me. The little girl I thought as a friend is taking her side over mine.

I wait to hear from the Night Mother, but nothing happens. Hours later, after the vampire girl left, is when the commotion starts. I hear men grunting with the force of moving something. Soon, Nazir and Cicero are nearly dragging the Night Mother's coffin into the room and lay it on the table in the center. The metal gleams in the firelight from the other side of the room. It remains as cold and lifeless as I remember it.

"What are you doing?" I have to ask.

"Listener don't question. Just wait." Cicero commands, but like hell I'll do that. I pull against the chains and try for magic. An ice spike forms but my hands are at an odd angle, facing the wall I was chained to. I couldn't aim.

"Don't be trying to escape, Listener!" Cicero walks my way and flicks some spare blood at me left on his fingertips. "It won't be long at all…"

They leave again. Two hours of watching the Night Mother's coffin. I ask her things, but she gives me nothing in return. For once, I can't tell if she doesn't want to talk, or if she's absent from my mind. And oh, what a thing that would be! To have her completely erased from my mind like she was never there before.

That hope comes crashing down in two hours' time. I'm watching the fire dance on the other end of the room when she speaks.

Cicero, Nazir, and Babette will be performing a ceremony so be ready.

"For what?" I ask. No response.

An hour after that exchange I get my answer to all my questions. Babette walks into the room with the necklace I found on the shipwreck, it's ruby gem glows. Nazir carries a body, a small Nord girl with brown hair. She would be pretty if she were alive. Very tan skin from working in the fields, I'm sure. I also spy a black ring centered with a ruby.

Finally, Cicero joins the fray, his hands circling the crown that was the object of my heart's desire for so long. They crowd into the room and surround the table. Nazir lays the body of the girl, nearly naked save for the rags covering her torso, onto the ground near the coffin. Cicero grins when he catches my gaze. "Be ready Listener, I think you will be happy."

Ice fills my core. I sink back into the wall, as much as I can with my hands bound. Nazir and Babette don't look my way, just stare at the objects in their hands.

Cicero moves to one of the barrels, his hands barely brush the blood at the surface, instead of goading me with it he paints symbols on the dead girl's face. When that is done, he paints runes around her, much like what I see when performing the Black Sacrament. Next, there are candles placed, some flowers spread, a heart thrown in there and some bones. Looks just like the Black Sacrament.

I take in a ragged breath. "What are you doing?" I ask again. No answer. My greatest fear is that this is the Black Sacrament for Bryn. Or for me. I freeze with that idea, I never thought about that. If she can now talk to others, then she wouldn't really need me anymore.

Don't be dense. She chides.

They all crowd around the coffin again and in unison say this three times: "Sweet Mother, sweet Mother, send your child unto me, for the sins of the unworthy must be baptized in blood and fear."

After the third recitation and no more, they stand with their eyes closed and wait. I jerk with the feeling of power the lighting being pulled from me. Something calls it, it begins softly, a vibration on the skin before cascading into a purple and white storm. I scream as it engulfs me, fearful that it will harm me again. But it doesn't, it races out of me and onto the dead girl. I sit there now, shaking with fear and exhaustion. The power is gone.

Another incantation and more power thrums through the room, but this time I close my eyes, so I don't see it as it happens.

Cicero's Journal Entry

29th of Rain's Hand, 4E 202

Tonight, is the ceremony! Tonight, is the time! Then, Mother you will finally be free!