maskormenacelogs | No Rest for the Wicked

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No Rest for the Wicked

WHO: Lucien Lachance, whoever else
WHERE: Heropa, on the streets and then in a café
WHEN: Soon after he shows up
WHAT: Oh crap how do I blend in
WARNINGS: None!

#01
Sweet Mother, even the open city streets felt unnerving. Endless solid stripes of dark grey, and he’d very quickly learned why no one walked down the middle of them. He’d never seen the Clockwork City, but he imagined this was a close substitute.

But where was he really? All he had was a bunch of nonsense in a pamphlet to go by, and he wasn’t sure he believed any of it. Maybe this was all some daedric illusion. Unfortunately if it was, speculating would do no good. In fact, the whole point might be to make him speculate until he went mad.

So instead he would try to treat this as no different from his work. Whenever one travelled, blending in was the most important consideration. Find a persona that wouldn’t draw attention, learn the local dialect, wear something that won’t cause remark.

He’d changed into the clothes he’d been given, hiding his robes and shortsword somewhere he deemed secure. And so now he was… wandering. Trying to observe without being noticeable about it, though he certainly wasn’t up to his own standards. He hadn’t felt this disoriented and unsteady since his first contract.

Just stay out of the road and walk. This can be dealt with.

--

#02

He should have thought of this sooner. There were few better places to collect information than a tavern or café. He’d gotten a table in the middle of things, and ordered something he'd overheard from another customer. It took until he’d tasted it to realize a ‘chai latte’ was some sort of coffee. With tea in it. Bizarre.

So now he had a drink, some sort of pastry, and a room full of people to listen to, as inconspicuously as he could manage.

Half the stuff he was hearing was just as incomprehensible as his drink. This was not a promising start.

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Finn arrived at the cafe at the arranged time he and Lucien agreed upon. He wore his black hoodie, feeling it was appropriate for the occasion, and as usual, his artist satchel hung off his shoulder.

It wasn't hard to spot Lucien. He couldn't forget that face. But it was still so unusual to see it in full color and living, rather than as a ghostly phantom that glowed blue. He was so used to thinking of Lucien as a spectral companion that seeing him in the flesh was almost surreal.

The Dunmer ordered himself a chai latte and a large cookie before going to sit down with Lucien, pulling his hoodie down so Lucien could see that it was him. The only Dunmer in this world.

"Greetings, muthsera."

He'd been keeping an eye on the door, obviously. The more disoriented he felt, the more important it was to pay attention to the exits. And he didn't know if he could trust this visitor of his.

Despite the hood it wasn't hard to pick him out. Amongst all these men, a mer was going to stand out no matter what. He greeted the dark elf with a smile, inclining his head slightly. No reason to let his suspicions show. "A pleasure to meet you in person."

Edited 2018-02-06 02:21 (UTC)

Lucien's words just hit home to Finn that Lucien didn't know him. He had hoped that maybe he had been brought back to life by the importer, but now it seemed all the more likely that this Lucien was from the Third Era.

"Look, what I have to say may not make a whole lot of sense to you. Just answer me one thing first," Finn leaned in a little. "Who is the Emperor of Cyrodiil?"

He blinked. Whatever he'd expected to hear, it wasn't that. "Well, no one at the moment," he settled back slightly in his chair, looking the mer over. "But Uriel Septim VII met his untimely end just weeks ago. Why do you feel the need to ask?"

Well, that answered Finn's question. This wasn't his Lucien. Rather, he was the man who would later become the Lucien that Finn knew. This Lucien hadn't yet met his grisly fate, and become a ghostly hand of Sithis.

"Because that means you and I are two-hundred years apart in our world."

"Hm." Skepticism is the first reaction, though he keeps most of it to himself. He'd heard something about this kind of thing, but that was no reason to throw away common sense. He himself had been lying to everyone he met so far, why should anyone else be holding themself to a less careful standard?

"Forgive my doubt, but do you have any way to prove this?"

"Well, I could give you a history lesson, but you might accuse me of making it up," That and he wanted to avoid telling Lucien exactly how he died. For all he knew it would mess with history or something. And unless Lucien could see into the future they couldn't exactly play Twenty Questions about Finn's time to prove anything.

The elf reached into his artist satchel and withdrew a sketchpad. Finn flipped through his drawings as he spoke. "You're obviously long dead in my time," Finding the drawing he was looking for, Finn turned it around to show the other man. "But I still know you."

It was a bust of Lucien, drawn in blue pencil, with his face half-covered in a hood. The drawing was dated to last week.

He went very still for a moment as the mer reached into his bag. He wasn't armed, the Blade of Woe had disappeared and his shortsword would have been too conspicuous. But he still had magic, if need be.

Fortunately, things remained peaceful for now. The mer had pulled out some sort of journal, mostly full of drawings of--

It took all his self control not to react. No one could have gotten close enough to him to draw a picture of him like that, not without his knowledge. It wasn't possible.

The other option wasn't much more likely, but... "You seem to have taken a few artistic liberties with your interpretation." He didn't wear his robes unless he was working. Maybe someone in Count Indarys' court? Someone he'd missed?

They had only spoken through text since Lucien got here, so Finn obviously couldn't have doodled it up in between their initial talk and the meeting here. Not to mention it was far too detailed to be a coincidence.

"Well, I've only ever seen you with your hood up," Finn explained. Could his ghostly self even take his clothes off? Finn wasn't a necromancer, so he wasn't an expert on ghosts. "Like I said, you've been dead for two-hundred years. The Lucien I know is a ghost." Finn looked around to make sure they weren't being listened in on, then leaned in a little closer. "We have the same mother."

