When Silence Dies - haunter

Chapter 1: Darkness Rises

Chapter Text

I shouldn’t have gone to Riften. It was a poor idea from jump, especially after I vowed to myself that I would never go back. I don’t truly know why I went. I’ve tried many different ways to convince myself that I just found myself there, but I know that isn’t the truth. The cold and unrelenting truth that in the quietest part of myself, I wanted to see home. I wanted so desperately to feel homesickness or remorse or solace when my eyes rested on my childhood home for the first time in years.

But there was nothing so human in me, nothing that I could chalk up to a normal and healthy feeling when I stood before my front door, when I let myself in and found the place rather untouched since I last set foot in it. Nobody cared who lived there. Nobody gave a single ratting sh*t what went on behind the latched front door. Why would they care once the family was gone?

The truth of the matter is that I entered Riften intending to kill someone. The ache in the base of my chest was loud enough to make my ears ring and tongue itch with deep desire to just f*cking hurt somebody. The night air was hot and humid as it usually is year round in that godforsaken city, and the hood of my cowl clung to the sweat on the back of my neck. The wooden overhangs and stone archways that adorn the outer circumference of the city created great shadows, and I stuck to them as I scouted out who would fall to my hand.

I thought that Bee and Barb could be home to a good prospect. I watched from against the wall as the bell above the door jingled, cracking against the silence of the night surrounding the rotting building. Two men emerged, laughing privately at whatever must be so funny to them. They were together, clear to tell from the way they grasped each other and giggled like schoolchildren with crushes. I watched on, unnoticed by them as the taller of the two sandwiched the shorter between his body and the building to exchange a few lustful kisses, their arms encircling one another and their laughter silenced for the time that their mouths were mashed together. They broke apart eventually, one man tugging the other away toward wherever they were headed so late.

I decided to leave them be, and I moved down the strip toward the further end of the city. Back in the graveyard, another set of citizens were snogging near violently. I supposed that Tirdas is just the token day to f*ck on the streets of Riften, like harlots on parade. I excused myself promptly, though I was never noticed to begin with, unwilling to be in the presence of any variant of lust or romanticism. It made my stomach turn, the way that seeing happy lovers absorbed in nightfall made me feel, and that pulsating, sad*stic ache grew stronger in my chest.

She was alone when I found her, on the furthest skirt of the city out back in the wooded landscape, with a bloody sack and a shovel. I wish I could remember the deed, truly. My mouth waters at the prospect of reliving the squelch of my blade in her f*cking gullet, the burning hot rush of red from the brittle split of flesh. But I don’t have that to recall. I only have the moment I opened the crimson stained sack, my bitter curiosity much more powerful than the common sense that screamed for me to mind my own goddamn business.

Astrid told me after, when I came to in the shack after she f*cking drugged me, that the woman I killed was the headmistress of the orphanage. I’d met her a few times in my youth, when she needed smithing, and she always seemed kind. I suppose the kindest people are usually the ones who drag bloody f*cking sacks of children through the streets in the dark. I suppose it’s always the last person one expects, the person most trusted to ensure the safety of younglings, that f*cks them the worst. Astrid saw my kill as a debt to repay, as if I’d gone under her bed and read her f*cking diary, and taken what was rightfully hers for myself.

I’ve done a fair amount of reading since I’ve been here, on Tenets and unspoken law, the history of how the Brotherhood operated before now. Truthfully, it all seems like a bunch of hocus pocus bullsh*t. I think it’s a lot of frill for what it actually is, and that’s lapping at Astrid’s ankles like she built the damn sanctuary herself, like she created all of the lore and the secret passcode riddles to derive some entertainment for her otherwise snobby life.

And these people treat her like a god, like she’s the only matron they’ve ever had any allegiance to and they would never break from her word. Personally, I think it’s all sort of macabre, to treat the twiggy blonde like a deity and worship her relentlessly, especially when the books say that the corpse is the one that deserves reverence.

The concept of the corpse is disturbing. Not that I’ve seen her, the clown keeps a watchful eye over it and never really strays too far from it. Cicero is eccentric, to put kindly, and f*cking annoying, to put bluntly. I’ve had a difficult time stomaching him, with his constant chatter and screeching. And he’s the one who brought the corpse in the first place, just a few weeks after my own arrival.

Astrid has made it very clear to everyone else in the community that there are two people not to be trusted, the jester with a fetish for oiling withered flesh, and the mute who has no explanation for why she stole a contract. If I wasn’t eavesdropping on all of her conversations out of boredom, I never would have known that I’m on her list. The rest of the sanctuary hides their contagious distrust of me.

“I heard that he jerks his sh*t in there with the Night Mother.” Veezara says at the long table intended for family meals. As if this litter even remotely resembles a family, rather than a gossipy clique of adolescent girls. “And I heard that in his old sanctuary, he used to skin rabbits and make clothes with the furs before he cleaned and cured them. They say that’s why his hair is so red, it’s saturation from rabbit blood.”

Despite the gossiping, Veezara is nice enough, I suppose, but he’s Astrid’s lackey. She says jump, he jumps. She says do, he does. I swear, I’ve never met someone hungrier to appease their leader. It’s sort of pathetic, all things considered. Like a wounded puppy limping behind the master who kicked it hard enough to wound its leg in the first place. He’s her most trusted disciple, from what I’ve gathered through listening.

I guess I shouldn’t think too poorly of him. He is the only person in this sanctuary that looks at me like I’m not an anomaly. He looks at me like I’m truly part of the coven and not like I’m some mute thorn in Astrid’s side, despite what she must say to him when doors are closed.

“And who could have possibly told you that, Veezara?” Gabriella asks, looking up from her bowl in exasperation at Veezara’s spoken rumors.

He shrugs. “It’s just what I heard.”

“I heard that he f*cked her.” Nazir adds, a mischievous sort of look darkening his gaze when he looks at Veezara. “The Night Mother.”

The entire table groans, all of them huddled together at the end opposite to me. Gabriella shakes her head in disgust. “That’s repulsive.”

“It wouldn’t shock me.” Veezara adds, perhaps just to hear the sound of his own voice. “The man is a f*cking loon . He’s nuttier than a goddamn fruitcake.”

He’s not a loon. He’s high out of his mind, and perhaps if they all shut their f*cking gabs and listened to the rattle of glass bottles trailing down the hall at night, they’d know that. There’s a clear shift in his demeanor when he’s hit a fresh skooma dosage, louder, more animated, and when his supply is low, irritable, angry. I swear, these people are just searching for something to bitch about.

I rise from my seat, my untouched bowl of stew cold before me, and my movement draws the attention of the table. I feel their stares, but I don’t look up. Instead, I just retreat to my quarters, taking the long route through the main entry room instead of climbing the ramp above the kitchen. I linger beyond the doorway, after they’ve decided that I’m out of earshot and it’s safe to speak again.

“You all should watch your tongues around her.” Festus says quietly. “You don’t know who she speaks to when no one is listening.”

“Oh, please.” Veezara says, a bit louder and with a sneering laugh. “She hasn’t got a f*cking tongue , you old fart. She doesn’t have the ability to repeat anything we say.”

“You don’t know that.” Gabriella adds, her voice even lower than Festus’. “It could be a ploy. That’s what Astrid thinks.”

“Whatever.” Veezara says. “Even if she has a tongue, she’s disturbed . Astrid said the only words she’s heard from her are when she begged to be brought back to the sanctuary. She pleaded for forgiveness after she stole Grelod’s contract and said she was desperate for sanctuary. She won’t do sh*t to f*ck up her spot here.”

I’m smiling beneath my cowl at the absurdity when I decide I’ve heard enough. None of them know how often Astrid lies to their faces to make herself look better, and this is an example that I’ll let play out the way that it will. If they want to believe that I’m a groveling idiot, let them. I don’t care to correct the opinions of imbeciles.

I’ve completed a few contracts in the few months that I’ve been here. The money would be good if I had something to do with it. Instead, it collects dust in the cabinet by my bedside. I’ve actually been getting robbed, sometimes by Veezara, who is extremely tall and lanky, and knocks into things like a moron when he’s trying to remain undetected, and sometimes by Babette, who is small enough to get away with it, unless the person she’s stealing from is truly awake in their bed and pretending not to be. I try to sleep before they all enter our shared chambers to retire for the night so I can lay awake and listen to what they think no one will hear.

