Part 2 of the Martin-centric chapters. If you are still with me at this point, dear reader, you are probably very tired of flashbacks. For this I apologize. Hopefully there won't be many more. This, however, is a flashback chapter. Thanks for reading! I also realize this is absurdly long, so I apologize for that as well. I know it is mostly rambling, but after such a long dry spell in the writing department, I couldn't stop myself. . Anyways, enjoy!
Rain. It had rained that night, that's what he remembered. Not at first. No, at first it was as fine a night as any, though a bit cold, but what couldn't wine and women cure? Martin had plenty of both to keep him warm, and friends smiling all around besides. If the people at the University could see him now, they'd not think him foolish or frivolous for frittering away his time at the shrine of Sanguine. A high breasted Bosmer from earlier in the evening slid into his lap, a leg on either side of his hips. No, he certainly wouldn't be the foolish one these days.
Truth be told, it wasn't easy going, being a Sanguinite. Worshiping a veritable god of debauchery seems like a ride on a pleasure barge, but binge drinking, anonymous sex with more partners than one can rightly recollect, and pranking the ever-loving void out of any and everyone can certainly take its toll after a while. As it was, Martin and his friends had been going at it for months now, partying in the maddened frenzy of Sanguine when not at their studies at the Arcane University. At first it wasn't much, only occasional trips to the shrine, and certainly no missed classes, but these last two weeks had nearly seen the end to all studies. Everything existed in a cloud of red wine. They were close, one of them, anyways, and Martin wasn't going to stop. Farmer's son no longer. He'd be a champion. He'd gain power, notoriety. He'd be the powerful mage he knew he was meant to be. He'd be more than a farmer. He deserved more than that fate.
Finally, after all that, after the seemingly never-ending revelry, he stood, friends in tow, and the three of them went to receive their final task from Sanguine.
For being such a defining moment in his life, afterwards he couldn't even recall the task. He'd been too drunk, and there were no witnesses left to tell. When he came to, the night was dark and wet, he was in his trousers, and he was clutching a staff, ornately carved with a rose at the end, both beautiful and horrible. Wounds littered his torso, but he had no recollection from where they came. He heard the voice of Sanguine in his mind, Well done, Champion, and when he looked around, the bodies of the worshipers were all he found. The revelers were all unconscious from drunkenness, and his friends lay dead on either side of him. He could only assume it was due to the ritual. Martin broke the staff in two and threw the pieces with all the strength he possessed. Sanguine chuckled at that, called him a coward.
He ran blindly, for how long he couldn't say. The icy rain pelted his face and hindered his path. It was pitch dark, and alcohol still lurched through his bloodstream. It was real, and then it was a nightmare, a flight of fancy from which he'd soon waken, to find himself with his face buried in the pretty tits of the Bosmer girl. The pretty girl who'd soon awaken with a scream, faced with two anonymous corpses she'd only just recently fucked.
He staggered and fell, and he couldn't find the will to stand again. Vaguely he was aware of vomiting and trying to crawl away from it before collapsing in a pathetic clump on the ground. His teeth clanged together, body shivering violently in the cold, but he made no motion to move further, content to accept death as it came for him. Who would weep for him? Who would mourn a poor farmer's son, his parents and friends dead? Who would even remember him? Good, he thought, better to be forgotten after this. He sincerely had hoped that would be the case, anyways, eyelids growing heavy and limbs leaden as he drifted into what was certainly his last rest, for surely guilt could not follow him into the grave.
When he next opened his eyes, Martin was surprised to discover that he was not dead. Soft hands were coaxing him to sit up, warm fingers forcing a potion to his frozen lips. The gentle glow of a magelight flared to life, and a vaguely familiar face eased into existence. How? No one knew he'd been here, and certainly no one from the University. He screwed his eyes shut against the glare of the light, letting the potion warm him from the inside out before allowing another to be administered and knit his wounds back together. He was more or less dragged atop a horse, and in that sorry state he was led back to the Imperial City as far as the stables before his savior shouldered his weight and supported him through the gates.
