Author's Note: You guys know you love the bold text. Don't deny it. Here, have the usual 'I don't own Oblivion' and 'Don't murder me in my sleep because this took so long'. I have an apology on my user profile if you want to know why I'm being so slow. Thank you so much, reviewers. Seeing your words just makes my face light up. I'd draw a bunch of hearts, but doesn't like brackets, so less than three to all of you. ...Ye Gads, lot of reviewers. I fear I don't have the space to reply directly to everyone. I'm so sorry if I can't get to you directly, it's just that there's so many now that it's killing my word count. Reply or not, I'm enormously grateful for your reviews. Gods (of reviewing), give me strength.
Reva - Ah, somebody who's thinking critically. :D Good, I like that in readers. I'll give you this much - one of your hypotheses is correct. I'll leave it up to you - er, me, for writing - to find out which. And poor Vee indeed. It really goes against the grain to write the Purification, seeing as I've never been able to force myself to do it in-game.
Arty - Ahah, it's tempting... I just respond to whatever I feel like, and whatever you explicitly ask me. I actually don't plan on including Sheogorath in this story - I've never been able to find or play Shivering Isles, so I only know what I've read on guidethroughs. Avielle won't be nuts forever, there's a reason she's going mad... Also, I'd like to point out that Ray is -not- the Hero. I mean, yes, he was in the prison... but come on, the gods aren't that stupid.
DualKatanas - Firstly, at the favorites - I am completely honored. Thank you. :D Like, seriously. I'm glad you think I'm writing well, and honestly, I'm a bit surprised you didn't seem disbelieving of Ray being able to Purify the Sanctuary. And yeah, angry Vicente... not somebody to annoy. But Avielle's still a firebrand, so... ;D
Pandora - That's one of the reasons I started writing this. I adore Vicente, and seeing him die over and over again made me really irritated. It's his time in the spotlight.
Dandy - Why thank you! :D You know, I'd actually be grateful if you'd point out spelling errors when you see them. The word program I'm using is archaic, useless, and does not have a spell check, so I often miss those things.
Merinda - I tried to shake things up a bit, seeing as half the stories here are retellings of the DB line. And you know, it was reading and reviewing Arty's 'Brothers in Arms' that made me start writing. Deja vu when I read your review - so write, please. I want to see what you come up with. :o
Kitsune - Same, Vicente was the one that stood out to me - the one I just couldn't kill. I loved the others, but he was like... (less than three).
All right... this isn't my most action-packed or amazing chapter, so I apologize in advance. I have some good material already written down for the next. This is more of a bridge than anything, so sorry :B
Vicente often considered himself civilized among vampires, but the expression on his face was anything but as he traversed the Black Road. It carried all the baleful ill will of a thunderstorm. He didn't bother to stick to the wilderness. What did it matter if he was caught and strung up by his entrails? His Family was dead. There was nobody waiting for him.
Nobody who was expecting him, anyways.
The dreamlike haze over recent events still hung like poisonous fog in his mind; it had yet to truly sink in. He was doing his best not to dwell on it, that irrevocable knowledge that the world he'd clung to for so long had crumbled under his feet. Instead, his predator's mind focused on one thing and one thing only, a solid, crystal destination planted firmly in the mires of hell.
Because he most certainly had a destination in mind.
His target? The Arcane University... or more accurately, a certain mage that took residence there.
Oh, yes, it would be easier to go directly to Fort Farragut and slaughter his traitorous protegee like the scum he was. But then it would be just another schism in the Brotherhood, another eruption of infighting. An honorable way to go, among shadows.
Lucien deserved anything but honor.
Vicente had many reasons backing up his decided plan of action. Hunting Lachance alone would be foolish for him. As a vampire, he possessed numerous titanic strengths - and just as many debilitating weaknesses that his Speaker knew and could exploit. While he was difficult to harm, Lucien knew exactly how to bring him to his knees, as loath as he was to admit it. Running in for the kill now would be much too predictable regardless. Yes, he needed a new element. A spark.
Avielle Fradaun had fire in her.