Tonight, I notice Veezara’s bed is unsurprisingly empty, so I creep out of my own sheets to wander down to the stone hall to see what he’s getting up to. Sometimes he wanders into Falkreath in pursuit of intercourse. Other times, he’s granted special contracts that he’s not to complete when others are awake, and he’ll crash when it is convenient for Astrid. He breathes, kills, and sleeps by her word, as does most everyone else.

And I know where to find him. I know precisely where he’ll be, in the dimly lit corners of Astrid’s chamber, watched over by her guard dog. Arnbjorn is the nitwit to end all nitwits, and he swings when she says. I’ve managed to escape his wrath thus far, but I’ve watched him kick the ever living piss out of Nazir once, and Gabriella twice. Nazir can’t seem to mind his business, and Gabriella can’t seem to mind her tongue.

But the guard dog isn’t at the entryway to Astrid’s chambers tonight. I’m not entirely sure where he is. What I do know is that I won’t be seen if I clutch the dark of the room beyond the open door. I wrap myself in shadow and listen in to their hushed words.

“From the moment he arrived,” Astrid’s voice whispers. “He’s been…a lot.”

“Well, yeah. He’s f*cking creepy.” Veezara says, as if it’s common knowledge. “Everybody knows this. What does that have to do with me?”

“It’s worse than just him being creepy, Veezara.” Astrid says, and I almost buy the whole I-Need-You-Desperately schtick she’s playing Veezara like a fiddle with. “It’s much worse. It’s more than I anticipated being able to deal with.”

There’s true concern in Veezara’s reply. “Worse…how?”

“He’s taken to locking himself in the Night Mother’s chamber at night.”

“Oh.” Veezara sort of snorts a laugh. “Well, I heard that he loves his mother very deeply. And intimately.”

“I’ve heard that too.” Astrid sighs. “But this isn’t that. He’s in there talking. Frantically. Erratically.”

There’s a pause before Veezara answers. “Well…who is he talking to?”

“I don’t know. But…I trust you, Veezara. I trust you more than the rest. And I need you to believe me when I tell you that I fear treachery.”

“Someone… here ? In the sanctuary?”

“Yes.” she whispers, and there’s another silent moment between them.

“Astrid…” Veezara mumbles. “Surely, you can’t suspect someone within these walls of betraying you like that. Nobody would dare.”

“A few might.” she insists. And she means me, but that goes right over Veezara’s scaly head. “Healthy paranoia has saved this sanctuary before. My gut is telling me that demented little fool is up to something.”

“So…what do you want me to do?” he asks, hesitation in his voice.

Astrid laughs lowly. “Dear brother, I want you to steal into that chamber and eavesdrop on the meeting.”

“How am I supposed to pull that off?”

There’s a slight pause as she conjures up a way to woo him. “There will be no use clinging to the shadows. You’ll be seen for sure.” And she isn’t wrong about that. Gangly and gawky, Veezara is all arms and legs and no stealth, says my coin pouch. “You need a hiding place, my sweet boy. Somewhere they’d never think to look.”

I can literally picture him sweating in my head, fearful of where this is going. “Like where ?”

“Like, say…the Night Mother’s coffin?”

The pause that comes is longer, and Veezara’s returning voice is sort of panicked. “Astrid, you can’t be f*cking serious. No f*cking way.”

“I am serious.” she assures, her tone steady and even.

“No, I’m not doing that.” he says, a nervous laugh to accompany the sentiment. “I am absolutely not f*cking doing that. There’s no way it’ll work, number one. And number two, no . She’s dead . It’s disrespectful.”

“Be that as it may, we have no choice. You need to remain unseen.”

I take this opportunity to slink past the small hall they’ve tucked themselves into, my footsteps silent and my presence still unknown to them. I reposition myself on the other side of their hideout, closer to the exit out to Falkreath. “ We have no choice?” Veezara asks in disbelief. “ I am the one you’re locking in a f*cking coffin, Astrid.”

“And you’ll do as instructed.” she says sharply. “You’ll do this at nightfall tomorrow.”

“ All night? Astrid, please. I’m begging.” he implores desperately. “Please, don’t make me f*cking do this. I don’t want to do this.”

“You’re doing it.”

“Astrid.” he says, more firmly, more pained. “I am pleading here. I don’t want to. There’s got to be another way to do this. Please .”

“You don’t want to? Have you forgotten why you were hatched , dearest brother?” she asks, her tone venomous. I decide that I don’t need to hear the end. I see Astrid for what she truly is now. A sniveling, fearful child who’s afraid to be dethroned by a dead body. Instead, I slip up the walkway and out of the door into the night.

It doesn’t take long for Veezara to appear outside, and I watch on as he moves toward Falkreath, his long legs carrying him quickly down the stone path. I follow after him for a while, onlooking from shadow as he slips into the inn there and emerges minutes later on the heel of some man far too handsy to assume anything will happen that isn’t equally as handsy.

Veezara is in no mood at the breakfast table in the morning. He’s usually quite chatty, and rather bitchy, but today, he’s spectacularly silent. He and I are almost matched for silence, but his breathing makes noise, huffing sharply in irritation every so often. It would seem that his nightly escapade did not bring him much comfort for his impending duty.

It’s only me and him at the table, and he twirls a cup of hot coffee between his hands. I watch the look on his face as his expression changes, and the overwhelming theme is simply distraught. I wonder if he’s claustrophobic. Or maybe he’s nervous to be caught near Cicero’s supposed vessel of pleasure. Surely, it has to be more than discomfort near a dead body, something the lot of us create for sport and coin.

He catches my eyes, and his returning glare is poisonous. “What the f*ck are you looking at, New Blood?” I’m not particularly new anymore, but the name has been bestowed upon me anyway. Not like the mute girl can provide a name, anyway. I just turn my eyes away from him, back to the table. “That’s what I thought.” he mutters, tossing his mug of coffee into the washbasin with a clatter before ever so politely excusing himself with the extension of a middle finger in my direction.

The silent room I’ve been gifted doesn’t last long. Cicero hums a lot, and whistles. Occasionally, he sings lowly to himself. Today, he is whistling, and that disturbing whistling, ominously on-key to a tune I’ve never heard before now, echoes off of the stone wall of the sanctuary. He enters the kitchen with his lips squeezed together to eject his little song, and he rummages through the cabinets in pursuit of something to eat.

He notices me after a moment, glancing over his shoulder, and then mocking a double-take that I know is bullsh*t. He’s known I’ve been sitting here from the moment he walked into the room. He’s painted himself as a fool to everyone here but me, and I see right through it. He grins wickedly and offers an extravagant bow.

“Condolences, dear sister.” he says, eyes lifting from the floor to watch my reaction when he’s stooped low to the ground, an arm outstretched with fake regality. “It was not Cicero’s intention to disrupt your bliss.”

I say nothing. As I always do. He only holds his grin and returns to the cabinet, pulling out some questionable looking cheese and a stale nub of bread.

“Cicero only emerged for sustenance.” he continues, as if I may answer. “That’s all.”

He covers it well, but I can see the sheen of sweat on his brow, the gloss over his eyes. No one looks at him long enough to notice themselves, to afraid he may actually speak to them at length, but it’s clear he’s coming down from a high. He’ll be angry tonight. He’ll be alert and vicious. Veezara doesn’t truly know what he’s in for.

His whistling resumes as he excuses himself from the room, offering me a funny little wave as he exits. “Apologies for the disturbance, sweetheart.”

I sneer at the pet name. I’ve never been fond of them. Seeded deeply in some of my darkest memories are names just like ‘sweetheart’, and sitting at the table in this silent room, I can hear very clearly the voice and the name. The ache in my chest returns, along with the deep desire to bring something pain. Unwilling to spring from my seat and into blood, begging myself to remain motionless and silent, my index finger and thumb unlatch my dagger from its holster, shutting my eyes as I poke just the tip of my blade into the top of my hand, and deliciously, I can feel the skin break and the warm ooze of blood.

I have these hallucinations sometimes. Sometimes I recognize the voice, and sometimes I don’t. It was this voice that drew me to Riften, that convinced me to eliminate the baby killer. It’s the f*cking voice that has gotten me wrapped up in Dark Brotherhood bullsh*t. Thankfully, the sharp cut of my blade’s tip is enough to silence the voice and keep me present. As my glove absorbs the pooling heat of blood, I tuck my blade away, resting my hand on the tabletop and focusing on the pulsating ache of my torn flesh instead of the nag in my own skull.