Words were exchanged with the guards, things he couldn't understand, but they must have been good ones, because after a while they were not only allowed to pass, to drudge on and on in the endless rain, but a guard assisted with Martin's weight, speaking kindly to his rescuer, speaking with the deference that a person only shows a woman. They trudged on in the freezing downpour until they came up to a little home in the Elven Gardens District, then, after a brief struggle with the keys, they finally entered, staggering through the door and clamoring in the darkness before the magelight appeared again. The guard left without a word, and a fire flared to life in the hearth, the only sound in the still house. She wasted no time, moving hurriedly up and down the stairs on some errand to which he paid little attention until at last Elisif DuCarne stood before him, seemingly unsure as to what she should say, and that made sense as she had just rescued him out of thin air, with no prior knowledge as to his situation. Shit, they hadn't spoken in two months at least. The girl was nearly ten years his junior, generally shy to begin with, and if he hadn't been shocked out of his mind, he'd be asking her all manner of questions about the whole ordeal. Calling her a friend would have been a stretch before this, merely because he'd mostly only been exposed to her because of Raminus (although he was only a few years her senior), who spoke of her far too often at the dinner table. He forever insisted on including her in everything, no matter the function, and if he had been any more obvious he'd have been shouting his love from the top of the White Gold Tower every morning. She on the other hand was marvelously naive about their friend's attraction, smiling sweetly when he paid her compliments before waltzing off to the next activity, leaving the mage to redouble his efforts while his peers laughed at his expense. Shy, pretty, naive Elisif. Before tonight, he'd not exactly considered her savior material.
She didn't act terribly shy at the time, however, taking him by the hand and leading him up the stairs, assisting him in undressing and forcing him into the piping hot bath water to thaw out. He didn't make a move, couldn't be bothered to do much of anything as he sat and shivered, teeth chattering, so instead she scooped up the cloth and the soap, gently wiping the dirt and grime from his skin. Her thin fingers scrubbed his hair and wiped at a cut on his face, and absently he felt them tremble against his rapidly warming cheek before she moved on, her eyes trained carefully on the wall as she finished helping as much as she dared. When he finally made a sluggish move to help himself he looked up at her reddened cheeks. She was obviously innocent and easily embarrassed, because when he took the cloth from her with a nod, she nearly sprinted from her own bedroom down the stairs and was gone quite a long time, much longer than he needed to finish the job.
When she returned, it was with two piping hot mugs, a bundle of linens, and a sheepish expression. She sat clothes and towels near enough to him and then settled down at a table, her back to him as he dried and dressed. It was horribly silent even after he sat down, face in his hands. Absently he sipped at some badly brewed tea, thankful for its warmth, and finally he looked up at her. She still looked flushed, but at the same time, she seemed pleased. He wasn't sure why it bothered him. She met his eye, and then she put a hand on his.
"You don't seem very concerned about what happened." He hated the quiver in his voice, and was glad that she was the only one to hear it. He hated her look of comprehension even more. What did she know about any of it?
"I'm sorry, Martin." she stated quietly, "I already know what happened. That's why I was there. I-...I was meant to find you." He laughed at that, but she was apparently sincere, for there was nothing in her expression to suggest otherwise.
"What makes you think that?" She was silent for a time, looking nervous once again, and he couldn't help feeling a little angry, irrational though it was. "Have you been poking around into Daedric rituals as well, Elisif? Spying? Interested in some debauchery yourself?" She blushed furiously at that, and he thought she would have stood up, left the room in anger, slapped him. She did none of these things.
"No. No, not spying. And I'm not interested in any of it. I just knew where to look. Martin, you needed saving, yes? And I saved you. It doesn't matter how I learned of it. Please, please don't ask me again." Her eyes were watering, face contorted as if on the verge of tears, but her lips carried a smile. "I did it though. I did save you. I helped." Then, as if to prove her point, she touched him, his hand, his arm, his face, anywhere she could reach. She was out of her seat, putting her overheated, shaking arms around his broad, stiff shoulders. It was odd, off-putting at first, but she was warm and strange and comforting, so he let her do as she pleased. Sitting there in this strange girl's dark room, with nothing but the pouring rain, the crackling fire, and the occasional sniffle from her. Why?