She was no assassin, no, she would never be one. Her hatred alone could be used and twisted inward, but that fear she carried with her in life-and-death situations served as the nail in the coffin for that chosen path. But there was potential nonetheless in her, a different sort. Were it to be carefully shaped, molded, and pruned of its incapacitating fear... She had every reason to hate the Brotherhood, and that was without knowing who committed the murder she wished to avenge. She was a useful pawn in this deadly game... but it was more than that, a reason which caused him to subconsciously flinch at the thought of using her rather than providing her a way to get the revenge she wanted.
There was a reason why she had come to mind in the midst of madness, why she had broken through that overwhelming loss, why her face had somehow appeared to him, blocking out the ruined hell his home had become. He couldn't understand why he was fixated on a girl he hadn't seen in months, when his mind had so many other more logical places to leap to. She was not important to him. She couldn't be. And yet, somehow, she seemed both a lifeline and something more, like something he'd lost...
Perhaps, had he looked a little deeper, he would have seen the raw truth. He was stranded and alone, with a death warrant next to his name in two worlds, and his friends lay dead. He was grasping at the strings that still tied him to this world, people who knew him as anything more than a faceless shadow. The number was pitifully small. There was Janus. There was Na'viri. And there was Avielle.
It was sad, and a little frightening, to consider. Of the entire province, there were only three people that knew his name and weren't trying to kill him.
And of those three, he could only really call one a friend.
0o0o0
A mage that cannot use magic is one of the most pitiable sights on Tamriel. For serious magisters, the allure of magicka causes them to invest all time in its study; its convenience makes them all but forget how to perform ordinary tasks in the mundane fashion. Inability to cast spells left even the most venerated sorcerers as clueless and helpless as a newborn kitten.
Avielle took to this new development in her usual charming demeanor - that is to say, with all the grace and finesse of an irritable grizzly with alcohol poisoning.
The truly frustrating aspect of it was that she could still use magicka. The possibilities were there, her power still humming at the ready.
Avielle was not a fool. Her hotheadedness often caused her to rush in without thinking, but she was capable of being quite observant. Signs of her own madness only appeared when she used that strange, uncontrollable magicka. That power was apparently capable of breaking through when she tried to use any kind of spell.
The solution? Not using any spellwork until she figured out what was going on.
Of course, she didn't like it, but if two occurrences - three, if she were to count the first where she'd felt fine - were anything to base a pattern on, things were getting worse with each instance. What if the voices never went away? What if she was stuck seeing those beasts of blood and shadow forever?
Until she got to Anvil, the only thing she had to protect herself with was a small silver dagger she barely knew how to use. The Breton felt small and vulnerable.
For the first time, Avielle thought of glass longswords and swirling cloaks, and how nice it would be if somebody was watching over her.
0o0o0
It was with charm spells at the ready that Vicente stepped into the Arch Mage's nearly empty lobby.
Of course, any good mage would recognize an enthralling from a mile away, and resist the pull. But his ability to tweak dispositions was innate, an offering from the Dark Gift itself. That magic was deeper and much harder to detect.
His hood was, of course, up. While the Mages' Guild was notably more hospitable to his kind than the rest of Tamriel, they were none too fond of vampires, and probably would not be partial to telling him the whereabouts of one of their members.
"Do you know where I can find Avielle Fradaun?" he inquired, voice laced with just enough charm to nullify his hooded visage and overall suspicious demeanor.
Raminus blinked, his head turning a bit foggy from exposure to such an ancient, powerful magicka. It had been a long time since the vampire had had any need to use this particular ability.
"Hi there, ma'am. No access to the Practice Rooms after eight."
Vicente let the charm recede a little so the Imperial could find his brain again. "That's fine and all," he pressed, "but I was wondering if you could please tell me the whereabouts of Avielle Fradaun? I'm an old friend of hers."
That provoked a response - the Master Wizard's face contorted into a disgusted scowl. Charming did often lay bare strong emotions from the affected. "Not here, for sure," he snorted. "Uppity fetcher quit the University ages ago, because of some attack. Threw a tantrum and stormed right out. Good riddance." He added some choice words to clarify his opinion of the girl. "Last I heard, she was doing some fieldwork in Bravil." Some semblance of intelligence returned to his face as the charm wore thin. His scowl morphed into a look of quizzical suspiscion.