I’m able to pass most of the day sitting at the table and thinking intently about the blood on the top of my hand. Others come and go, passing by me wordlessly and with their eyes on the floor. They would rather pretend I don’t exist than acknowledge my unwelcome presence. Things are easier this way.

Veezara’s been in the coffin for a few hours. I haven’t heard him make a sound, and I’ve been listening very closely. Admittedly, I’m impressed. Quiet as I am, I don’t know that I would have the ability to remain so still for so long. My view from the beams above is spectacular. I’ll have a front row seat to the juicy confrontation that will unfold. Or to something completely grotesque and unbound. Whichever comes first.

Cicero is no longer chipper in disposition. He has crashed from his high at a staggering speed. His jaw is set angrily, his hands trembling slightly when he latches the locks on the door. He drops the hat of his motley onto the cabinet by the door, removes his coat and folds it up neatly to lay beside the hat, as if it’s informal to wear a full suit before his matron. He drags a chair from the table below me to the center of the room, running his palms over his sweaty face and into his greasy hair before burying his face in his hands.

He remains like that for a long time. An agonizingly long time, like he’s broken and needs to be taught to properly function. I’ve seen skooma addicts crash like this before, where they can’t remember how to operate without a dab or a drop between their lips. A small part of me feels sympathy for him, for his dependency on that sh*t. And the rest of me thinks he’s a quack for continuing to consume it when truly, it’s consuming him.

The third person referral bullsh*t is an act. I’ve heard him speaking quietly, to himself, in the first person, and I assume that he only uses it to maintain the illusion that he’s f*cking crazy. Much like I have remained silent to maintain the illusion that I don’t have a tongue. He drops it now that he’s alone, lifting his face to stare forward at the coffin before him. “Have you spoken to anyone?” he asks, his voice so low it’s almost inaudible. “Anyone at all?”

I watch the back of his head as he stares in despair at the iron tomb, watch the way he reaches to his upper arm to scratch incessantly at his flesh. There are dark stains from sweat that have soaked through his white undershirt, wet rings that encircle his spine and his underarms.

“No, of course not.” he says softly, pulling the collar of his undershirt repeatedly as if to let some air in to soothe his sweaty body. “ I do the stalking, the talking, the seeing and the saying. And what do you do?” He runs his hands over his face again, sighing a bit louder. “Not…not that I’m angry . No, never.”

The bat is speaking to the body, and the sincere desire for a response is disturbing. He stares at the coffin like the corpse is in there listening to him, like she hears his every word. I’d excuse myself to give them some f*cking privacy if it would be at all unnoticeable.

“I’ve failed you, mother.” he says, motionless as he stares at the coffin. “I’ve tried to find a Listener. I’ve tried very hard. There is none.” Moving again, he resumes his scratching, his fingernails dragging in long, red scrapes down his freckled arms. Even from here, I can see the soft, beady dribble of blood running down his arm.

I’ve no idea what the clown is muttering about, but a warm burn in my gut urges me to leave. I shouldn’t have done this. I shouldn’t have intruded on this. But my nosy ass just had to see what happened when Veezara was found in the coffin. I wish I wasn’t dead set on watching Veezara’s every more. I suddenly wish very deeply that I hadn’t decided to make him the center of my focus, that I had just f*cking let this alone. But I’m trapped now, glued to the beam I hug until Cicero excuses himself from the room. I’ll be waiting out his little withdrawal meltdown from above.

It doesn’t seem that I’ll have to wait much longer. There’s a small noise, just a whisper of a brush of flesh against metal, from within the tomb. I don’t dare move. I don’t even breathe as Cicero’s head snaps upward, staring at the metal he’s treating as his mother and awaiting the sound to return.

But it doesn’t come. For a moment, I genuinely believe that he may brush it off, like he may chalk it up to being nothing and move on, but he doesn’t. His head co*cks to the side, and slowly, he rises to his feet. Steadily, even-stepped, he lurches forward, his hand outstretched toward the iron doors.

There are only a few important seconds between Cicero finding Veezara in the coffin and Cicero beating Veezara absolutely f*cking senseless, and in those few important seconds, they stare at each other. Veezara’s gaze is one of horror, terror to have been caught pressed up against the withering flesh of a decrepit woman, arms curled grotesquely into her chest and mouth hanging agape in the same way Veezara’s does. I can only see the back of Cicero’s head, but I hear his low, evil laughter, like he’s thrilled to be able to inflict some pain.

Then, Veezara’s on the ground and fighting to suck in air around the pummeling blows he’s receiving. Cicero is much smaller than him, but he’s quicker to react, quicker to move, quicker to swing. Veezara can barely lift a long arm before Cicero is on top of him, repeatedly driving his fist into Veezara’s face.

I know this is my moment to escape, to leave before I’m caught in the rafters above them. Selfishly, I choose to abandon Veezara to fight for his life in Cicero’s tight grasp, beneath his sharp blows and accusations of debasing and defiling the sanctity of the Night Mother’s coffin. I stand slowly, my eyes pasted to the commotion below as I step backwards across the same path of beams that guided me here, one slow pace at a time.

A chilling thought freezes me. The words in my head don’t feel like my own, like something I’ve come up with myself, and my temple aches like a goddamn migraine when I’m overtaken by a harsh whisper.

“Tell Cicero the time has come.”

Instantly, I think I’m f*cking losing it. There is assuredly no way that I’ve managed a hallucination at this exact moment. Instinctually, I reach for the blade at my hip, desperate to shut it the f*ck up with a small slice, just a knick. But before I can put my hand on the holster, the voice returns.

“Tell him,” it coos, words like sweet cream. “Darkness rises when silence dies.”

I’m the loon. I’ve been the loon all along, this whole time, and it didn’t take me any skooma to get here. I could cover my ears to block it out. I could scream at the top of my f*cking lungs to drown out the repetitious chant of those few words, over and over, slamming against the bone walls of my throbbing skull.

I don’t know what compels me to obey. It certainly isn’t Veezara falling limp, too weak to fight against Cicero’s furious fists, fueled to keep swinging by his lack of happy juice. But I obey. I listen to that f*cking insufferable voice that has caused me enough problems. I grip the beam I’m standing on when I squat, dropping to land on the small table below and lowering myself to the ground.

I hover behind Cicero, dipped to the side to avoid the ever moving elbow that drives his closed fist forward, and Veezara’s eyes have found mine. He doesn’t stare viciously, the way he did at the table hours ago. He’s pleading. He’s begging for me to help him in some way, any way that will make the pain of his beating stop.

I place my hand on Cicero’s shoulder, and he freezes, not daring turn his head to face me, lest he remove his stare from the man who defiled his deity. I cup the side of his face, pressing my lips to his ear beneath my cowl. I only dare to breathe the words.

“Darkness rises—”

His grip on Veezara loosens, his body vibrating near violently with rage that slowly subsides as he waits for the rest. I don’t dare speak, afraid his hands will turn to me if I utter the rest of a phrase he recognizes. The voice urges me to continue, honey-sweet words beg for me to speak again. And so does Cicero, his hands finally releasing Veezara and allowing him to hit the ground with a loud thud.

His hand grabs a fistful of my hair over my hood, and he dips his eyes to be level with mine. “Say the rest.” he says. His lips are twisted into a sinisterly coy smile, but his eyes are dead, emotionless. He’s vacant behind his irises. He tightens his fist as he waits impatiently, and I’m met with a sharp tug at the back of my skull. “Finish it.” he demands, his words more harsh now. “Speak, worm. Finish it. Darkness rises when…”

He mashes ear to the general area of my mouth over my cowl, begging for words from the mouth of a mute. I grant them, uttering as low as I can manage, just an exhale. “Silence dies.”

A maniacal laugh rips from his own lips, gripping his sides and staggering backwards as Veezara fights to pull himself to his feet. The laugh Cicero exerts is earsplitting, and if I didn’t have any sense, I’d cover my poor ears to protect them. But I do have sense, so I stay still. I’m motionless as Veezara hobbles to his feet, clutching his torso and struggling to breathe.