Edited 2018-02-06 04:08 (UTC)

And now he was torn. Having a brother here would be a sign he was not orphaned in this world, but as much as he wanted it to be true, the mer had offered no proof, no code phrase that would verify who he was. He had hope, but to simply believe the dunmer would squander it.

"Then you too know the music of life? The greatest illusion?" The mer had said he'd spent time in Skyrim. If that were true, one of the Black Doors would know him.

Finn smirked and answered without hesitation. "Silence and innocence, my Brother." Surely Lucien would accept that. Even still, would he believe that Finn was the Listener in his time.

He then flipped the sketchbook open to a different page. "Might this convince you that I also know you personally?" The drawing was of a black horse, with its eye colored in red. Finn had even drawn in a glowing effect around the fur surrounding the eye. "You know this lady, don't you?"

Both Falkreath and Dawnstar, then. He hadn't expected that at all. He couldn't think of the last time anyone beneath the rank of Silencer had been given access to more than their home Sanctuary, and of course he knew all of his colleagues' apprentices. And the chance that both Sanctuaries could have been compromised was vanishingly small.

And whoever this was, he'd seen Shadowmere before. Sweet Mother, he was actually starting to believe it. A part of him still squirmed over the impossibility of it all, but...

"So," he sighed, drawing himself back up to sit straighter in his chair. "Two hundred years, you said?" And he was known to his brothers and sisters as a ghost. "Forgive me, Brother, I had to be certain."

And now this café was no longer the best place for them to have this conversation. "Perhaps we should continue this elsewhere?"

Finn smiled when Lucien seemed to accept that he was telling the truth. "I understand. We have to be cautious, even in these strange circumstances." Especially when they were the only two Dark Siblings in this world.

"Come on, I know some places where we can have more privacy," Finn stood up, chai latte in hand and satchel back over his shoulder, and waited for Lucien to follow him.

They couldn't go to Finn's place, because for all he knew, his roommates were home. So, Finn called them a cab and asked to be taken to the nearest nature trail. The driver complied, taking them to a nearby park that had trails for people to walk through.

Finn paid the driver, standing at the start of the trail and looking up at Lucien. "We should have plenty of privacy out here."

"On the contrary, strange circumstances warrant even more care be taken." He stood, following the dunmer out to...

Oh. One of these. Hesitating would defeat the purpose of his attempts to blend in today, so he followed the mer into the coach, taking a deep, steadying breath.

Yes, it was as unpleasant as he'd suspected it would be. It didn't move at all like a horse or cart. He couldn't even compare the occasional bump to the rolling of a ship, though it was certainly making him seasick regardless.

Deep, slow breaths, looking to the horizon--or as far as possible, all these buildings kept getting in the way--and doing his best to look nonchalant about the whole thing. Both his newly-found Brother and the driver seemed unaffected, so he was going to have to practice this.

The ride was mercifully short, and once they were far enough from the road, he could relax a little. Still, he couldn't let the full weight of all this nonsense show, not around a younger sibling. "Well then, Brother, we have much to talk about." And finding a place to start wasn't easy.

"When did you join our Family?"

Finn could see Lucien looking a little sick as they rode in the taxi. He'd felt the same way, the first time he'd ridden in a car, though he was used to it by now. His first experience with one of these machines had been when one almost ran him over.

"Not that long ago. A few months back, maybe." It had been pretty early in Finn's travels across Skyrim, though after he'd found out about the whole Dragonborn thing. "My first contract in our Dread Father's name was an old woman who was abusing the children she was supposed to be taking care of at the orphanage."

Nevermind that he wasn't officially a member at the time, and he had technically stolen that contract.

He'd thought the mer seemed new, but only months? No one rose through the ranks that fast, not unless something was terribly wrong.

But that did explain things. "The sins of our targets do not concern the Night Mother, nor should they concern us," he chided gently. "All that matters is that someone prayed for our Mother's intervention, and she loves these murders most of all. There is no reason to be found in the life of the target, only their death." For a young Brother newly initiated, he would usually leave asside the theology. Many were happy to carry out their work for completely atheistic reasons. But a Silencer should be learning these truths.

In fact, a Silencer should have displayed a familiarity with them before attaining the rank, but again, things seemed to be getting out of hand in their future. "How fare the Sanctuaries in Skyrim?"

As Lucien spoke, Finn was reminded all the more of their talks back in Skyrim. This was certainly the Lucien he was used to talking to, even if he wasn't the person who knew Finn yet.

"Maybe so, but it still felt good knowing she's not around anymore." Those children had deserved to be free of her cruelty, and the young woman left in charge would do a better job. Finn hoped that little Aventus would indeed join their ranks when he got a little older.

"I'm not gonna lie. The Brotherhood has seen better days. You see, there was a war between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion, and the war affected our family greatly. When I joined, we weren't at our best, and no different than any common assassins. But, I'm hoping that we can regain what we lost, and hopefully return more powerful than ever."

He paused, contemplating whether Lucien would believe his next words. "And, well, there isn't even really a Black Hand right now. Except for, well... me."

"I would caution against such feelings. We can take pride in the work itself, but to tie your happiness to the character of our targets is unwise. We have the love of our Family for that, both in life and," he hesitated for a moment. "I suppose you know the rest better than I do yet."

And many more would join him sooner than they'd planned, it seemed. The Dominion rose again? He supposed it only made sense that they'd try, their eldest still remembered the time before the ascension of the Septim line. And with the Emperor dead and his heirs with him, he could certainly see the Altmer turning their blades towards the kingdoms of men, once the daedra were dealt with.

But the Dunmer's next words were still a shock. The Black Hand, wiped out? It seemed impossible, even as the result of war. And no Silencer would stay at their rank in that case, they'd automatically become Speaker or... "Then you are--?"

The question was cut off by a more immediate concern. "Is our Mother's body safe?"

Cafe

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