Spottedfyre: Thank you for the review! I was really worried, actually, this whole time that that scene may not have come across as dramatic enough or would have been too cliché, so I'm badly relieved I managed to keep Akatosh in character through it. I feel a bit bad that Tar-Meena had to go, but I hoped that it would make it a bit more meaningful to Akatosh if he had to fill in that Argonian blood requirement with someone he had a better bond with. Hopefully my Lucien in this chapter isn't too OOC, either :3

Akatosh didn't think he had ever been more of a wreck in any other time of his life.

He stared at his lack of a reflection in the deep waters of a glimmering pond, lit by moonlight. It and him were surrounded by the tall and thick trees of the Cyrodiilic forest, and when he touched the waters, his skin felt even colder than it was. Cupping his hands, he brought the water to his face, the freezing liquid bringing him some awareness as it graced his skin.

"What have I done?" He murmured the words to himself, whispered them again, mouthed them, felt the ghosts of sentences unspoken brush past his lips and out to the empty forest clearing. He was shaking. He hadn't stopped shaking.

The world offered no answer to him, but it didn't matter. He already knew. Akatosh felt strong, for once, could hold himself up, could move- he wasn't weighed down by his weakness. And it was all because he has drank the blood of perhaps the kindest woman he would ever meet, all because she said his name.

Disgust. Disgust couldn't even describe how he felt about himself. Mortified. Shocked. Hate.

"I hate you." And when he spoke the words in rough, guttural Daedric, he spoke them to the only person by the pond. The only person they could hear those words. The only one who could understand them.

He didn't know when they suddenly came, but then there were tears, thick, heavy tears, filling up the expanse of his eyes. Akatosh tried with all his might to keep them in, tried hard to keep them from falling. And yet, despite his best efforts, he watched as his tears cascaded down his cheeks and fell into the waters of the pond, disturbing its calamity with little ripples across its surface. The silence filled with the sound of his cries, and his vision blurred, was growing darker, spinning around him and sucking him into the darkest as if his own misery was a vortex that was pulling him in.

Akatosh had ran, he had ran like a coward. He had felt his newfound strength, had found his speed, and the world had blurred around him as he had fled from the corpse of the woman he murdered. He didn't know if it was all blurred because of this damned curse increasing his senses, his capabilities, all for a price, or simply because of the overwhelming shock, the shock that was beginning to fade. The shock that replaced itself with panic, as he knew what this feeling was. It was panic, fear, horror, and he didn't have a single thing anymore to keep him rooted.

That had all been within the hour. He had ran, and he had come here. Here, out in the middle of the woods. Akatosh was strong, but felt weak. He couldn't even muster up enough strength to wash the blood away, wash away the crimson on his skin.

"What would Martin think?" He asked this of himself, interrogated. "What would Martin say to you? What would he say to this?" He choked the words out between sobs, but kept his voice even, full of anger, full of hate.

But Martin wouldn't say anything. Martin was gone.

Akatosh started to cry harder, gripping onto the cluster of rocks by the lake to keep himself balanced. His wet hands slipped on them, and he slipped, too, splashing into the pond waters. It wasn't deep at all, and only half of his body had gone in, but the utter coldness of the pond shocked him, and he couldn't even think to pull himself out. He sobbed harder, water filling his mouth, his lungs, choking and spluttering, the coldness so intense it burned. When he pushed himself out, he was drenched in cold and shivering, spitting and throwing up the water with his tears. It hadn't drained him of air, as air was a commodity he didn't need, but it drained him of strength, and he curled up by the side of the pond, atop hard rocks that pinched at his form.

His eyes started to grow heavy. He knew the feeling, he knew the day must be approaching. Dawn was coming, once again, and he was never ready to greet the new day.

Akatosh wished he had fulfilled his promise. With all his heart, he wished he had. He wished he had stayed good. He wished he had stayed good for Eldamil. But Eldamil had helped him, he had turned his life around, he had become a hero in Paradise. Was there any forgiveness for Akatosh? For turning into this disgusting filth of a monster? For murdering Tar-Meena, when all she had ever done for him was help?

How could there be? Eldamil had saved all the trapped souls in Paradise. Eldamil had saved Akatosh. Eldamil had made it possible to save the word. And Akatosh... he couldn't even save Martin.

And there it was. Another promise he had wished he kept. When he had been riding on his horse to Cyrodiil, with Martin, Martin in his brilliant golden armor, looking like a Divine himself. When they had been on their way to light the Dragonfires, traveling in the night with only the stars to light their path. Martin had asked him what would happened if he died, and Akatosh had promised that if Martin were to die, Akatosh would follow him into the Void.

But here he was. Still alive. And he wished more than anything that he wasn't.

Akatosh weakly curled up by the side of the pond, and he let his eyes fall, hoping by some chance that the sun that was sure to come if he were to fall asleep here would allow him to fulfill at least one of the promises he had broken.

"You sleep rather soundly for a murderer."

