Well, I am terrible. I know it's been a very long time...again. Anyways, I've found myself capable of writing once more, so here we go. I apologize in advance; after so long out of the spotlight, I felt bad for Martin, and so now he will have two chapters. I might have run a bit long on him, and I am truly sorry. I've not forgotten this story. It will be completed.
Where is she, Martin thought to himself, his hands slipping across the pages of the Mysterium Xarxes subconsciously. It had been over a month since he'd reluctantly sent Elisif DuCarne off on another mission. She'd barely had time to catch her breath after delivering the Rose to him. That fiasco was enough for him to be glad of her absence if only to keep her from seeing his struggle, his shame for his actions. Still, her absence did little to make him forget the way she felt against his lips, the only woman he'd touched in more than a decade.
Coward! The voice he knew and dreaded said, Yes, my poor former Champion, you were a coward in the end. Couldn't even handle the Rose for five minutes. Not like her. It sang in her hands. Oh, that woman, she's perfectly dark and devious. The things she could do, the things she has done, in my name, in your name, in the name of Si-
"No!" Martin hissed aloud, tearing his eyes away from the staff in the corner. He knew the dangers he sent her to face, searching out the Great Welkynd Stone in addition to recruiting for Bruma. He knew also that the cities of Cyrodiil would be reluctant to help, that she'd have to face danger to get anyone willing to follow. She was the archmage, that much was true, but that meant little in the way of soldiers. She didn't have an army of battlemages at her command. No, she'd do these things on her own, and it hurt him to know that she could possibly never return. Part of him could not help recalling Jauffre's accusations, that she had no real interest in helping their cause, that the rumors from the capital were true, that she was just a wild bitch with too much influence on the Bastard-Who-Would-Be-Emperor. On bad days he believed it, and it seemed of late he had a great many bad days. Prayer had always been his comfort before Kvatch's destruction, but ever since then Martin's praises rang hollow. His mouth would no longer form the right words. Belief came hard for him. Belief in anything, let alone gods that would protect them from this-this-
The doors slammed open against the walls, and Martin rose quickly from his seat only to settle down upon seeing it was only Baurus and a few other Blades. They changed guard all the time, the lot of them staring and whispering when they thought he wouldn't notice. What did they expect? A polished, preened Septim prince he was not. He was little more than a priest, and a terrible one at that.
So he passed the time reading religious texts and war tomes, and he did honestly try some training with a sword and shield. His Blades were patient and helpful, but he knew he had no great talent for it, no matter his supposed improvement. More than anything else, however, he read the Xarxes.
It was his constant companion, the damned text. Day and night it whispered to him, taunting and begging and interrogating until he would slam the book shut in anger, only to practically tear it apart in his haste to read once more. Elisif told him how it had called to her, how she desired to feel it burn her fingertips. He recalled her shamefaced confession of the Xarxes sapping her will and taking away hours of her consciousness. Martin hadn't believed her, and part of him felt glad that he'd been so skeptical. If he had believed her, he'd have never let himself feel the Xarxes skin to skin, as it were. Whatever wretched hide was used to bind this tome, it sang when he touched it, sang in a way that Elisif surely couldn't have perceived. The symbols on the ancient paper spoke to him as more than mere words. They were dark notes, the thickest, most sensual music ever written, teasing and luring him into what was bound to be his death.
That's what Martin saw when he read the Mysterium Xarxes. Ruin. The death of all things. His brothers and sisters at the chapel of Akatosh were dead as dust, their bodies charred by the fires of Oblivion. Jauffre and all his loyal Blades were cut to pieces and scattered by the wayside. Everyone who had ever done him any good deed was given their just due: a slow, agonizing death at the hands of creatures without remorse and without pity. At the forefront of it all, at the feet of Mehrunes Dagon he lay, the last poor bastard with Septim blood in his veins. He was doomed to watch everyone else die, to hear the screams of his countrymen. Only when the final screams were silenced would he be afforded the peace of death. Dagon would walk Nirn, and Martin was a fool to read his unholy text. A fool of a bastard Sanguinite, to think the nine Divines could save him-
"Martin?" a voice called, and it sounded like she spoke from far away. The last Septim kept his nose in the book, ignoring the noise even as she called again and again. Blood on her face, pouring from her eyes, dead and burning, smoke rising from her clothes, skin blackening.
"Martin?!" the sound was closer now, but there was no use for it. What reason did he have to look up, when all that would ever be lay in the pages before him...
A hand grasped his shoulder and shook him. Gently at first, and then stronger, eventually rousing him from his terrible musings. Martin turned a bleary gaze in her direction, for all the world unsure of what he was seeing, and then he turned back to the Xarxes. She started talking, but he could barely hear her over the din in his mind, roaring and raging until he nearly had her blocked out completely.