The door rattles beyond us, and turning to look at it, I know what Astrid will think when she sees me in here. She’ll assume it was me that Cicero was conspiring with. And Cicero cackles on the floor before us, too weak to stay upright and holding tightly to his stomach as he lets manic laughter overtake him. He’ll be of no use to either of us.

I raise my finger to my lips as the rattling worsens, the person on the other side desperate to get in. Veezara is confused, I know, but he owes me now, and he doesn’t question me. I climb back to the table top and jump up to clutch the beam above, hoisting myself up and slinking out of sight before I hear the door open.

It’s Astrid, and immediately, Veezara admits to being caught. It’s not like it isn’t obvious he was in there eavesdropping, and Cicero is much too enthused with the words of a mute to offer anything of substance to Veezara’s story. Neither of them utter a word of my involvement. Veezara only follows after Astrid, I’m sure to endure a demanding questioning about the events that unfolded behind the locked door.

He must not have said anything. Astrid never comes looking for me. She never even looks twice in my direction when I pass by her chambers in pursuit of the outside world. I escape after a few hours into the early morning, still too soon for the sun to even think of rising. I haven’t made it far when I hear the echo of footsteps behind me.

I freeze. It’s a loud and obvious step, not the kind of step an assassin should have. I wait for him to speak, not needing to turn to know who has followed after me.

“Why did you do it?” Veezara asks, an evident pain in his voice. When I glance back at him, he clutches his chest as if to shield his ribs from the harsh world. I don’t answer him. Why would I? I don’t even have an answer for myself. “Why did you help me?” he tries again, and I hear the urgency in his tone, his desperation to understand why I saw him worthy of assisting.

Still, I say nothing. He takes a breath and tries again. “I know you can speak. You said something to him. Please, f*cking tell me.”

When I remain silent, he trudges past me toward Falkreath, I’m sure to seek comfort from the mouth of whatever man he visits when he’s in town. Unwilling to be caught up in anymore of Veezara’s sh*t today, sh*t I never should have been involved in to begin with, I turn back for the sanctuary.

The halls are vacant when I return. Commotion of the night has settled, and I’m simply dying to remain horizontal in my bed for a while, even if not to sleep. I can hear the familiar rattle of glass bottles when I pass the chamber that’s been assigned to Cicero, a room of his own that he rarely frequents these days. He’s the only one that my presence does not go unnoticed to, and when I’m slipping past, not even in his line of sight, I can hear the bone-chilling whistle he exhales to get my attention, a ‘hey there’ sort of two note whistle. It freezes me, that eerie whistle, and though my gut screams to pretend that I’m deaf as well as mute, he repeats the whistle, slower this time, more pointed, more menacing.

Within the stone room, a short and slightly downhill walk from where I stood in the hall, Cicero is hunched at his table, fighting hard to extract a few drops from his yellowing bottles. He’s able to work out the whisper of a hit, and he dabs it on his closed fist before licking it off, like a child would a sweet, excitedly.

“Have anything else to say?” Cicero sneers, smearing what’s left of the skooma on his gums, just to make the little bit burn longer. “Or just going to stare?” I shrug, and he laughs hollowly. “Of course. The Listener only listens. Stares and listens. Listens and stares.”

He points to the seat across from him, and I lower myself into it slowly, untrusting of his motive and his presence. He takes a long breath, his bloody, busted knuckles from the beating he delivered earlier moving smoothly as he meticulously caps all of his bottles.

“The Binding Words.” he says, looking up at me, only with his eyes, his fingers still dancing in a practiced manner of recorking his bottles. I stare back, waiting for further explanation. “Written in the Keeping Tomes. The signal so I would know.”

I have no f*cking idea what he’s on about, so I remain unmoving.

“Mother’s only way of talking to sweet Cicero .” he whispers, his lips twisting into that sinister grin. And his words are a game. He knows that I’ve figured out his little show that he put on for the rest, his madman illusion that he upkeeps to the imbeciles. This is why he so lazily works to satchel his skooma bottle collection, the whining tink of glass on glass as he drops them haphazardly into that f*cking bag enough to make my skin crawl. And he knows I won’t speak. He knows I won’t say a word. He has as much dirt on me as I have on him.

“If I were before the pretender, I would dance around, frolicky and dainty, and celebrate Mother naming a Listener after so many f*cking years.” He straightens, tipping his head to the side to look at me. “But it’s only me and you , Listener. Me, you, and the f*cking lizard .”

He sighs, as if awaiting me to respond in some way. I only shift slightly, folding my hands in my lap.

“The lizard was sent by the pretender. I know this much.” he says, clucking his tongue as he shakes his head. “I listen the way that you do. Well…perhaps not in all of the ways that you do. But I listen.”

I sincerely wonder how he would know. He must have heard them speaking after the whole Veezara-in-the-coffin debacle, because there’s no way that startle when Veezara made one singular noise from within the iron tomb was disingenuous.

“They both know now that I speak only to the Night Mother.” he lifts an eyebrow. “And the Night Mother speaks only to you.”

What a crock of sh*t. I lift myself to my feet, moving for the door.

“The silence has been broken,” he continues. “Partially, I suppose. No offense.” He snickers to himself, as if he is at all funny. “The Listener has been chosen. Sound the bells and grab your pitchforks, the Dark Brotherhood rises again.” He returns his gaze to his bottles and his satchel, as if something may have changed in the moments he spent without his eyes on them, and maybe now there is a drop or two to spare. “Perhaps when you read up on Tenets and the Old Ways, you should read through to the end and learn your role.”

He’s disturbing me, finally, the way he disturbs others, but for much different reasons. He sees more than he lets on, he hears more than he sees. And he sees me for what I truly am. Nosy, stuck-up. Unbelieving. Suspicious. Untrusting, the way that I am untrusted.

He laughs quietly to himself, shaking his head in tickled humor. “Relay her contract, when she gives it. Listen when she speaks.” Cicero looks up at me again, that vacant stare returning. “Do not invoke the wrath of Sithis, or anyone else , for that matter.”

With the blatant spelling of a threat, listen or pay, I retreat from his chamber, resuming my silent sulk in the hall beyond.

Chapter 2: The Silence Has Been Broken

Chapter Text

It would seem that this Listener business is not the load of sh*t that I originally thought it was.

Aside from listening to everything the f*cking clown has jabbered on about, my own research has shown me that I’m not actually losing it. I hate to give it to him, but Cicero called me on my bullsh*t down to the fine print, and when I initially read up on the history of the Dark Brotherhood, I gave up when I deemed it foolish and unlikely to be true.

But once I got to the portion about the Listener’s role in the ranks of the Dark Brotherhood, a lot of things begin to make sense. What I once thought were auditory hallucinations have become the whispering words of a f*cking corpse, and I feel like that actually makes me crazier than I originally thought. I feel like that means I’m the maddest of cows that dwells within these stone walls.

But I’m ashamed to admit I’m afraid of the clown. His presence elicits chills into the very core of me, and I have not been able to avoid his vacant, hollow stare.

I catch it now that I’m aware of it. I’m fearful to know just how long he has watched me before I breathed the words the Night Mother gave to him through me. Those five words, the first I’ve uttered in years , are the only reason he’s given me his trust, like I’m the vessel his mother works through and he’d lay in front of a blade at my command. And I guess that is the truth. The books say that his role is to protect the withering body with his dying breath, which seems a little bit like he got the worst job there is here.

And f*ck, his eyes on me make my skin crawl. I know that he’s waiting impatiently for the Night Mother to say something else, anything else that will prove to him that this business with the Binding Words was not a fluke and she does indeed have an intended purpose for selecting me to be her voice, an unspeaking, untrusting servant to the one that Cicero has deemed a pretender.

I seriously doubt Astrid will be warm to the idea of me relaying the words of the Night Mother, even when I figure out a way to relay them that preserves my silence. Astrid’s been a bitch the last few days, more so than usual. It would seem that when she’s upset with someone, that someone gets the brunt of her wrath and the rest is spread out amongst her disciples. For the last few days, she’s been short, holed up in her chambers with her lap dog and verbally vicious when she passes through the halls in pursuit of sustenance.

Veezara is the one getting the brunt. I know more than anyone that him getting caught in the coffin that she locked him in has upset Astrid in a way that no one but Veezara seems to understand. The wounds Cicero left on him have healed slowly, painfully, and the wounds that Arnbjorn left on him are all but freshly inflicted. Gossipy Veezara has been rather silent the last few days, silent enough to genuinely compete with me. I’m pretty confident that everyone else in the sanctuary can tell that he’s the one that pushed Astrid past her limit, so regardless of his own quiet, he’s been met with a punishing silence from the others for making their lives hell.