"Why are you crying? You're not the one that...well. There's no point in your weeping." It bothered him, annoyed him, but at the same time he was grateful, because it was distracting him so much that he couldn't think of the bodies in the forest, the broken staff and the booming Daedric voice, a ranting Prince praising his villainy then taunting him for cowardice. For some reason, the more she cried (and his pointing it out did nothing to pacify her, either), the calmer he felt, until the tension eased from his shoulders, the clenching erased from his chest, as though her tears in truth were his, and perhaps that was the case, because he felt unable to do anything, not even weep. The interminable cold that he'd felt for hours on end was gone, the heat of her filling his senses. It wasn't sexual, not like the frenzy of Sanguine's reveries; he didn't think he'd be likely to indulge in anything along those line for a long time. No, it was something else. It was as she had said, that she was meant to be there. Either that, or perhaps her particular madness was contagious, and he was joining her in that. Eventually she calmed, but she did not seem as though she would tell him anything else, and he was too much in his own head to question her anyways.
She must have felt him relax in her arms, because she pulled back eventually, apologies tumbling from her lips as she mumbled that he needed rest. He was too tired, too weary in spirit to argue against her, allowing himself to be led to her large bed without complaint, to be tucked away in the plush linens that carried the same sweet smell as her long, dark hair. He lay there for a while, unable to get the horrors of the night out of his mind, unable to think of anything other than the dead that lay at the shrine and the voice that congratulated him for it. The fire's light was weakened, but he was warm. The rain still poured, an occasional crack of lightning flashing in the windows, but Elisif sat by his side in a straight backed chair, a hand resting comfortably in his as though it had always belonged there. They were quiet in the darkness, and there was a certain solace in it, except she continued to cast her pale gaze his way, only to meet his tired eyes. He'd start to drift off but would jerk awake instead, always suddenly grateful not to be alone as she squeezed his hand and murmured nonsensical reassurances, cool and calm and quiet until finally he drifted away into blessed sleep, his strange naive savior watching over him.
When he awoke the next morning, he nearly thought it was all a dream until he looked down, saw her petite hand resting on his forearm. At some point she must have fallen asleep in the uncomfortable, straightback chair, head leaned over in what was surely a horrible position, but he didn't bother waking her. Carefully he shifted out of the bed and padded barefoot across the room in the grey morning light, trying his best to stay silent as he weighed his options. Deciding quickly, Martin glanced over at a cupboard and then started rifling through the clothes. He did this again with the chest at the foot of the bed, and finally with the desk against the wall, wherein he found a journal. Surely if she was involved in Daedra worship, there would be evidence somewhere. He flipped through to the back, to the latest entry, but it had less to do with Daedra and more to do with him. She'd been obsessing over him for a week. The scribbles were all nonsense, talk of saving an Empire, the cries of the chorus and where to find him. A different entry every day, starting out vague, but by the last one, it was clear and concise. Where to find him on Sundas. Last night. It was dated the same day. The same words again and again. Save him. Save him. Save him. He shut it hastily, the hair on the back of his neck standing up.
"Martin?" Elisif mumbled, and he could hear her shuffle to her feet. "Are you well?" She had moved quickly to his side, obviously concerned for him, but her expression changed to one of worry when she saw what he was clenching between his fingers. Good.
"What is this?" Martin asked, and when Elisif was silent he loomed closer, his face inches from hers, "What is it?! How did you know about it? Are- Are you mad, Elisif? Because these words, they sound like the ravings of a lunatic." She shrank with every word, nearly cowering by the end, but he would not relent.
"Martin, please. Please, I can't." she was reaching for the book, fingers shaking much like the night before when she had so tenderly cared for him, "Please, give it back." He jerked the book away, eying her incredulously as he seized her by her trembling shoulders and forced her to sit at the desk. He opened the book to the back, to his name, and he pointed.
"Explain it, Elisif." Guilt twisted in his gut as he looked at her distressed face, but he needed to know.
"I c-can't." Tears were returning to her blue eyes. How could she even cry anymore?
"Why is my name in there? How did you know? Did you know the whole time? Was this going to happen the whole time? Who the fuck told you, Elisif?!" Then she did weep in earnest, wiping angrily at her tears as she shook her head and pushed the book away.
"Martin, please!" she whimpered. Was she afraid of him? Out in the cold darkness alone without any fear to find him, but now that he'd been saved, here she was, quaking with fear in her own house? "Please. Why are you doing this? I saved you. That should be enough. I'm your friend, Martin. Aren't we friends? Wouldn't you have saved me as well? You would've Martin, for you're a good man."
