Sorry for the absence! This is not a Lucien-centric chapter. Instead it focuses on Raminus and Elisif's relationship as a means of introducing more of her background. Hope you all enjoy! We'll get back in the swing of current events instead of flashbacks soon, I promise.

Also, am I the only one who feels kinda bad for the lack of fanfiction featuring Raminus? Probably.

"In this life like weeds, you're a rock to me.

I know where you're from, but where do you belong?" -Life Like Weeds

Raminus Polus sat and heaved a sigh as he flipped through The Beggar Prince with admittedly very little interest. The Guild itself was running very smoothly with reconstruction of the Bruma hall well underway. All research reports were timely, and there had not even been any violations of guild rules in nearly a month. Long story short, the Master-Wizard was getting quite bored.

As Raminus quietly pondered all manner of strange and random acts to commit (graffiti on the White-Gold tower, jinxing members of the Fighter's Guild again, even going to the Arena once more to gamble, though perhaps this time without incident), the Arch-Mage Elisif DuCarne entered the central tower of the Mages Guild looking much different than the last time her shadow had passed over the doorway, certainly different from the last time the pair of them had cause aforementioned mischief around the city.

Generous curves were bound in tight leather armor. Her once long hair was hacked off to just above her shoulders, and her pale skin now bore freckles across her nose and cheeks. The usual enthusiastic bounce in her step was long gone, a cool determination in its place. Still, her face and form looked young if one could get past the eyes.

And what eyes indeed. Raminus had often caught himself peering into her eyes much longer than was publicly appropriate, for she always held another's gaze with intensity and heat. Those orbs that had once been so full of life and laughter were now weary and shadowed, the impossibly cold hue seeming literally carved from ice, a dreaded foreshadowing. She smiled at him, but it was only a smile of frigid courtesy as she made her way to Tar-Meena.

Perhaps he should have minded his own business and not listened in on her conversation; certainly it was the polite thing to do. The longer he thought, however, the more Raminus realized he didn't care for courtesy. Their friendship had long passed social formalities. After all, if she had truly wanted privacy, she would have taken the Argonian into her chambers for discussion.

Words like "Mythic Dawn" and "Mehrunes Dagon" were drifting from the two huddled females, causing Raminus to perk up his ears even more. Books were passed between the two as the Argonian mage promised an answer on the morrow. Elisif rose from the wooden bench and glanced up to see Raminus shove his face back into his own book, but he did not miss the longing look she gave nor the weight it carried.

It was much later that night when Raminus lay beside the arch-mage, far more thoughtful than a man in his current position ought to be. It was not every day that a woman of Elisif's caliber took pleasure with him, renowned as he was in some circles. Their play had been spirited, desperate, and oh so satisfying, yet while she had fallen asleep immediately, face buried in the pillows, he could not help but wonder what the cause of it was. His fingers traced the scars over what would otherwise have been a beautiful expanse of skin, thinking as he went. Never had she come to him simply for lust's sake; she was not a woman who acted on sexual impulse overmuch. Only a handful of times before had the pair of them mingled, and though they both enjoyed each other immensely, it was no great seduction, no flowery love story.

He had seen her for the first time in years as she stole Hrormir's Icestaff. Though she was excellent at sneaking, one does not simply ignore a woman in dark leathers skulking about the Arcane University for several evenings in a row without growing supsicious. At first he would not believe it, for no one had heard from her in nearly a decade, but the more he watched, the less he could deny the truth.

It was not hard to find her out after that; the only thing the guild had a value that she could readily access was the icestaff. With that in mind Raminus settled in at the council table, an amulet embued with the detect life spell hanging at his neck. After an hour or two he became restless, and after three hours he was ready to give up. Just when he was about rise and admit his folly, however, the floor runes flashed, and a streak of purple silently glided across the room to the other set of runes.

Upon her return Raminus seized the thief, her chameleon spell no longer availing in her escape. Feminine hands flew for a dagger at her waist, but he was faster, gripping her wrists until she looked up at him and recognized his face.

