One Year Later
Dr. Clarice Stoker sat alone in her office behind her desk, facing the bulk of the office. She examined the sofa on one side of the room, the chair in which she sat, the carpet, the pictures on the walls, the small cut in the drywall where an ebony dagger had been thrown.
One year ago, a mystery man had appeared into her world. He was completely insane, she knew that, and had a strange obsession with his mother. But when he disappeared, she was left alone. Alone, with silence, and solitude. So alone.
While the man was there, she had lost her best friend, her purpose in life, and someone she knew she loved. She was so in love. It was unlike anything she had ever felt, when he was there. She felt carefree, alive, passionate, in love. While he existed in her world, the rest of the world did not. Nothing mattered. But, then, he left her. And she chose to stay back and live as she knew she needed to in this world.
She was not sure why, but once the police officers decided to let her go because she knew absolutely nothing of the madman's whereabouts, she went to her local bank, withdrew all of her money, visited the local pawn shop, and changed all of her money into cold coins. She was left with so many golden coins. Then, she waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And for so long, nothing came. After about a month of complete solitude and silence, she decided that it was in her best interest to go back to what she knew how to do. She called all of her clients, and informed her that she was no longer recovering from her "devastating injury", and was accepting appointments again. She had written a will, which she kept in a desk at home, waiting for a reason to exist. Immediately, she was hit with a sudden influx of patients desperately needing her ear. Again, she rediscovered the reason she lived in this world, and not another one.
An entire year passed, and life resumed as it had. She felt so alone in this world, surrounded by all these people who wanted nothing more than to speak. She was their Listener – she wasn't just ihis/i Listener. She was everyone's Listener, but only his Keeper. But now, he was gone, and she had nothing to Keep.
She stared at the office in front of her with such dismay. She hated this place. She hated this whole world. It was so mute without him. There was no colour. Everything was black and white and blank.
She lifted herself from her desk, and headed to the depths of it. The room swallowed her whole when she stood in it, and she felt so small, so insignificant, so alone. She took her coat from the coat rack on the wall, and pulled it on, before leaving her office. She left her office door wide open.
She drove to her home, and paused at the doorway, looking around her dark, empty house. Despite the bright colours that governed her walls, everything seemed so ashen, mute, dull. She embarked into her bedroom where she fished through a small bedside table's drawer. There, she retrieved a bag full of golden coins. She examined it for a long moment, the moonlight pouring through the window glinting against the shimmering coins. She brought the bag back downstairs with her, and left her house. She left her front door wide open.
She drove to the expensive end of town, alone with her bag of coins. She pulled into the parking lot of a massive apartment complex, holding a single key in her hand. This particular key was the only thing she managed to save when she was forced out of the apartment by the police officers who thought she was an insane murderer. She glanced to the bag of coins sitting in her passenger seat. They glinted in the moonlight. She reached to them, grabbed them, and walked out of the car. She left her car door wide open.
She used a card hanging from the key-ring to get into the apartment building. She headed to the elevators, and took them to the floor she knew she needed to see. Once the doors opened revealing the hallway she recognized so well, her heart skipped. She held the bag of coins tightly to her side as she walked out of the elevator, and headed down the hallway. She saw the room at the end of the hallway, its door closed. She stood in front of it for a long while, watching it as though expecting it to change somehow. She knew, however, that she needed to be the first one to move. She slipped the key its opposite – the keyhole – and slowly pushed the door open. She listened to the room for a short moment. When she realised she was still alone, she entered the dark room. She left the door wide open.
She turned and entered into the room which was meant to be the master bedroom. She stood in the threshold of the door for a long moment, examining the inside. She reached to the switch on the wall beside her, and flicked it on. A small lamp in the corner of the room switched on, lighting the vast expanse of emptiness. It still smelt of ceremonial oils. She walked into the room, and left the door wide open behind her.
Her heeled shoes clicked upon the hardwood floor, sending echoing clicks bouncing off the walls and returning their sound to her. She approached the patio doors which lead onto a small balcony. These doors had been behind the Night Mother's coffin, so she hadn't known of their existence. She thought they were perfect, however. She slid open the door, and stood onto the balcony. She left the sliding door wide open.
She stood against the railing, and looked down to the world below. The balcony overlooked the front of the building. She looked directly down and saw the lawn below. It seemed so far, yet so close. The grass looked soft, but she knew it was much harder if she was to be falling from the floor on which she stood. She frowned down at the grass sadly. It was so intriguing.
Suddenly, behind her, she heard the sound of something materialise in the room. She hadn't heard such a sound in a long, long time. The swirling, whooshing sound echoed within the room, and reached her ears, as though to feed a craving that had almost taken over her. She closed her eyes slowly, before carefully turning around to face the massive, purple and black orb which was swelling and forming in the bedroom.
After a few moments of construction, the portal stood, tall and magnificent, in the very centre of the room. In any other circumstance, it would have been incredibly ominous, as a massive pulsating globe, sending swirling streams of light upon the walls surrounding it. However, as Clarice stood there, she could feel all of her troubles from the year that had passed simply drift away, rendering her whole and comfortable and warm again.