"I'm not good, Elli. And we aren't bosom companions. We aren't intimate. If it had been you, if you had been out summoning Daedric Princes, you'd have bled out in the forest by now, because I wouldn't have known a fucking thing about it. So how did you know? Why is all that rot written in your journal? It's all right, by the way. Every single bit of it, even down to describing the women's tits." She refused to look at him, tears streaming down her young face. For all that he was a charismatic bastard, he was just being a fucking bastard that morning. He changed tactics, bent down until they were face to face, wiped her tears away with his fingertips. Guilt gnawed at him again when she flinched at his first touch. Yes, she was very afraid, and he'd been a royal twat. How could he have accused her of madness, when he felt and acted half-mad himself this day?
"I'm sorry, Elisif. You didn't deserve this. You saved my life, when by rights you couldn't have, and I am behaving as a wretch. Please...just-stop crying." She eyed him cautiously, as if she'd only just then truly met him, but she heaved a sigh and turned, flipping through the pages of the book.
When she found the right page, she turned back and handed it to him, waiting patiently as he read. He felt her eyes on him, felt the fear that wouldn't quite go away, but he ploughed on. If he'd been a simple farmer and not a mage, he'd have not believed her. Fuck, if she'd not done what she had yesterday, he still might not have believed her. But she had been there, she had been completely prepared for the situation, and she had dragged him back to the city. No. Not mad, and not a spy. A seer.
His knees hit the floorboards, and she was staring at him with what had to have been a mirror of his own horror. He finally understood her tears, finally understood her frightened demeanor. "Elisif...if you saw it all, if you knew it was going to happen...why didn't you stop me?" She shook her head at him, lips trembling. "What, you can't? Then why save me at all?! I'm no one! Those people back there, they might have been. They might have been something great." She kept shaking her head woefully with each word.
"It was always going to happen, Martin." she touched his cheek absently, "You know, when this first started happening, I thought I was going mad. Even when I saw things happen exactly as I dreamed them, I just knew...I knew I had lost my mind. And then, when I realized it was real, I wished I had been crazed instead. How can a person see the future and not try to change everything? But that's not how it works, Martin. I can't change everything. I can't change anything. But I saved you. I did do that. You're alive. I'm so-I'm sorry. I would have stopped it all if I could."
He sat there dumbfounded, but he couldn't find any reason not to believe her. As ridiculous as the whole thing was, he couldn't say she was lying, and he found he clung to every word she had written. She'd even been vouched for by the famed Guild seer Degail, their various correspondence stored in the front of her journal.
With his acceptance of this came another thought, dark and terrible. His chest clenched at it, his stomach churned. This was always going to happened. He was always meant to fail. His friends, they'd all been doomed to die, and why? He never should have put his trust in Daedric magick, never should have turned away from the Divines for dark dalliances. This was his fault, no one else's. He would have to find a way to make amends, to make sure their deaths weren't for nothing.
They spent the rest of the day and the next night together, talking or enjoying a companionable silence, and in that time Martin came to see that she was not always the effervescent girl she was around her fellow mages. At home she was thoughtful and quiet, contemplative of things that usually didn't cross the minds of the very young. Despite very obviously being shy and naive in some respects, she was wise beyond her eighteen years in others. Her knowledge of alchemical compounds was stunning, and her magick was nothing to scoff at, although she couldn't heal to save her life. More than that was her empathy, her willingness to overlook the horror of what he had done, to act as if there were something redeemable in him. It was endearing, even if she was wrong.
She'd managed to pry a good bit of information out of him as well, more than he'd normally tell anyone. His hopes, his dreams, his fears, his past. Although, after Sanguine, everything seemed ruined. He didn't think he'd ever make it past that. A crisis of faith was what she called it, and he had to agree. Still, just talking to someone about it, saying out loud how utterly fucked he was, was liberating.
He had decided to leave the next morning, unwilling to stay and compromise her any more than he already had. Daedric rumors aside, she was young and alone, and she didn't desire attention to begin with. When she had stepped out the day before, there had been no news at all, so he was probably safe to collect his things from the dormitories by midday, but rumors would eventually spread, and he'd see her clear of all that.
"Martin, are you certain you must go now? Are you sure you're well enough?" Elisif asked worriedly, packing him a satchel of supplies for the road. He smiled at her concern.
"No one knows I've been here, and I aim to keep it that way. No one is going to speak of you and Daedra in the same sentence if I can help it." He slung the pack onto his shoulder before scooping her into a tight embrace, holding her a long while before pressing a kiss to the top of her messy hair. It seemed no one would know of it either, that they would get away with it completely, and then there was a knock on the door.