That has made him gravitate toward me. Though he hasn’t spoken a word of the fact that Cicero likely would have killed him in the Night Mother’s chambers if I hadn’t broken nearly eight years of straight silence to save him, he has found himself wherever I am, typically. When I spend hours sitting at the stone table in the kitchen area, he’s at the other end of the table. When I retire to my bed to rest during the day, when others wander out of the sanctuary on contract, he’s asleep a few beds down from me. When I wander out for fresh air, his loud and heavy footsteps are not far behind.

He’s a f*cking moron if he thinks I don’t notice. Only a half wit would be deaf to the stomp of his large feet and the brush of leaves when his slender shoulders graze against them. My patience with his following after me like an ugly duckling for days has run out, and so when I hear the faint snap of twig over my left shoulder outside of the sanctuary, I turn toward him slowly. Though he is shadowed in night, and I can’t make out his silhouette, I know that he’s in there and watching me, so I drop my head to the side in exasperation and beckon the idea of him forward with my gloved hand.

He emerges, sort of sheepishly carrying himself toward me in the brighter portion of this dimly lit expanse of grass. When he’s before me, he towers over me. Veezara is possibly close to the size of two of me standing on top of each other, and my head has to tip back painfully far to meet his pleading gaze.

“Just tell me.” he begs, shaking his head. “Tell me why you stopped him. Tell me why you were in there in the first place. Anything, tell me f*cking anything that will make any of this make sense.”

For a long few moments, we just stare at each other. I am not a speaking woman, so I don’t know what he expects me to say. He gets that after a moment.

“I guess you can’t tell me anything, can you?” he asks, and I shake my head. “I just…guess I don’t understand why you thought I was worth saving. Or how you knew I would need to be saved. I don’t understand. It’s driving me up the f*cking walls.”

Even if I was willing to part my lips, I wouldn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t speak to save him. I had already decided to leave him to fight for his own life, a battle he was visibly losing, to protect myself. I don’t have the gall to share with him that selfishly, I didn’t care if he lived or died by Cicero’s hand. I went to watch a horror show unfold, and that’s what I got. I took my exit when it turned into more than I signed on for.

Veezara just stares at me, then sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Guess I won’t ever get an answer for any of that, huh?” he asks, and I shake my head slowly, as if to maintain the image of apologetics, as if I feel sorry because I am silent, even though I don’t. He sighs. “Well, thank you, for what it’s worth. You saved my ass. I owe you.”

He does, and he’s made good on owing me. He hasn’t spoken a word to Astrid, to my knowledge, and my curiosity about that gets the better of me. I want to ask him why he didn’t sell me out to the one he answers to, the one he loyally follows. In an attempt to bridge some line of communication between a gossip and a mute, I reach out to squeeze his forearm, a signal for him to pay attention to what I’m about to try to relay to him.

I nod toward the sanctuary entrance, and his browline furrows. “The sanctuary?” I shake my head, and his eyes narrow. “Astrid?” I nod, then point to myself. It takes him a moment, but he catches on. “No, I haven’t said anything. I’m not going to.” I twirl my finger in a circle, a signal for him to expand on that. “Oh, why? I guess…because I think that things would be worse for me if she knew that I not only failed her f*cking brutally disrespectful task for me, but I also couldn’t handle my own against Cicero. I think she’d make things worse than she already has.”

Finally, I get it. Veezara is more fearful of Astrid than the others, not more faithful. He’s afraid to be her punching bag, likely because he has been before, much as he is now. I nod, releasing his forearm. He isn’t my ally because he owes me, he’s my ally because he has no other choice but to be. This notion brings me just the smallest bit of comfort.

I leave him outside in the dark and retreat to my bed. I don’t intend to sleep, but I do intend to rest. Rest never finds me. After a silent hour, the voice returns to my temple and summons me to stand before her.

I know I’m not alone when I approach the room she’s been placed in, before I even walk past the doorway. I can hear his low humming, some tune I can’t make out with a sinister inflection, and it chills me. My bones are ice cold and stiff to move when I force my hand to reach for the door, as slowly as I can.

I don’t know why I bother. He already knows I’m here before I put my fingers on the handle. “Come in, Listener.” he calls, his voice soft and sweet, like an innocent lamb. “No need to be so formal.”

Taking a breath, I push the door open, and Cicero sets aside his book and quill to watch intently. For a long moment, we both just stare at each other, but he stands. I can see his hands tremble when he extends an arm to gesture toward the coffin, at almost the exact moment that the whisper beckons to me again.

I didn’t realize I would have an audience. I don’t know why that renders me insecure and hesitant. I hope that Cicero cannot sense the fear that his presence instills in me. If he can smell it in me, he does a stupendous job of covering it up. He just stands behind me, reeking of skooma and sweat.

The iron doors open with a headache-inducing creak. Perhaps the clown should take one day off from oiling the corpse to oil the hinges on her goddamn coffin. If I wanted any voice at all, I’d tell him that. But I don’t, so I stand silently, staring down at the ground and waiting to hear whatever the f*ck was so important that she tugged me out of bed to tell me.

Cicero doesn’t let my eyes remain on the stone beneath my feet. His arm coils around my torso to hold me tightly against him in the spot we are now sharing, a gloved hand below my chin to tip my head back, using the bit of force he needs to make me look at her, make me soak in all of her physique.

She’s horrendous. She’s truly a spectacle in stomach-turning art. A distinct weaving of bones and tendons tightly sealed beneath paper thin skin, her knuckles prominent and her bony shoulder protruding harshly. Her head dangles to the side, being literally a dead body rendering her unable to keep her neck erect or her skull upright. And her face is the worst of all, noseless, eyeless, but for some f*cking reason with most of her teeth, completely visible from the hang of her loose jaw bone.

The Night Mother is unsettling, to put things politely. I understand why Veezara was reluctant to crawl into the coffin. I wouldn’t want to be press myself up against what’s left of her either. Internally, I commend him for remaining still as long as he did.

She speaks. Her voice is brittle to my ears, painful. She relays the information that she needs me to hear, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of f*cking sense to me, but I listen. It’s not as if I could do much else, even if I desired to. Cicero holds me in place, and I’m frozen beneath the pressure of his palms and his fingertips.

His grip firm under my chin to continue forcing me to look, his other hand smooths over the top of my cowl, as if to pet me like a f*cking animal. His hand does not stop moving, stroking the top of my head in a f*cking disturbing manner, a way that makes me even more fearful of him than I already am. I want desperately to unlatch myself from his grasp, slam a middle finger in the corpse’s direction and run screaming from this sanctuary, never to return again. But I’m shorter than him, thinner. Weaker. His hands below my chin and atop my head could turn to a neck snapping in an instant if I provoke him, so I will myself to stand still and let him touch me while he whispers eerie words of encouragement in my ear. His words are barely audible over the corpse’s screeching whisper.

Her voice fades into nothing after what feels like years in Cicero’s clutches, and he has no way to know that she's finished with me, that I no longer need to be forced to look. But I don’t speak, and I’m scared to move. Eventually, he decides for himself that she’s probably drawn to a conclusion.

“What did she say?” Cicero’s lips are against my ear, his whisper just as painful as hers. I hate that I taught him this move, to mash his mouth against my ear and force me to listen. His hot breath is on my neck, his voice in my ear. “Tell me what she said.”

I don’t speak, you f*cking fool. I hesitate, not wanting to move too quickly and startle him into breaking my neck, his hand still shaking as it moves just slightly to grip my neck instead of hold my chin. His thumb caresses my windpipe, a painfully distracting motion that makes my skin crawl, and I fight to suppress a shiver. I know that this motion is a threat. Relay her contract. Listen when she speaks, or pay the price he’s deemed suitable, as he spelled out for me before.

At an agonizingly slow pace, I lift my hands to signal surrender, no desire to fight him, then pinch my thumb to my middle knuckle and pantomime scribbling.