Exactly one year ago, she watched the man she loved disappear into his own world. Exactly one year ago, the preceding weeks seemed trivial in comparison to the solitude she experienced without him. Exactly one year ago, she was left alone and afraid in the massive world that yearned to consume her and break her down. Now, exactly one year later, she stood before the portal to the world she wanted so desperately to call home, while the figure of the man she loved emerged from its depths.
Cicero walked out from the portal, and looked around himself, fondly. Strangely, he wore the same suit he had disappeared in – a bland pair of trousers and a blouse. She was expecting his jester outfit, but it made sense that he would return to this world in the clothes in which he left it (especially in case the room he planned to return to was already occupied, or he had to go searching for her). When his amber eyes rested upon Clarice, his mouth quickly spread into a broad grin.
Without being able to hold anything back, Clarice jolted to the madman, and wrapped her arms around him tightly. He sighed and held her, resting his head against hers, smelling the familiar scent of her hair. She felt whole again, like the massive chunk of her that had been lifted from her body, was removed and healed almost immediately – like she used a Potion of Health.
"What took you so long," she said, into his shoulder.
"Well, first Cicero and Nazir went to look for the Hagraven's house," Cicero explained. As he spoke, his voice brought Clarice back into the world she missed so much. Especially when he referred to himself in the third person. He was her home, and he was back. "Then we needed to take it to Babette so she could try to recreate it. And Cicero and the Unchild spent so, so long on just trying to find out how to get it to work! And a few days ago, we finally figured it out. Then it took someone to activate it, and neither the Unchild nor Cicero knew how! So Cicero and Nazir, since Nazir can get anyone to do what he wants with a single star, went out to the Mage's College in Winterhold, and-"
Suddenly, she cut him off by parting from him, and pressing her lips firmly against his. He was taken aback for a moment, but gradually relaxed into it, and sighed with the relief. Both of them felt a craving they couldn't quench subside and ease them into harmonious satisfaction.
"But we don't have long," Cicero remarked. "The Portal will close soon."
Clarice nodded. She looked past Cicero to face the dark mouth of the portal. Exactly one year ago, she watched the man she loved disappear into this dark void to take him home. Now, he would disappear again, but she was going with him, to the ends of the world and beyond.
Cicero tightly held Clarice's hand before looking to her, and smiling confidently. She glanced back to him, and nodded, before taking careful steps towards the gaping mouth of the portal. The thick gravity the portal emitted pulled her limbs and played with the ruffles in her clothes, gently urging her, ushering her, into its depths. Eventually, hand in hand with the madman, the psychologist disappeared from the world she knew so well, only to enter in her new, foreign home. Behind her, she left the mouth of the portal sealed tightly.
Dr. Clarice Stoker and her beloved madman Cicero, lied, naked, tangled within each other, on the roof an abandoned tower on the edge of a large plateau surrounded by a magnificent mountain range, and thick forests. Clarice looked up to the sky above her, and sighed, smiling, watching the swirling, green and blue ribbons of light glide across the sky. Two moons, one much larger than the other, hung low in the sky, their beautiful, cavernous faces staring down at them.
"Two moons," she said. "You never told me Tamriel had two moons."
Cicero turned to look at her. "Cicero wanted you to see for yourself."
Clarice smiled and looked back up to the sky. Cicero held her tightly in his arms, banishing the cold of Skyrim from touching them. The sleeping rolls beneath them were comfortable and soft. They would continue their journey to the Dawnstar Sanctuary tomorrow, after a long journey southward to show Clarice a few of the sights. "Slow down," she had told him. "We have a whole life to see all of Skyrim." He couldn't deny her that.
She could remember Wanda urging her to go with Cicero through the portal. She wasn't sure why she hadn't… Too many loose ends in her real world. But the moment after the portal disappeared, leaving her alone with the darkness, she regretted it. She could hear Wanda scolding her. She needed to go through.
Her index finger traced down the contours of his body, touching his hair, poking every freckle gingerly. She longed to memorise him, and now she had a lifetime to do so.
"You know, psychologists often work on the basis of precedents in order to come to conclusions about patients," she told him. "But there was no amount of precedents that could prepare me for you."
Cicero turned his head to look at her, and chuckled. "If there had been precedent about poor Cicero, what do you think it would be called?"
Clarice looked back up to the night sky above her and sighed. She chuckled lightly to herself. "The Cicero phenomenon? The Psychology of the Cicero?"
"Oh, I know," Cicero remarked, looking down at her. "Cicerology."
She laughed lightly to herself, before looking back up to the sky, her eyes following the aurora borealis shifting and swimming above her, as her hand trailed up and down his body, touching him and playing with his skin and chest. "Yeah," she sighed. "Cicerology."
He looked back to the sky with her, and they watched the world go by. Clarice was so grateful to Cicero for sharing this world with her. But now, as the madman and the psychologist sat under the massive sky, the rest of the world seemed trivial. They had each other. They were both home. And that was the end of it.
There he lay. Cicero. Beneath the stars. Dr. Clarice Stoker in his warm embrace. Home, at last.
.:THE END:.