"I am sharing classified guild records because... sir, could I behoove you to show your face?"
"No, actually," Vicente said pleasantly, stunning Raminus with a quick jolt of paralysis and leaping for the door, "you couldn't."
By the time the Imperial got to his feet, Vicente was already diving into Lake Rumare.
It was an inconvenience, he mused, but he should have expected it. He knew enough of the girl to know her type, and they had no love for rules and regulations; the Arcane University would have only been in her way. And if he had to chase her through the whole province to find her, well, so be it.
He was made for hunting people.
And so they travelled - the mage by sun and the assassin by starlight, rapidly undoing miles and months worth of distance. Fate was the symphony of the gods - the Nine, the Void, and all whose gaze fell upon Nirn - that drew together two unlikely lives when they no longer had the fortitude to play on alone.
Vicente was redirected once again at Bravil, this time towards Anvil - expected, but unwelcome to his strained patience. His only comfort was that the girl had departed only days ago, and she would probably still be at her destination when he arrived if he was fast enough. Probably.
Avielle was too focused on looking forward to glance back, to guess at the pursuit so far behind. She made her pilgrimage to Anvil for answers, but instead found the unresolved questions of the past.
0o0o0
Vicente arrived at Anvil just before daybreak.
The vampire was not comfortable surrounded by people. He didn't want to stay indoors, or anywhere known to the general populace, for that matter, but he didn't have much of a choice. Dawn was on the horizon, and it was too late to turn back and look for a more remote place to stay. He grimaced. What was with it and his recently-developed habit of reaching destinations right in the nick of time?
It was with a fair amount of caution that he scanned the streets. Few were awake at this grey time, but there were always guards about, and his... debut had been recent enough to still linger in the memories of guards. Why had Avielle chosen this city to run off to, of all places?
He supposed it didn't matter. Shadows such as himself had lost their fearful respect of the law long ago. He knew how to disappear.
A moderate chameleon enchantment glazed his form as he strode briskly across the wooden docks, the smell of salt sharp in his nostrils. If anyone were to glance his way, all he had to do was cease moving and he'd appear nothing more than a trick of the light upon sleepy eyes. The spell was one M'raaj-Dar had created... he scowled again, nails digging into his palms. As much as he tried to hide from it, the unspeakable truth followed him wherever he went, making itself present in everything he saw. The pain was tangible, like a blade had lodged itself in his chest - a blade that twisted slowly, agonizingly, tormenting him with sudden jerks and scraping bone.
But his chiseled face was emotionless beneath the hood as he cautiously opened the door to the Flowing Bowl. The inn was quiet at this twilight hour - only the tavern keeper was in the main room, dazedly scrubbing a stained glass with an even dirtier cloth. He glanced up at the visitor with sleepy eyes, who let the chameleon spell dissipate with a lift of his hand.
He'd left his Septims in the ruined Sanctuary, in his furious need to escape that place. In truth, it hadn't crossed his mind until much later. He certainly had posessed his share of money from contracts and service, but he spent his days underground - he'd had no use for it. Perhaps he still didn't. He was not a creature of money and fair transactions, he was a vampire - since when had he ever cared about laws?
There was nobody to watch him, so he let the full extent of his charm pour into his voice. Charming was not exactly mind control, but with power as deep as his, it was possible to use that dizzying effect to create temporary drones who could easily be bended to one's will, as his recent encounter with Raminus Polus had reminded him.
"May I please rent a room, free of charge?" he asked casually, letting the Wood Elf recieve the full brunt of his magicka.
"Sh're," Maenlorn mumbled tonelessly, slumping forward a little. The tankard fell from his limp hands. "Anythn' fer you, buddy. Third room n'the left."
Vicente frowned. "Do you have something a little more... out of the way? Something private?" he urged.
"There's a bed inna cellar tht's outta use, if'ts what ye want, but s'not exactly comft'rble."