"Martin?" Elisif called, but he would not budge except to reverently turn the pages, eyes filled with worshipful intensity as he scanned. She was noise. She was nothing. Nothing but a distraction from the only thing that mattered. A distraction he should be rid of, and didn't she know words other than his name? If she said it once more-
A sudden aching sting struck his cheek, and Martin stared up with sudden clarity at the woman beside him, hand still poised as if ready to slap him again. A man scooped up the Xarxes, wrapping it in a thick cloth and backing away from the table quickly. Baurus stepped closer, hand on the hilt of his katana, but Martin stood and waved him off.
"Baurus, it's fine. Please, leave us." Baurus hesitated but had no choice other than to obey. With a glare at Elisif he left the room and shut the doors, leaving Martin to stare at the unknown man holding his book with the practiced hand of one accustomed to the dark and dangerous. He stood now beside Elisif, and the deference she showed him was telling, glancing at him thankfully, a touch of concern as she looked at his hands, making sure he did not touch the book's bindings. Raminus Polus, was that who it was? Still following her like she's a bitch in heat. Then Elisif turned, touched the man's arm, and smiled as he walked away.
"Thank you, Raminus. Take it to Jauffre?" She said to his retreating back, then she was facing him once the doors were closed. Surprise animated her features, but she was otherwise unflinching as Martin quickly approached, body far too close to her own as he peered down at her with reddened eyes.
"Jauffre has taken poor care of you, my friend. I'm sorry I've been away so long." Her hand snaked up and cupped his reddened cheek for a moment before she backed away altogether, instead bustling around the room and taking in the state of things. The Sanguine Rose stood in a corner of the room, and Elisif shivered as she looked at it, recalling the immediate affect it had on both of them. On the table, food lay untouched, cold and congealing, papers strewn all across the wooden surface without any semblance of order. Martin was unshaven, a fairly respectable beard beginning to form, and though it wasn't out of place so far north, it was still odd to see. That in addition to the rumpled, well worn clothes that hung off his thinning frame, left Martin looking far removed from the man she knew.
For Martin, this entire thing was enraging, frustrating, and titillating. How dare she come in here, thinking to order his guards about, thinking to order him about? He wouldn't have it. Yet at the same time, he felt a certain excitement, seeing her there, fresh and clean, skin pink and pretty and body shapely. Elisif did not know his erratic thoughts, his moods that at this moment churned like a stormy sea. She was talking, asking him to follow as she called for a servant to bring food and drink, clean clothes, and water for a bath, and Martin did follow, mute and fuming, entering his rarely used chambers where the air was stale and still.
He watched in rising anger as a bath was prepared for him, food and wine placed on the table, and clean clothes laid out. He looked at Elisif, who at the moment was humming a song as she sharpened a straight razor and mixed up shaving soap. She had shrugged out of her heavy traveling coat, stripping down to a modest linen undershirt for better mobility. Without the layers of leather and warm padding, she looked delicate, almost vulnerable. Part of his mind recalled the vision from Mehrunes Dagon, blood pouring from her eyes, fire lapping at her broken body, but then his mind took a different course, suggesting that she wouldn't protest overmuch if he shoved her face down against the table, gripped her hips, and drove himself-
"Martin?" Elisif called, "Which would you like first?" She poured herself some of the wine and sipped it, asked if he wanted some, and he wondered if she'd like him sucking it from the tips of her breasts, pouring the red liquid over her pale skin and drinking from her. He needed space, needed her to leave. Needed to throw her against the wall and break her-
At her concerned expression, Martin turned away, gritting his teeth and balling his hands into fists. "Where have you been, Elisif? We received the last of our help days ago. What right do you have to lay your hands on me? In front of some underling and my guard? Baurus would have been within his rights to cut you down if I hadn't stopped him. And why are you bringing one of your mages to handle my Xarxes? I'm the only one who can understand how to use it, who can keep free of its influence. The Empire needs that book as much as it needs me." She reached out a hand, touched his shoulder, intent of having him face her, but Martin was having none of it, seizing her arms and shoving her back against the wall.
Elisif eyed him cautiously. She noted his thin figure, how his robes hung off his frame. His eyes were reddened, face drawn, the look of sleeplessness as plain as anything in his features. Irrational and distracted, tired and worn, Martin looked less like himself than she'd ever seen him. Despite that weakness of body, he seemed possessed of more strength than his own, holding her arms with enough force to bruise, enough force to make her fingers tingle with a growing numbness. She tried to move, tried breaking free, but his grip increased all the more, pain biting into her flesh.