She had confessed her crimes to him as one would to a priest, her head bowed and eyes terrified, hands clenched around the damned icestaff as she held it out to him. Though hearing all the things tumbling from her lips was mildly horrifying, he eventually agreed to let her take the staff on the condition it be returned to him as soon as possible.

When she did return, her words were a whirlwind of information and emotions. Hatred, fear, shame, disgust, sorrow, and all in such rapid succession. At the end of it she was a quivering mass in the arms of a friend, sobbing away into his robes.

He didn't know everything, but the essentials were enough. She claimed to have premonitions in dreams, as Dagail experienced. He knew she had been taken by Dunmeri, kept enslaved as a so-called oracle, and eventually escaped six months ago by stabbing the leader. She refused to call any of them by name, instead referring to them as the "masters" or "ashborn". Even with her adamant refusal of their names, Raminus knew one had to have been Farren; too often it was whimpered during her troubled sleep. Strange to hear racist slurs from her though, for she had always been so tolerant before. Not to mention their own teacher was a Dunmer, and she had adored their lessons.

But this was not the same girl he had once fawned over as an apprentice. She was no longer the naive youngling catching his robes on fire by accident or dragging him about the countryside to collect alchemical ingredients. No, the one before him was a woman full grown, shaped and even warped by abuses both mental and physical. She moved with caution, spoke with deliberation, and rarely made eye contact with anyone for fear of recognition.

Months he spents after that, helping her recover from the trauma of rape and beatings. She joined the Guild, focusing all of her energy on completing task after task, working her way up steadily until after six months she held the same rank as him.

Often Elisif would come back injured, and every time he would heal her, scolding her for not knowing restoration magick herself, though there was no bite to go with the bark. In those healing sessions he came to learn her body, the strength and beauty of her contrasting with the striped and scarred canvas of her back. She would tell him stories of them, how they came to be and the severity of the pain they had caused. Many were for her disrespectful words, though some were for predictions which, while correct, were not what the masters desired. Each perceived failure earned her a session of lashings. The only joy she ever had in those days had been misleading the prominent figures who used her visions, offering them false advice and watching when their endeavors failed. She said it was the only time the beatings were worth it, and the laughter that followed these tales would always surprise him.

And then, before he knew it, she had the brush with death that led to the pair of them naked and in bed. It barely made any sense at the time, though after a bit he supposed it was normal to act in such a way. Near death and reanimation of corpses would bring desperation out in anyone, and she just so happened to squash such feelings with the feel of him. No complaints would ever pass his lips, surely, yet he couldn't deny feeling that she used him. Still, perhaps advantage was taken on both sides. Someone more a gentleman than he would have fled the room at her breathy suggestions; a better man than him would have averted his eyes as she pulled the fabric from her body and pressed against him in wanting. But she did not present herself to a proper gentleman, so he took what was offered gladly in a flurry of lips and teeth and tongue.

Their relationship didn't really change after that. No one noticed, or if they did it was never mentioned. The only one who might have suspected was Archmage Traven. Raminus was never directly questioned on the matter, and not long after that Hannibal Traven embraced death. Suddenly Elisif was lifted to the rank of Archmage, the highest honor a guild member could receive.

They hadn't touched one another since her first night as Archmage, though he certainly wanted to. What red-blooded man wouldn't desire her, especially after having a taste. But she never approached him about it, and he certainly never mentioned it himself. For that was how he operated in most things. Never prying or interrogating, certainly never coercing someone so emotionally damaged as she out of their pants.

These months that she had been gone were strange. Normally Raminus was considered something of a rake with enough notches in his bedpost that the damn thing should have been wittled into nonexistence. Even so, he did not feel the drive to drown himself in pleasurable company, passing up the opportunity on all occasions except when she deemed it neccessary. When she returned he felt like a dog begging for scraps, something that was an affront to his very manhood, but when he thought to mention it to her, to stop her from her come-hither looks, she would glance at him and he would become lost once again. She did not know what she did to him, and his telling her would only make her go away out of shame.