At those words, he barely shifted. In fact, as they had woken him from his dazed dream, he didn't even know if they had been said, or had simply served the meaningless murmurings of his dream. Akatosh didn't even comprehend the words at first, didn't truly hear them, but when he did, a cold feeling ran down his back and made him shiver.

He pushed himself up. The sun was out, shining over the trees, but when it touched his skin, it didn't burn. It didn't bring him any warmth, but it didn't burn. Akatosh didn't know if he understood this curse- or rather, he knew that he didn't.

"That's good. You'll need a clear conscience for what I'm about to propose."

And then, there was that face. That face, that face that he should recognize, the face that felt familiar to him. A pair of poised, smiling lips, dark, dark brown eyes, maybe even black- he couldn't tell in his dazed vision- and hair, pulled tightly into a low ponytail behind, a robe, a robe-

There it was. "Thief." He whispered the words, croaked them. A frog had better vocals than him.

He got a raised eyebrow in response, a chuckle. This stranger was an entirely new person without his hood obscuring beautiful features. And Akatosh did in fact recognize that face as beautiful, even if all he wanted to do was turn away from it and hide.

"Murderer." A shiver, racing along his spine like electricity. It didn't stop there. "Killer. Taker of life, harvester of souls-"

"Stop!" It wasn't an order, but a plea. His voice was full of desperation, and only that. Akatosh could feel tears beginning to collect in his eyes once more. "P-please... Please stop." His voice wavered, grew weak, died in his throat.

A chuckle. "Oh, I see." The man's voice sly. "You regret killing her, don't you?"

Akatosh choked on his own dead voice, still wallowing in the pit of his throat, and he found he couldn't say a thing at all. His eyes seemed to convey the words for him, and the man took all he needed from Akatosh's responding silence. "You do."

He found his voice and forced it out, coughing as he did so. "H-how-?" It was the extent of what he could manage, just a vague, one-worded question, but his thief understood.

"How would I know?" Akatosh nodded. "It's not so much of a mystery when word of a dead mage found in the gardens of the Arcane University gets out. Especially when that dead Argonian woman was said to be attacked from a vampire, judging by all the gory blood- or, should I say, lack of it- and ever so suspicious bite marks. And then I'm sent here, to talk to a sleeping, bloodied vampire in the woods. It's easy to put together a puzzle when all the pieces are so nicely laid out, wouldn't you agree?"

Everything he said sounded so sly. "I don't have anything to say to you." His words were still weak, but they lost their stutter and stammer and managed to hold themselves up without waver. He didn't know if it would do him any good, and judging by the returning chuckle, it didn't.

"That's just fine. I have plenty to say." And yet, before he could, Akatosh was pushing himself up, was getting to his feet, standing, his arms wrapping around his own quivering form.

When he spoke, it was with faux anger, and even he could hear the undertone of anxiety hiding behind his shouts. "What are you doing here?" His anxiety bubbled over to anger, too, and then he was glaring. "Who even are you? What business could you possibly have with me? Just leave!" His hands clenched tightly into fists by his sides, his teeth gritting against each other, and all the man did was smile.

"Lucien." He said the words calmly, resting his gloved hands in his lap. He had been kneeling by Akatosh's sleeping form this whole time, and didn't stand when the Breton did. "I am Lucien Lachance." A name to the face. Akatosh found it fitting, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he was grateful Lucien didn't ask for Akatosh's name in return.

Akatosh clenched his fists tighter, forcing some of the anger to bubble off. He could almost imagine steam coming from his ears and nose and mouth as the anger left him. "And what are you doing here? Why are you here at all? What, watching me sleep?" He had a certain vulnerability to his eyes that he knew was there, so Akatosh closed them, if only for a second.

Lucien revealed nothing as he smiled, waiting patiently for Akatosh to grasp some sort of semblance of patience, and once Akatosh's glare subsided, he finally spoke. "I am a Speaker for the Dark Brotherhood."

The Breton blinked at the words. He could tell they held some sort of weight to them, but he didn't know what that weight was. Finally, it clicked- somewhat. "A- the- like the Thieves Guild-"

"No, no, not at all. The Dark Brotherhood holds itself much higher than that assemble of common thieves."

"But you stole from me!"

"That is correct." Lucien tucked a single, rebellious strand of black hair behind his ear, one that had broken away from the conformity of his tight ponytail. He didn't explain himself at all as he went on. "As I was saying. Your work, your death craft, pleases the Night Mother. And so, I come to you with an offering. An opportunity..." He trailed off, slightly, considering the words he might say, might say to persuade this lost, sad Breton, still wavering on the verge of tears and the verge of anger. "To join our rather unique family."

Akatosh froze at the word.

Family.

Lucien seemed to know he had gotten to Akatosh, now. "Now please, listen carefully. On the Green Road to the north of Bravil lies the Inn of Ill Omen. There, you will find a man named Rufio. Kill him, and your initiation into the Dark Brotherhood will be complete."