"My right comes from my works in your name, and from my dragging your despairing arse from the grip of death twice now. If there's anyone who has earned the right to touch your royal person, it is me." She peered up at him, eyes flashing, storming, hands shaking even as they lost feeling, "What ails you, Martin? What demons claw at you and keep you from seeing the truth? What, the Xarxes? I already told you it was dangerous, that it influenced me even before I handled it. What, just because you're a priest, you think you know better? Your assumed holiness didn't help with the Rose of Sanguine much, did it? Now, unhand me, Brother Martin. I've more work to be done in your name."
In her head she heard the words of Sanguine (and when had she been driven mad, anyways?), a sweet, lascivious chant, cheering her on for her taunting, pushing her on with awful suggestions, all with a litte 'dear Champion' at the end. Martin must have heard something as well, for he jerked her towards him, still stronger than she'd have thought possible, then he let her go, stumbling back in apparent confusion. She saw it there on his face, as plain as it had ever been on hers: horror and shame. She'd felt them both often enough, but seeing it on Martin again-
"Martin?" Elisif whispered to him, but he wasn't there. His shoulders shook, his hands trembled, his eyes were wide, but she might as well have been talking to the walls for all the good it did. Step by cautious step she drew nearer, gradually slipping her arms around him, and she held him there in silence. His breath came fast as the shaking intensified, but she kept on until finally he broke down, his own arms clinging to her, hands gripping at her shirt, face buried in her shoulder. She didn't protest when he squeezed too tight or choked on his words. She didn't complain when her shirt and skin were soaked and humid, hot panting breath fanning at her neck and ears. She didn't push for answers when he finally saw fit to let go, to stagger away and rub at his face. Why am I broken, Elli? That had been his question, that had been his shame and horror. Broken creature that she was, she couldn't answer that, nor could she judge.
She didn't judge, not outright, but she couldn't help noticing the way his fingers trembled when he went to unfasten the buckles of his robes, struggling in vain for several moments before she took pity on him and knocked his hands away. She turned to leave after that, intent on giving him some time to collect himself, but he halted her quietly. "Elli. Stay with me?"
"Of course." So she sat beside the high walled copper tub in silence, taking the soap and washcloth in hand and gently scrubbing at his back, his shoulders. He flinched at first, eyes still straight ahead, frame stiff, but eventually he relaxed, arms resting on his knees as she massaged his scalp, scrubbing at his hair and rinsing it out. All these little moments, these tiny acts of charity, soothed her as much as they calmed him, cleared her mind of the madness that had seized it since she'd last left Bruma. They took her back, to before all this, before everything had grown so fucked up. When they both were whole and happy, even if it had all been on the cusp of falling apart anyways. She hadn't noticed Martin staring at her, not until he reached out and took the cloth from her hands, mumbling about taking care of the rest himself. In that she saw her opportunity, and she fled the room, intent on giving him a few moments alone.
As much as Martin felt ashamed for having wept in her arms like a child, he couldn't deny how deliciously empty his mind was, as if he had been ritually cleansed of toxins. He hadn't been so at ease in months, but that didn't mean he could stand to look at her just yet, to see her pale eyes soft and kind, ready to sympathize. He couldn't bear it. He did chance a peek at her forearms, but this only managed to twist guilt in his guts at the sight of hand shaped bruises. He could scarcely remember putting them there, could barely recall any of it beyond a swift and irrational rage that seized him as they were speaking of the gods know what. He tried to remain calm, but panic seized him if he thought too much about it, about losing control of his mind. What kind of emperor did such a thing? What kind of man was not the master of their own mind? As he hurriedly finished bathing, mildly disgusted at how filthy he had allowed himself to become, he pondered Elisif's reaction to the entire thing. Not quite frightened, not quite surprised. She didn't even seem disappointed. Why was she so calm about the entire thing? She acted as though she knew it were to happen, as though it had been preordained in the heavens. She had told him about Uriel Septim, about his father and his preoccupations with the stars and their paths in the sky. That man had believed that the stars foretold all that a man would ever do and experience, and perhaps she had come to believe it as well, for she was as calm and serene as he'd ever seen her. Then again, the whole thing was entirely too reminiscent of their first time alone together, so long ago now. Perhaps that's what had him so spooked was how eerily similar both situations had become.
When finally he had calmed himself enough, he looked up only to find that she had disappeared. If not for the way he felt, simultaneously heavy and unburdened, he would have said he'd imagined the entire thing. Later, after shaving and eating and drinking, he thought of going out to find her but reconsidered, instead taking her advice and truly resting for the first time in weeks, asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, dreaming of Elisif dragging his despairing arse to safety.