He releases me in an instant, and he’s back at his table, tearing sheets of worn paper from his book and dipping his quill for me. His limbs tremble when he extends then for me to take the paper, pleading for me to reveal what the Night Mother has shared with me. I’m so grateful to have been relieved from the terror of his touch that I oblige, stepping in his direction. Holding myself with as much composure as I can muster, I take the quill and scrawl on the wrinkled sheet.

Amaund Motierre. Volunruud.

Unfortunately, relaying a contract does not stop with Cicero, as I’d hoped. I have to stand before Astrid with the information, and that’s a f*cking nightmare.

Her nose is upturned, staring down at the sheet of parchment with my barely legible handwriting and then back at me. “What is this?”

I point down to the word that I’ve written below the name and location.

Contract.

“And how the hell would you have word of a sacrament performed?” she asks, her brows drawn together in a tight and completely readable line. She thinks this is bullsh*t. She thinks I’m nuts. So do I.

I pass her the book I’m holding, open it to the page I’ve tabbed about the Listener’s role and responsibility. It takes her a long time to speak. She reads and rereads the pages, lowers herself to sit at her desk area and reads it all again. Arnbjorn looks between me and her more times than I can name, towering over me where he stands on the side of the table with his wife. He awaits her word. And perhaps everything would be easier if he just wailed on me, the way he wailed on Veezara. Surely, as large as he is, he’d snap me like a f*cking twig.

“Let’s get this straight together, yes?” She looks up at me with only her eyes, awaiting some kind of response. I nod. “The Night Mother, who, according to everything we know only speaks to the Listener…spoke to you , a mute initiate.”

I nod. She lifts her head to look at me more fully, angular nose no longer upturned. “Color me perplexed. And who else have you told?”

It’s technically not untrue that I haven’t told anyone. Cicero read the words I wrote, but I didn’t tell him, truly. I raise my hand to tap my fingertips to my lips.

“Ah. Right.” Astrid mumbles, looking back at the scribble I’ve presented her with. “No tongue. I suppose that’s fair. Volunruud, I’ve heard of. I know where it is.” She sighs. “I won’t be uncandid with you, New Blood, since you lack the ability to repeat what I say anyway.” She looks back at me, setting the book and paper on the desk between us. She folds her hands over her flat stomach, crosses her legs lazily. “I don’t trust you. I haven’t been given a reason to. The Night Mother may have spoken to you, but I am still the leader of this family. I will not have my authority so easily dismissed, and that’s what will happen if word lets out about this.”

She waits for a response again. I nod again. She continues. “I’m not sure what to believe.” she says, tipping her head from side to side incredulously. “But if The Night Mother did in fact speak, I would be a fool to ignore her.” She looks up at her husband, who still waits with bated breath for an order. A loyal puppy with a loving master. How tempestuous.

“Fetch Veezara.” she commands, and instantly, Arnbjorn moves from the room to fetch him. When they return, I don’t have to look to know he’s terrified of what’s about to happen. He’s assumed I’ve sold him out for needing help when Cicero got his hands on him, and he silently awaits Astrid’s wrath, his eyes boring into my back. Astrid gestures for him to stand beside me. “Veezara, you are who I trust most in this sanctuary. I am going to trust that you will not breathe a word of what is about to be shared with you.”

Hesitantly, confused, he nods. “Alright. You have my word.”

Astrid looks at me, then back at him. “The Night Mother has relayed a contract to our newest member, and I do not trust her to travel to the site alone, nor do I assume she will be able to communicate with the contract herself.”

It does take Veezara a moment, but he catches up eventually. He catches up on a lot I was not going to share with him. Astrid made that decision on my behalf, it would seem. “The Night Mother. Like in the books?”

“Yes.” Astrid sighs, stoic in her seat. “I find that it is not as instantaneously believable as the tomes would hope it to be.”

“Sure, yeah.” Veezara says, nodding along with her. “So…what do you need me to do?”

“You’re going to be my eyes and my ears.” She looks at me for a moment. “And her tongue. Speak to Motierre and figure out the legitimacy of this situation.”

Veezara just nods, and so do I. Matched in silence, for once.

It’s a quick ration pack before we head out, shadowed by night for the beginning several hours of our journey. The map that Astrid marked out for us lays out about a day and a half of travel both ways, there and back. We’re on foot, which I don’t necessarily mind. Veezara doesn’t seem to either until sunlight has illuminated the fields around us and the sun is beating down from above. He requests a stop for rest and refuel, which I could refuse, or simply carry on without him, but draped and wrapped and strapped in shrouded armor and cowl, I’m f*cking sweating.

So, I oblige. I sit with him when he drops to rest under the cover of trees, about a thousand yards off of the beaten path for travel. He pulls out the canteen of water he’s brought for himself and pulls out some bread and cheese, making quick work of using his dull blade to craft a sandwich of sorts. And I’m pretty sure that’s the same dagger he slits throats with. Sort of nasty.

I don’t budge. I don’t have interest in doing anything but watching him intently, waiting for him to be ready to move again. It’s clear he’s uncomfortable with my stare, so I occupy my line of sight somewhere else, on the stream nearby, on the rustle of leaves above us. This doesn’t satiate him.

“Just f*cking drink something.” Veezara whines, shaking his head. “And eat, for the love of Sithis. You’re driving me nuts.”

I stare blankly, an eyebrow raised. I don’t intend on eating. No need for him to see the rest of my face.

He groans like he’s being tortured. “Look, New Blood. I get that you have some kind of f*cking mute, vow-of-silence speaking issues, even though I know you can speak, but I don’t care how mangled your face is. It won’t disturb me, if that’s what you’re worried about. So, just eat something before I have to force feed you.”

I look away from him and out at the fields, seeking some sort of distraction. To my great distaste, my stomach rumbles loudly in protest of my decision not to nourish myself. Dammit. Veezara stares smugly, fighting a smile. I reluctantly outstretch my palm and take the bread he’s offered. I turn it over in my palms, half a loaf of soft, yeasty bread. I’m starving. And I guess out of everyone, I guess it’s a good thing that it’s just Veezara that will see me. He already has enough dirt on me, and I have enough on him. What’s a little more to the pile?

Slowly, I pull the cloth that covers the lower half of my face down, letting it hang around my neck loosely. I can feel Veezara’s stare, and I glance up at him challengingly. He raises his hands in defense and goes back to eating. I rip a piece of the soft bread off and pop it into my mouth, chewing slowly.

“So clearly,” Veezara says, staring at me in shock. “The rumors are just rumors. You do have your tongue.”

I don’t respond, instead just staring back at him with my brows pulled together. I put another piece of the bread in my mouth, and he juts his neck out to watch when my mouth opens.

“Nothing at all?” Veezara mumbles, staring like I’m an anomaly.

I sigh, sticking my tongue out to show my half chewed food to him. His confusion only deepens, though he smiles a little. He has a truly decent smile.

He sets his half of the loaf down, like he can’t even fathom the idea of eating with this new information about me available. “Why the f*ck are you letting everyone think that you had your tongue cut out?” he asks, a genuinely curious tone to his words.

I shrug, and there’s really no other answer I can offer without words to explain.

Veezara blinks at me. “So what is it then? What’s the truth?” I raise my eyebrows. You know I won’t answer, why even ask? He seems to understand the look and gets more specific. “Is it your…vocal chords?”

I shake my head, smiling to myself. This should make for a funny little game.

“I don’t f*cking know, is it like a…breathing thing? Can you only breathe through your damn nose?” he laughs, and I shake my head again. “Then what is it? Surely you haven’t just f*cking chosen to be silent.”

I stare, an eyebrow raised in answer.

“So you just… choose not to speak?” he asks in disbelief. “You can speak, you just f*cking don’t?”

I nod slowly, my eyebrows raised. Veezara is the only person that knows this strange truth about me. I intend to keep it that way. I raise my hand and press my fingers to my lips, smiling gently. It’s a question, and I hope he understands it.

He does, and he nods slowly. “No, I won’t tell anyone. It’s just… why ? You could speak and set all of the rumors about…I mean, you could set Astrid straight and let her trust you. Why don’t you just say something to her?”

Because I don’t trust her either. There’s a reason I found the Dark Brotherhood, and I’ve figured out what it is. She can choose to believe me or not. There’s no explaining that without speaking, so I just shrug and shake my head.

“How long has it been?” Veezara continues around me, picking his dinner back up and carrying on with eating it. “You know, before the whole…Cicero thing.”