Raminus Polus was afraid and angry, but more than this he found himself embarrassed, for he was besotted with a woman too broken or perhaps oblivious to see it. Enamored for what seemed years, and yet it did not matter, for she would never see him as more than friends finding comfort in one another. Perhaps if they had met before she was so fully in love with the assassin it would be different, but there was no use considering the impossible. No, as he lay there, fingers tracing over her skin, he knew the unfortunate truth of it.

He was lost.

"Now what did we learn, sweetling?" a dark hand wrenched her chin up to peer into an equally dark face and blood-red eyes. She could smell the leather of the whip on his fingers just as she could see his excitement from the abuse. It was evident in his face, his handsome, unmarred face, and in the way he touched her, gentle and loving.

Her limbs trembled, chained as they were to the walls and floor. Her pale form was limp and dangling in their cold grip. Other than that the room was cheery, brightly lit and warm, the furnishings inviting. It was to these things that Elisif glanced, trying her very best to keep the Dunmer out of her line of vision, yet as she tried he brought his face closer until nothing existed other than his beautiful, cruel face.

Blood trickled freely down her back and buttocks, tiny crimson rivulets running down her pale thighs and calfs. Her feet were scuffed and filthy, evidence of her unsuccessful escape the previous night. Only her face and breasts remained unmarred by the punishment that had followed.

"Now, now, dear. Never keep your betters waiting." His fingers took to stroking her damp cheeks, the very picture of a doting caretaker, yet his other hand gripped the handle of the whip fiercely. She could hear the squeak of the leather, and she looked directly into his eyes, her own the picture of defeat and sorrow. "What did you learn?"

"There is no need to leave, for you provide all things. There is no need to leave for this is...this is..." she whimpered, unable to continue, but he simple gripped her long hair in his hand, jerking back her head.

"Say it." he murmured, sweet and husky in her ear. The tightly woven whip was dragged down torn flesh, elliciting a horrifying scream.

There was nothing, nothing at all worth this pain. Nothing worth this horror. Rough, uneven leather dragging against those horrible leaking wounds was all she needed to realize it. So she looked up at her captor instead with a grateful, wretched smile.

"Home." she whimpered, choked with sobs. "I'm home." The lie was bitter, disgusting, but she repeated it all the same.

Farren removed the chains soon enough, bathing her wounds , whispering sweet things to her as he rubbed soothing salves into the tortured flesh. The change in him was so vast, that kindness in him so marked from the earlier cruelty that of course she would never try again to leave. Anything, anything for him.

She was stretched across his lap on her belly as he soothed the lash marks, and the tears that shamefully streamed down her face soaked into his finely tailored pants. Her thin fingers clung to him desperately as he continued talking. Though suddenly he stopped both the talk and the soothing.

"Well?" he spoke, and she peered up at him in horror. With a sigh he acknowledged her ignorance and asked again. "Tell me, what is it that you strive for? What do you want, my little flower?"

This was not hard, yet it was traitorous for her to even think the words. Her lips trembled as she opened her mouth to speak, the breath hitching as she forced out the appropriate answer. The answer that would stop the beatings yet take away hope altogether. She could barely stand it, but there it was. "I want very much to please you, my lord Farren." her sobs were buried in the flesh of his thigh as she continued. "I would die before displeasing you again."

It seemed to please him as he continued to trace the horrid bloody welts that littered her skin, telling of the rewards of good behavior, telling how he regretted the scarring, but that such was neccessary so that she could remember. A woman forgets so easily the good things she has and needs a constant reminder.

Elisif no longer listened, closing her eyes instead and drifting peacefully though her flesh burned more than anything she'd ever felt. He had stopped talking finally, but she thought she still felt his cool hands as she slipped away.

Raminus noticed her movement and stopped his own ministrations, surprised when she snuggled against his chest, hands drawing him closer. He could see tears streak her cheeks, and he knew her to be awake. She opened her eyes and brought her mouth to his, kissing him in a way that he had never felt before. It was not passion, no, but something else entirely. The need was not carnal, it was comfort. Comfort in the most basic sense. So he kissed her and held her, his best friend and lover, and he did not speak of feelings that would only confuse a burdened mind. Instead he only editing his earlier evaluation.

He was lost, and so was she.