Panic seized them both at first, and then Elisif relaxed as she remembered the day. "It's Raminus." she whispered. Sure enough, after a moment with no answer, a call rang out.
"Elli? You awake? You told me to be here earlier this time! Come on." Despite it all, Martin found himself laughing too loudly, then caught a swift punch in the arm from Elisif.
"Don't you want to hide?" she whispered.
"And wait here all day listening to Raminus Polus fail again and again? Can't. No, I've got an idea. That is, if you're okay with Raminus's feelings being hurt for a day or two." She was hesitant for half a second, but Raminus continued knocking insistently, so she nodded, confused when Martin muttered a hushed, "Sorry in advance," and slipped a broad hand to the small of her back with a grin.
Elisif squared her shoulders, opened the door, and Raminus barged in cheerfully, "Morning Elli!...Oh, hello Martin. Haven't seen you around for a few days at least." he looked over at Elisif, at her tired eyes, wrinkled clothes and disheveled hair fresh from bed, then at Martin who looked much the same, the two of them standing far too close for just a morning visit, "Did...did I interrupt something?" Elisif opened her mouth, began to stammer on, but before she could articulate an answer, Martin cut in.
"A bit late to the party for that, friend."
He turned for the door then, pulling Elisif into his arms with a smile, and he had to bite back his laughter at her dumbfounded expression before ducking down, breathing out a quiet apology before pressing his mouth to hers. It was a slow caress, one assumed by lovers who'd already explored one another at their leisure. He watched her face framed in his hands, saw the precise moment the wheels locked into place and she understood what he was doing. Her eyes slid closed, fingers twining sweetly in his hair as she shyly responded with a swipe of her tongue against his. He carried it on longer than he should have, long enough for Elisif to get well into character, and most certainly long enough for Raminus to turn around and see. The final straw was when a sweet, breathless little moan escaped her lips, and Raminus took to violently clearing his throat. Martin pulled away with a chuckle, glanced over at the fuming mage, and then pressed his lips to Elisif's forehead.
"I'll not forget this, Elli." he whispered, and he left her alone with a heartsick mage to deal with.
It was only later, as he settled down at an inn, as far away from the Imperial City as he could get, that he found the gift she left for him. Wrapped in canvas and twine, he hesitated to open it at all, but when he did, he held a small, thick leather-bound book of prayers, herbs and flowers dry-pressed between its pages. A book for Akatosh, the Dragon, and on the first page was an inscription.
'For your next crisis of faith. Keep it safe, my friend. I'll want it back some day.'
It was still dark when Martin awoke, the cheery glow of the fire illuminating the room in yellow and orange. There was a weight on the bed beside him. Of course it was her, his faithful friend, face buried in the crook of her elbow, hand holding tight to the plush coverlet. Years had passed, aged her and changed her, made her far removed from the naive little thing that had wept over him that night, but even after a decade's separation, she remained ever vigilant, ever faithful.
Slowly he eased from the grandiose bed, careful not to jar her awake, and he searched through his things. As a priest he owned precious little, but he'd found an excuse to keep her gift to him. After all, it was a religious text, even if he had never opened it, never did more than read the inscription.
On this day, however, he did open it. On his knees before the fireplace, Martin Septim read from the book of prayers, whispered along with them, his fingers straying across the dried, warped pages reverently. Words that had once lost their power became potent again, canticles stirring in him a feeling he'd not experience since before Kvatch had burned. Peace, blessed peace. He knew there was no end to his troubles in sight, not immediately, but as he muttered the ancient praises of Akatosh, tossing several of the herbs she'd dried there into the fire as an offering, Martin Septim knew the peace of a mind that had ceased its raging, and of a soul that was no longer tormented by Daedric Princes. He prayed until the sun came through the windows and the Blades began their morning exercises, until his voice grew hoarse and his throat became dry and his knees screamed in protest and she was awake and watching from his bedside. Then, when his sated lips could move no longer, he stared into the flames, meditating on the peace he had finally attained as Elisif drowsily lowered herself to the floor as well, sitting in silence by his side until the world saw fit to drag them back into the awaiting chaos.
Ugh! I know. So, maybe the very last bit of the flashback scene could have been cut, but I wrote that one little scene soooooooo long ago, and I still love it, so I'm using it. Anyways, a new chapter will be posted soon! Thanks for reading.