I sigh, setting my bread down and holding my hands up side by side, only to stretch them as far away from each other as possible.

Veezara gets it. “A long time. So, a year?” I twirl my finger in a circle to signal him to keep trying. “Like, two years?” I twirl again. “Five? Six?” I lift my hand and tip it from side to side to tell him that’s close enough, then pinch my fingers together slightly to share that I only spoke a little. He whistles. “Only a little. When was the last time you spoke, like…a lot?” I do the same hand stretch, letting it grow further than the five or six years that I’ve allowed him to guess. “How old are you?” he asks, and I hold up the number two, then the number five. “So truly, you haven’t spoken since you were a f*cking child ?”

I nod slowly, and I let him do with that information what he will. There’s no point in explaining the truth. No one will care anyway.

“So…you haven’t heard your own voice say more than a few f*cking words at a time since you were a child ?” I shake my head. There have been times that I’ve spoken. Just not to anyone but myself. “You’re a f*cking freak.” he says with a laugh, shaking his head. “How did you even get into the sanctuary? You have to speak to open the door, the code words. How did you get in?”

I point to myself and shake my head to tell him that I didn’t have to, then I raise my hand and tap my temple twice.

That one stumps him for a moment, but he gets it eventually. “The Night Mother let you in.” he draws, and I nod. “This is so f*cking bizarre. Why are you only talking to me? I mean, if this can even be considered talking?”

I smile softly to myself, letting a small and breathy laugh escape me. I point to him and shrug, then gesture outward to no one with an open palm and shrug.

“No one else has tried.” he says softly, shaking his head. “Well, that’s sh*tty.”

I shrug. I’m used to it. I wouldn’t talk to me either, if given an opportunity where the roles were reversed. I wouldn’t trust me either.

“So, now that I know you can talk, why don’t you talk to me ?” he asks around a mouthful. He places his hand on his chest, as if offended. “I’m very interesting. I’m a spectacular conversationalist.” I raise my eyebrows and nod, pressing my thumb below my four fingers to open and close them a few quick times, explaining that I’m well aware that he has the ability to run his mouth. He laughs. “f*cking rude . I am not yappy.”

I nod again, smiling to myself when he laughs at our disagreeing on this.

“You know,” he says, chewing a large bite, far too large for his mouth. “You’re sort of pretty. In a hillbilly bumpkin kind of way, I guess.” I pause my chewing to stare, not expecting the insult. He raises his hands. “My bad. In my defense, I’m not interested in women, so…” He lowers his hands, as if his sexuality explains away an insult. I continue to stare, and he sighs. “I only meant because of your teeth. They’re pretty f*cking gnarly. Keep your trap shut and you’re golden. And you’ve sure figured that part out, so there you f*cking go.”

I offer him a middle finger, taking another bite of bread and chewing as he laughs. “My bad, sweetheart. No offense.”

I cannot stand that f*cking name. I snap a few times to regain his attention, and when I’ve earned it, I shake my head. He gets it. “Alright, okay. Not sweetheart. Ruthless killer, hearer of voices, stubborn mute girl. Not sweetheart. Got it.”

I give him a thumbs up, returning to my meal. He’s not quite finished. “So…this Listener business makes a lot of sh*t make sense. You said some sh*t to Cicero that the Night Mother told you to say, didn’t you?”

Bingo. I nod. He does, too.

“That makes a lot more sense than anything I thought of.” This interests me, so I lift an eyebrow and wait for him to go on. “Well, I was just trying to find a reason that made sense. Nothing quite fit the mold. This does. Still can’t figure out how the f*ck you knew I was in the coffin, though.”

I point to him and do the yappy motion again, and I smile when he laughs.

“I bet you could write a book of sh*t you’ve overheard.” he says, and I nod. “I’d pay to hear some of that. In fact, I’m dying to hear some of that.”

I don’t have the heart to tell him that a lot of what I’ve heard has been from his own lips, talking sh*t about everyone, including me. Especially me.

“I’m f*cking begging .” Veezara whines, staring at me deeply. “I'm willing to negotiate an exchange.”

This piques my curiosity, and I lift an eyebrow to urge him to continue.

He smiles, understanding the expression. “I’m willing to offer one deep dark secret in exchange for five words.”

I wave that off. I’m uninterested in deep dark secrets. I have plenty of those for myself. I don’t need to carry anyone else’s.

Veezara groans, drumming his hands on the tops of his legs as he fights to create a different solution. “What if the deep dark secret was something you would find interesting?” I twirl my finger slowly in a ‘keep going’ sort of motion. He grins. “As in, you know the people involved and can judge me as harshly as you like.”

I raise both of my brows and grin. This certainly does interest me. And I am desperate to know Veezara better. Desperate enough to break my own rules and gift him five words. I extend my hand to shake, a silent agreement that I will hold up my end of the bargain.

Veezara laughs wickedly and shakes my hand. When we disconnect, he takes a deep breath. “sh*t, I’m not sure I should have agreed to this.” He laughs softly to himself, tapping his thumb against his knee repeatedly in some sort of nervous tick. “There’s a…method I use to get most of the better, higher paying contracts.”

I nod dramatically when he pauses, silently urging him to spit the secret out. He grins in embarrassment. “All I have to do is keep Nazir happy. And what they say about…curved swords? It’s not true. At all.”

I let my eyes widen. He’s sleeping with Nazir for contracts. Filthy and intelligent.

He raises his hands in defense, as if he can hear my thoughts. “It was supposed to be a one time thing when I was desperate for contracts. There weren’t a lot of them to go around. But, it has turned into a regular thing and hasn’t stopped.” He shrugs. “And I don’t necessarily mind it. I enjoy myself too.”

I shake my head at his smug grin, like he’s pleased with himself for prostitution. I can’t stop a laugh, and it’s more like a few breaths than a true laugh, but it’s still enough to keep his attention.

“Fair is fair.” he reminds me, folding his arms over his chest. He leans toward me. “Five words, please.”

I laugh again, shaking my head. I clear my throat. “You’re sort of a whor*.”

He blinks, as if he needs extra time to process the sound of my voice before he can even begin to work on understanding what I’ve said. It takes a few moments, but finally, he lets loose a guffaw of laughter, gripping his side and throwing his head back. I laugh along with him, not worrying about the fact that it is not silent. I suppose that’s alright. Just with Veezara.

He wipes his eyes as his laughing fades, sighing to himself. “You’re funny, New Blood. You’re f*cking funny.” Veezara shakes his head. “Funny as it was, I wish that you had said, you know…your name or something.”

I sigh and shrug, wiping crumbs off of my lap and putting my cowl back into place to cover the lower half of my face. I never want to hear my name again. I’d never share it with anyone, lest I be forced to relive it uttered in my darkest memories.

He’s wrapping his meal up too, shoveling the last of his little sandwich into his mouth. “Alright, let’s get a move on, you f*cking freak.”

Chapter 3: Bound Until Death

Chapter Text

The truth is a tricky thing to come to terms with when you’re relentlessly untrusting, and as I stare up at the corpse, I don’t know how I’m supposed to trust her.

She’s barely anything anymore, whispering flesh pulled taught over bone, and I’m supposed to just…undyingly offer my reverence and exert her will. She’s a corpse, for f*ck’s sake, and I’m half convinced that I’m a loon with an amazing sense of prediction.

But that’s impractical, and I know it. It wasn’t prediction that put a phrase from sacred text in my head, or that put a name and location deep in my skull to reiterate to the masses. And Amaund Motierre is a real person. A real, living, breathing person, who wants to pay an astronomical f*ck ton of gold for us to kill a few people. Him standing deep below the soil of ground and waiting patiently for me to arrive and stand behind Veezara’s slinky arm was not a superb prediction. This sh*t is, unfortunately, very real.

I grit my teeth and look at her. If she can hear my thoughts the way that I hear hers, she knows that I think she’s disgusting. And she knows that I do not want anything to do with this, with any of it.

But there is no out. This is it, for me. I will stay in Veezara’s tow and assist in him carrying out the contracts, untrusted to do anything myself. All I have for myself is a moment alone with the corpse that I f*cking hate. How perfectly splendid.

Cicero’s hauntingly low whistle trails down the hall, growing louder, not fainter, so I know he’s about to make himself at home in my moment of quiet. Expectedly, his soundless footsteps carry him into the room, a wicked grin already plastered to his bony face.