His mind went blank. "You w-want me to kill?" I cracked, just like Akatosh was, cracking and splitting apart at the seams. "You want me to kill again?" It made sense well enough. A group of assassins. That's about as much Akatosh knew about the Dark Brotherhood, that they were a group of assassins. And how else would you get into that group? By killing. It made sense, and Akatosh didn't know what he had been truly expecting, but he didn't take the question back.

Lucien smiled at him, just smiled, his smile a half-smirk and his eyes trickling with amusement. "I told you to listen closely. Or should I repeat myself?"

Akatosh frowned in response to his smile, and he shook his head, hugging himself closer. He watched as Lucien finally stood, dusting off his dark black robe and working out its wrinkles. "I will find you when the job is done, bearing the love of your new family." Akatosh opened his mouth, about to release a string of words, but they died as his mouth was covered by a single, slender finger.

Lucien was now in front of him, making their height difference quite well known as Akatosh looked up to meet his gaze. An unreadable expression had filtered through Lucien's dark eyes, and Akatosh couldn't tell what it was. "You're all alone." The words were murmured, and the taller man's smile had gone by now.

He nodded his head, but didn't speak. Akatosh tried to back away from the hand, but another hand grabbed his wrist, latching onto it, holding it in place. Akatosh could have broken from the grasp if he wanted to, but he didn't, staying rooted in place.

"Don't you hate it, little killer?" Lucien's voice had turned into something soft, and with his rumbling and deep tones, it sent a shiver down Akatosh's spine. "Being alone."

He nodded. Akatosh didn't say a word, but he nodded, and the hand over his mouth went to his cheek instead. It was still gloved, but Akatosh wondered if his skin would have been soft, the leather of the glove cupping his scarred cheek, holding it in his palm. "How can you face anyone again, after what you've done? How can you bare to look at a single person once more? You, you grand hero, going out to rescue and protect these people, yet no one was there to rescue that mage from you last night. What if it happens again? What if you kill again?"

Akatosh's dead heart sank deep into his gut. He hadn't gotten the knife, he had forgotten it back at the scene, the knife that was ought to capture Tar-Meena's blood. He could always go back to Melisande, he could tell her what had happened, and- and try to figure something out. He could try. But, at the same time, he could kill that witch, too. Akatosh... Akatosh was a danger to everyone.

Lucien watched him for a moment longer, but broke Akatosh from his thoughts as he continued. "And even if there's some way you can go back to your normal life. What's there, waiting for you, that's so appealing? Your loneliness? Your solitude? You don't have to have Porphyric Hemophilia to know that vampires die in the sun. Yet you were sitting out here, sleeping, waiting to burn. The first night after feeding, your skin is strong enough to resist the sun's rays, which is the reason you stand before me now. You must not be living a happy life if you surely tried to stay out here without knowing that knowledge. And it was just as easy to draw that conclusion from the first time we met. I can't even recall if you smiled once during the entirety of it, but perhaps that's just a fault in my memory coming into play. What do you think?"

Akatosh was little more than speechless. Nothing that he could possibly say came to mind at that moment, not until a while of sluggishly mulling it over. "How will killing someone fix all of that?"

Lucien finally smiled again, shaking his head. "It will not fix a thing. But it can give you something. A family, a home. Things you don't have. People to care for you, people who won't care about what you've become. There's a fellow vampire in the sanctuary I am in charge of, in fact. You'll find only help there, only acceptance, things you won't get from anywhere else in this province. You'll have our love." The pad of his thumb rubbed soothing circles against Akatosh's cheek, Lucien's eyes never leaving his. He genuinely seemed to want this for Akatosh, genuinely seemed to care.

He felt his eyes brimming with tears again. Akatosh was considering it, was considering murdering another man, going down deeper into this path he had created for himself, and he hated it. "I- I don't know."

Lucien nodded. "Consider my offer. I will know if you fulfilled it, and when you have. And if this is the last time we see one another..." He pulled his hand away from Akatosh, and instead, moved to his robe, which fashioned as a cloak when undone. Underneath, he was dressed in some sort of strange, dark armor, but Akatosh didn't comment on it, not until the cloak was draped around his shoulders.

He gaped. "Why do you give me this?" Akatosh yet didn't take it off. It was... warm. He had almost forgotten what warmth felt like.

Lucien chuckled that same way again. "A parting gift. Perhaps you can give it back to me, next time we meet." And he started to turn away, to leave it at that, but Akatosh called out to him, and Lucien turned to listen.

"What- what about my bag? With all my things you stole?"

Lucien appeared surprised at the question, before he smiled. "Perhaps that can be another parting gift, once we meet again." Akatosh was about to yell out and say how they were his possessions to begin with, to do something about his stolen things, but then Lucien merely melted into the forest and disappeared, leaving Akatosh behind in the clearing more empty than it had been before.

He sat down at the water's edge, cloak wrapped around his shoulders, and Akatosh stayed there in silence, wondering to himself when this would all be over with, and wishing that it was already.

I'm sorry for such a long delay in getting this chapter up. I'm dealing with a few medical problems at the moment and that might cause some time between updates. But I'll try to not have you wait too long if I can help it! Thank you for sticking by this story, it means a lot :33 Have a great day!