"Thank you, sir. Forget about me; I was not actually here."
"Y'weren' here," he repeated dutifully. "See'n things."
"You don't want to go in the bedroom in the cellar," Vicente advised as he crossed the room, looking for the rather shrouded stairs down in the back of the tavern. "You are currently experiencing a terrible rat problem. But you do not need to worry about it, as you have already called on the Fighters' Guild. They will handle it... tomorrow. Yes, don't expect them to come today. They will be here tomorrow.
"A'right. Kay. Bad rats. You did'n tell me that, 'cause yer not here. N'vr were."
Honestly, charm spells turned people's brains off.
The vampire headed down the stairs quickly, needing to get out of sight before the barman regained his senses. The cellar was drab and dusty - clearly seldom used, which was good. At one of the walls, there were a few wooden doors - he tried them one by one, searching for where he was to stay. The first one led to a nook with a wine rack and the second was stocked with crates that smelled of metal and ceramic, but the third yielded his ill-acquired quarters. It was indeed small; dark and windowless, and completely ideal for him for it. A dirty mirror was set on a very rickety desk, while a bed was nudged into a corner, looking more like it had been shoved there for storage rather than set for use.
Vicente was not used to sleeping in beds. He did not like them. At all.
Glaring at the mattress as if it had done him a personal wrong, he deftly removed it from the bedframe and set it on the floor. It couldn't have gotten any dirtier anyways... the tattered sheets were next to go, left in a neat if not grimy pile.
The frame itself did not look very stable, but he supposed if it could support a mattress, it would manage him. Vampires were not stocky creatures, as a general rule, and Vicente was a fine example of that - despite his maddening strength, he appeared as burly as an archetypal mage. Had his musculature been proportional to his ability to wave swords around and break things, the bed would have been doomed. As things stood, it creaked a bit under his weight as he settled gingerly onto it, but stood firm. It was not quite as good as his slab, but it certainly beat the loathsome squishiness of cushioning, and the ground here was too filthy to consider. He got up again, removing his cloak and setting it on the cleanest place he could find, which was the desk. Untying his hair with a spare hand and tossing the leather strip onto his cloak with uncanny accuracy, he tested the door. There was no lock, so he added one of the magical variety for a precaution.
Suddenly exhausted, he leaned back, then sat down on the bedframe. He couldn't deny feeling a sudden pang of homesickness. Everything had spun so wildly out of control in a few short days... it was hard to absorb, and excruciatingly painful to soak in the truth.
It was unwise to sleep, surrounded by potentially hostile people as he was, but the weariness finally bore down on him, down, down, and perhaps just this once, his mind would afford him a dreamless rest...
He was walking in a corridor chiselled from grey rock, a hall that was both latently unsettling and very nostalgic. Dim torchlight cast flickering apparitions scurrying across the flagstones like mischevious spirits. The air was warm, familiar. It smelled of dust and stone, of wisdom and sanctity, of leather and steel and wine... it smelled of Family.
His footsteps sped up, the phantom pulse of his heart quickening. He was home. Everything was as it was - all his fears had been borne from a simple nightmare, a sickening conjuration of his infected mind. He had woken. He was home.
It was at nearly a run in which Vicente entered the common room, his long hair loose and whipping about wildly as he swung his head from side to side. The sight which he drunk in was as intoxicating as any vein he'd tapped. No blood, no poison. Just beautifully pure, as pristine as he'd ever remembered it. A rhythmic pounding resonated in the air - the sound of his Siblings hard at practice in the training room - and Teinaava's friendly presence pored over a book in his corner.
"Brother!" the vampire greeted, giddy with relief.
Thump. Thump. floated from the training room.
The Argonian did not glance up - he fiddled with his hood absentmindedly as he turned a page, his tail flicking from side to side. It was if Vicente Valtieri did not exist.
Thump. Thump.
"Brother?" he tried again, more tentatively.
Teinaava looked up at him through bloody sockets.
Thump.
