A/N: It's a short one, I know. But technically speaking, it's the last one;) Cicero's POV finally returns to something resembling first-person:D May you walk always in the shadow of Sithis, and may the Night Mother wrap you always in her cold, loving embrace.
Chapter 41: Home is Where you Hang Your Enemy's Head
Aventus and I were in the Ratway for another two days, and Delvin had managed to bring his side of the deal, securing contacts and workers and the cost of the renovations. It would amount to twenty-five thousand septims – five thousand more than I had received from the Emperor contract. But it would be easy to pull things together and get the remaining sum; if memory served, I still had a fair amount of gold from several earlier contracts. I would use that to fill in what we needed. I am the Listener – my life for the Brotherhood.
Alessia, in the meantime, had managed to pull her tithe together – a sum of over five-hundred septims. How much over, or how she had done it, I didn't know – I didn't bother asking, either. But everyone seemed especially impressed with a strange, glowing pink stone in a gilded case she presented proudly on return. Mercer's mood had clearly improved over the past two days, but he was still, to quote Alessia, a 'pompous ass'. I wouldn't mind having my way with him, with a certain pair of daedric daggers…. But Aventus and I were heading home with one of Delvin's contacts, so they knew where we were situated and would be able to make their way to us discretely.
Then restorations and construction would begin, and the physical aspects of the Brotherhood would begin to come together again. What I would need to do as soon as I returned to the Sanctuary, concerned a long conversation with the Night Mother and re-establishing the old structures of the Brotherhood, completing outstanding contracts, recruit new members.
During the journey home, my thoughts wandered to Honorhall Orphanage and the children inside. Sure, Grelod was dead, thanks to me, but surely there would be a few special children there, unable to fulfil normal roles in society, whether it was because of something they had been through, much like me, Aventus and Babette, or if it was something that was naturally inside them from birth. Of course, bringing a child into the Dark Brotherhood was less than ideal – dangerous, even – but if they could be guided and cultivated properly, they could become a generation of perfect assassins, loyal to the Night Mother and Sithis, following the Tenets as our siblings used to, without fail or question.
But like I said, bringing children into the Dark Brotherhood wasn't ideal at all. Where would they stay, who would train them? If they decided they hated this life, or if we chose the wrong ones and they broke under training and the pressure of secrecy, they would become loose ends to be tied up in one very specific way…. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. For now, that would be an avenue I would avoid at all costs. We were nearing Dawnstar, and Aventus was already considering a series of alternative ways to the Black Door that would draw the least attention from the townsfolk.
But as we neared the town, the people were looking haggard, and as if they hadn't slept since we left. Many complained about nightmares and horrifying visions filling their sleep, and while none remembered what they dreamt about, what they felt haunted them throughout the day. Some attributed it to the werewolf that had blazed through town, and the hunter who had gone after it and never returned. I smirked, remembering when I had chased Arnbjorn and Cicero to Dawnstar. But that was long ago. If someone had told me that happened an era ago, I might have believed them. And, as a result of everyone's general weariness and snappiness, we decided to stay in Dawnstar for evening. As long as we didn't do obviously stupid things, no-one would even remember the travelers who had passed through the little coastal town. I still couldn't call this a city.
Then there were other whispers, once the three of us were settled into the inn, drinking a tankard of our favorite drinks, hot food on the way. The whispers suggested that there was a Door nearby, and that things had been coming out of it. Surely those things were the cause of all the horrors, according to some of the locals. A priest of Mara seemed to disagree with everyone, and I had a feeling he knew exactly what was causing these nightmares, but lacked the means to do anything about them. As long as it didn't affect my Family, I didn't care about the rest of the town's problems. Let them blame the Door – it would encourage them to stay away from it for a while still.
"Oh, if I chance to see a cat, I'll feed its corpse to my pet rat!" the red-haired man sang, walking up the road to the North. He remembered this farm, and that one. There were mountains to the far right, and Dragonsreach to the left. He had been walking and walking and walking for hours and hours but it didn't really feel like he was going anywhere. It would be twilight soon, and both moons were sleeping tonight, so the night would be black and dark as the Void itself. "Ah, I'll have to make camp or ask a friendly farmer for a stall," he sighed, walking up a little path to a nearby farm. It was familiar, but honestly, this wandering troubadour couldn't think of a reason why it was so empty, overgrown…. Devoid of life…..
And he remembered when he stepped inside the house – the stink of the dead and rotting and rotted and decayed-decaying. The red-haired man gaged, his arm flying to his face and hurrying out the door. "Unholy Matron!" he swore, remembering Loreius and his wife, buried just underneath the floorboards, not yet in the ground but cool and clammy and decaying. "Gah, I shouldn't have buried them in the house," he whined, going to a little windmill and preparing a little space for himself, then started with a cold dinner. "We should have left the farmhouse clean so one could live inside it…" he complained to himself, slowly settling in for the rest of the night. He had to make his way to Dawnstar, had to find someone – but he couldn't really remember who. This wondering, no-longer-wandering troubadour was beginning to find the road home again – just because he was lost didn't mean he didn't know where to go. He just needed the right road.
The right road would take him home, home to the one that he knew he needed to find.
We returned to the Sanctuary as soon as was acceptable for travellers on the road, and immediately showed our guest around, explaining what the different room were, where we needed what, where renovations and construction needed to happen. He nodded, taking everything in with a critical eye, and suggesting a few changes and improvements here and there, to discuss with the rest of my Family. I was just thrilled that things were working out, and we were trudging onwards, slowly building ourselves up from the ashes and ruins again.
But despite all the happiness I felt for all that was going well, there was still a torn, unhealed cut somewhere in my black little heart.
Ah, I had almost forgotten! Oh, we had forgotten how long the road to Falkreath had been, when we had come down from Dawnstar…. Luckily, we weren't going back to Falkreath, but North to Dawnstar! To the last Home left here. Cicero could only hope that, this someone he – I – was looking for would be there, like I thought this person would be…. Cicero stopped walking. There were two people he was looking for, wanting to find, but one wasn't a person, not anymore…. Not in the normal-person sense, anyway. But I was going home, and home is where Cicero would know what he was looking for.
"Oh, if I see that fair maid Nelly, I'll plunge my knife into her belly!" he sang softly, sighing when the first drops of rain began to fall.