Vicente tried to take a step back, but rigor mortis chose that moment to settle upon him, three hundred years delayed. He could only widen his eyes as the Argonian got to his feet, vermillion scales pattering to the floor in a sickening rain. Crimson liquid streamed from his ruined eyes like tears of ichor. The shedding of scales increased as the skin beneath began to peel away.
Thump. Thump.
"You haven't got a right to call us your Brothers," slurred a voice behind him. Ravolian's eyes were rolled back to the whites - his mouth was a rictus grin of decayed teeth.
"Could've stopped it. Could've s'ved us."
"Murderer," Antoinetta's sweet, girlish voice came from a mutilated body, her skin rotted away.
"No - didn't mean - Lucien!" the vampire gabbled frantically, unnatural terror knotting his tongue. He lifted his hands as if to shield himself - and another one grasped it, pallid, slimy fragments of muscle clinging to polished bones.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
"Die with us," whispered the voice of a Dunmer he hadn't heard in over a century. "Finish your Purification and join us in hell."
He knew that voice, knew her face, knew it as he'd ended his Family on the verdict of the Black Hand.
"You have no one to blame but yourself," the voice continued, giving his hand a gentle, almost sympathetic squeeze. "Poor, poor coward. I trusted you, you know. A Dark Elf whose best friend was a vampire? I defended you, so many times. But you proved my first impressions to be true, right at the end. I wasn't the only one who you tricked into believing that you were worth knowing. They're coming, Valtieri. They're coming."
The persistent banging was getting steadily louder, and it occurred to him suddenly, perversely, that it wasn't from the training room at all. It was almost as if it were coming from beneath him...
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Rotting hands burst from the floor in a shower of slate, reaching, grasping, clinging to his legs and chest and neck, smothering him like the frailest candle flame. "Die with us," they moaned, as they dragged him down, where he was nothing, where the smell of blood and decay overwhelmed him and his lost Families claimed their loveless embrace.
Vicente had long since ceased to scream as he woke.
Even so, his hands tightened into fists at his side, the fingernails biting deep into his palms. For some time, he just gazed up at the ceiling, listening without paying real attention to the tavern ambience overhead.
Slowly, with a deep, shuddering breath, he got up. As painstakingly and gingerly as an old man, he walked over to the dirty mirror and stared into its depths, not realizing how tightly he was gripping the desk until the wood splintered under his hands. He leaned back on the balls of his feet, drawing in another needless breath into dead lungs. The sense of loneliness and terror always managed to follow him from his sleep, and there was no Family to wash it away now.
Just a nightmare. Not real. They don't... they won't...
They would understand.
The vampire shook his head, angry at himself for allowing a dream to upset him this much. He was supposed to be stronger than that - he had to be, for their sakes if not his own. He fitted the mattress and the sheets back onto the bed and tied his hair back, allowing the mechanical motions to soothe his anxiety. His travelling cloak was shrugged on over his 'day' clothes as he dispelled the lock, strode through the cellar, and started to make his way up the stairs. An old grandfather clock stuffed in the corner showed it was well past nine, and taverns were not so rowdy in the morning.
Whether or not he wanted to curl up and hide from the world was irrelevant. He had a mage to find.
0o0o0
"There's nothing wrong."
"Excuse me?"
"There's nothing wrong," Carahil repeated patiently to the incredulous Breton. "You're in excellent health, there's nothing off with your synapses, and your magical power is far from out of the ordinary. I see absolutely no signs of the arcane fortitude you claim to have, and nothing is off-balance with your brain." The Altmer released her tendril of probing magic, folding her hands in a very businesslike fashion. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have more pressing matters to deal with."
"How can you possibly tell me I'm perfectly fine when-"
"If you want to find a more qualified healer than myself, by all means, go ahead. But you're out of luck." Carahil cut her off with typical Altmer haughtiness, underlined by old dislike. "I've never heard of anything close to what you're suggesting, and you have absolutely no evidence to back it up. You haven't changed, Fradaun. Always thinking you're right, never caring for anyone but yourself. If you don't mind, I have other things to tend to than your imaginary illnesses."
With that, the High Elf got up and made quite a display of striding off into another room. Avielle, not wanting to be outdone, slammed the door to the Mage's Guild behind her and stormed off into the dark streets.
Damn it all. It was one thing to be told you were sick, yes, but wholly another realm to know you were and then be told you were fine. It lent its own flavor of helpless, panicky frustration to the helpless and panicky frustration she'd been feeling for a while. She was stricken with a brief urge to turn around and introduce Carahil to the truth by using her power to blast her head off.
Then the image of what she'd done to the bandits flared up, and she stumbled, choking a little and tasting bile.
Avielle was not a drinker, but right now, it looked like a welcoming prospect. She was frustrated, wound up, and anxious, and seeking out the nearest tavern seemed like a good idea. She left the more reputable part of town for the docks, making a face at the piscatory air and searching for salvation.
The Flowing Bowl was the first one that appeared to her, so she yanked the door open. It was hardly fit for royalty - the paint was peeling off the walls, and a burly Nord was attempting to crush an Orc with his chair. She briefly hesitated at the doorway, watching the brawl escalate and wondering if this was a bad idea.
Ah, to hell with it, she thought, and went to the bartender.
"Something strong," she said, laying five Septims on the counter. "Don't care what."
A very poor choice of words for a customer, but Avielle did not frequent bars. The Bosmer came back with a glass of some sharp-smelling amber liquid that was not worth the gold she'd paid. Going over to a table in the front corner - far away from the scuffle, where a Redguard was trying to get the Nord out of the Orc's headlock - she took a sip and immediately spluttered. It might have been straight alcohol, if not for the color. She forced herself to gulp it down and grimaced. It tasted absolutely appalling. The girl sat down, idly watching the brawl. Wasn't this the part where her head was supposed to go all fuzzy?
With a sigh, she contemplated trying another mouthful of the bilge, then pushed it away. There was a series of sharp raps at the door - a trio of guardsmen had heard the scuffle and came to break it up. She followed them with vacant eyes, allowing the pointless event to soak up her full attention. Two sips of extremely questionable drink was not enough to drown in, but there was something nonchalant and detached about the atmosphere that lent a similar effect just by being there.
"Hey there," grunted an Imperial, sidling up to her with a drunken, stumbling gait. "You taken?"
"Shove it," she declined as gracefully as he'd posed the question, picking up her glass and jerking it. Half of its contents sloshed over the rim and splattered his shirt. He yelled once and staggered away towards the washroom, dripping enormously.
The guards had successfully parted the fight; they were now ordering drinks from the Wood Elf innkeeper. For their sakes, Avielle hoped they didn't order the same stuff she had.
She shivered then, as a hand came down on her shoulder - not opressively, but still firm. She whirled around in her seat, an "I told you, I'm not going to date-" forming on her lips and never reaching its close, lain to rest at the sheer efficacy of a single glance.
It was him.
He was exactly as she remembered, so unchanged from their last encounter that he could have been plucked straight from her memory. But at the same time, there was just a whit of difference that served to prove his reality. The warm tavern light played strangely upon the sable silk of his cloak, and a different hilt carried his sheathed weapon, slung across his back like a staff rather than carried at his side. What he was doing here, how he had found her, and why he appeared now when she'd never reneged on their deal all whirled through her mind like the shivering flurries of snow outside, all overpowered by the simple fact that Vicente was here, lifting his hood just enough to show his shadowy, cadaverous features as he whispered, "We need to talk."
Something about his voice caused everything to hit Avielle very quickly - the old terror in which he'd appeared, the fury she had for his alignment, and the morbidity of his state. It unlocked her tongue as quickly as it had been tied, and imbued it with hot anger.
"What the hell do you want with me?" she snarled, pushing her chair back in preparation to stand.
But even as she looked, there was something downright amiss with the vampire's features. The usual composure was destroyed; the wry humor was gone from his eyes, leaving them empty. A sunset reflected in mirrors, lakes of blood... but flat. Like something deep within them had been uprooted, something vital, leaving the razed remains to fold in on themselves.
She knew the feeling.
His words were flat, too, his velvety cadences withering roses.
"The name of the man that killed your father is Lucien Lachance."