He’s short for a man, and unnaturally slender from drug use. His hair is grown out, falling in long, stringy pieces over his shoulders, below his jester’s cap. Clowns didn’t scare me until I met him, until I met his black, hollow, soulless eyes with mine and saw that he’s unfeeling. I genuinely think he can turn his emotions on and off at will. He can choose what he wants to feel when he wants to feel it, and right now, I can tell that he feels chatty, social, the mark of his stash refilled for the time being and his screaming mind complacent.

I don’t move from my spot. I stay resting on the floor before the coffin, only my neck pivoting my head to face him as he shuts the door behind him, securing me in this room, alone with him. And the corpse, but I doubt she’ll do much to defend me if Cicero decides to harm me today.

But he doesn’t seem to be in a poor mood, the kind of mood where he wants to intimidate me. His skooma has rendered him chipper, carefree, and he’s humming when he drops down to sit behind me. He scooches close and wraps his arms around my stomach, pulling me against him so that he can rest his chin on my shoulder and stare up at his mother alongside me. My arms are pressed tightly beneath his, making me almost entirely unable to move from his clutches.

Cicero has personal space issues. It doesn’t feel malicious this time, but it is uncomfortable. He hums quietly to himself, and I can feel the vibration of the sound from his neck against my shoulder. I feel like a child’s toy in his grasp, a doll that has the ability to do the one thing that he can’t, speak to a dead woman. If only I spoke. If only I communicated.

“I hear you’re going to a wedding.” he whispers, his hot breath on my neck making my stomach turn, repulsed by the stench of skooma on his tongue. He hugs me tighter, rocking us both gently. “I think weddings are a f*cking sham. The sanctity of marriage is a hoax. Love is for the weak and undesirable.”

Quickly, before I can even react, he’s snatched my cowl down and grips my cheeks tightly, making me move my mouth like I’m talking. “I agree, Cicero. You know exactly what you’re talking about.” He mimics a higher pitched girl’s voice, releasing my face when he’s done speaking for me. He goes back to his own voice. “I know I am, yes. Thank you, sweet Listener.” He takes a moment to really stare at my face, then laughs a quiet, sinister laugh. “Your teeth are awful. I see why you keep this on.” He laughs at the insult, as if my teeth justify my silence and my withdrawn demeanor.

He goes back to holding me, his cheek squished into my shoulder so that he can stare up at me, longingly, like he wants to crack my skull open and poke around at the mush within, as if he may find his mother in there. He sighs, nuzzling further into me, as if he needs to be comforted like a child. “It’s been years since Mother has relayed a contract. I’m so happy she’s finally spoken.” His fingertips graze my arm, a naggingly gentle caress. “Although, I talk to Mother at length, and she knows I can’t stand the silence. I can’t help but feel that choosing a mute Listener is a jab at me. I don’t get to hear her words, even through the mouth of another, no matter how f*cking badly I want them.”

He reeks of skooma. It’s secreting from his pores and oozing onto me, and instinctively, I pull away. It’s barely a movement, but his grip on me tightens. I can feel it now, that sinister force that emanates from him, like I shouldn’t dare move unless I long for pain.

“What has she been saying today?” he asks, his voice just a whisper. His hot breath is on my neck, his voice in my ear. “Tell me what she’s said.”

I swear, for as much as he’s said himself that I don’t speak, he continues to ask baffling redundant questions. I don’t f*cking speak. How can I answer that question, even if she hasn’t spoken at all today? Slowly, I shake my head, and I hope he understands that I mean to explain to him that his mother has been just as silent as me.

Cicero falters, completely unmoving, even unbreathing for a moment. Then he forces a laugh. “No, no. Surely, she’s said something else. Tell me what it is.”

There is nothing to tell, even if I could tell him. Again, I shake my head.

He shifts, untucking an arm from its wrap around me and taking my face into his hand. His grip on my cheeks is like f*cking steel. It’s bruising, painful, and his face is so close that his lips brush mine when he speaks.

“What did I say to you, worm?” he asks, smiling above the sharp and slicing tone he’s using, like I’m a goddamn imbecile for failing to follow instruction. “Listen when she speaks. Do not invoke the wrath of Sithis, or anyone else . Did you understand what I meant by that, or are you daft, as well as mute?”

There’s nothing I can say to answer, no movement I can make to set him straight. And even if there were, I’m too afraid to budge.

Cicero laughs quietly and shakes his head, loosening his grip to graze my cheek with his knuckles, endearingly, affectionately. “I’ll assume that you’re silly and dumb, and don’t understand.” He smiles warmly and takes a breath. “Don’t f*cking lie to me. I did not endure the bullsh*t that I did to find a Listener just to have her spit in my f*cking face. From this moment forward, we’re going to be perfectly honest with each other, alright?”

Petrified, unable to do much else, I nod.

“Good. Very good.” he says, still holding that unsettling smile firm. He releases my face, finally, and goes back to holding me like I’m his toy, his head leaning against mine. “I’ll go first. If you lie to me, I’m going to f*cking hurt you. Nod if you understand that.”

I nod, as he’s commanded. He smiles wider.

“Thank you.” he says, genuinely, and he gives me a quick squeeze, like a rewarding hug. “Now, what has Mother said today?”

I slowly, so that he knows my intention is not to escape him, unravel my arms from his hold. I point to myself, and then to my ear, cupping it. Then, I point to the corpse before shaking my head, pressing a finger to my lips. I hope he understands. I have been listening, but the bitch is not speaking.

Thankfully, he concedes, chuckling heartily, like this has been such a fun f*cking game for him. He presses a few quick kisses into my cheek. “Our matron is quiet sometimes. I’m sure she’ll speak when she’s ready.” He sighs happily, as if he didn’t just threaten me with great harm if I don’t convey the corpse’s every word to him. “It’s so nice to have friends again. And you, my Listener, are my closest accomplice. I would do anything you asked. I would neatly fold and put away anyone that stood against you and Mother.” He nestles his face into my neck again, which is covered by my armor and shielded from his saliva. But not much else. His hot breath is on my neck, his voice in my ear. “Just don’t betray my trust, and we’ll be thick as thieves. Understand, sweetheart?”

I cannot f*cking stand that name. Still, I nod, and he squishes me in another tight hug. “Good. Oh, I’m so glad.” Finally, with one last peck on the cheek, he releases me, standing from behind me and heading for the door. He sighs when his hand is on the knob. “You should see about getting your teeth fixed, Listener. You’ll have plenty of gold soon. I hear in Riften, there’s a wizard or a temptress, or a harlot or a whor*, or whatever , that can fix your face. Might be worth the investment.”

He leaves me with that and resumes his tasteless whistling, and I listen as it grows softer with distance between him and here.

I scrub at my cheek where his lips were pressed, now that it feels safe to move. I swipe at my lips, as if he left a residue behind. I replace my cowl where it belongs, shielding my face from an unpleasant world that stinks of piss and tastes like the vile f*cking drugs that psychotic clown gulps like water. He’s monstrous, he’s wicked, he’s frightening. He’s far too touchy and far too involved in the voices in my goddamn head, and I wish he would get a f*cking hobby and leave me alone.

But sickeningly, I trust him. I trust him perhaps more than I trust Veezara, because as an extension of the Night Mother’s voice, Cicero will lay out anyone that f*cks with me, and I’m so certain that he’s hoping to be able to. It’s a repulsive feeling, to be so afraid of someone and still so certain he’ll protect me. I feel confused, and scared, like a child.

Chapter 4: Breaching Security

Chapter Text

There is a lot of goddamn work that goes into assassinating the Emperor. Amaund Motierre knew what he was doing when he formulated this plan to instill fear into the Emperor, and he is truly making us work for the f*cking coin that he offered.

Not that I’m doing much of the work, of course. I am still untrusted, unwanted, but as the only one that can hear the dead hag speaking, I am essential. If Astrid had it her way, I would be in a coffin of my own, not out and galivanting with her lackey on another contract.

Veezara wasn’t so showboaty this time. Killing Gaius Maro was intentionally sneaky, as planned by Astrid. With confirmation of the Emperor’s arrival in Skyrim, the Penitus Oculatus has arrived to guard him. And man, those guys are f*cking dicks. Snobby, arrogant, uppity, as if licking the boots of the Emperor makes them such prizes.

I’ll give it to Astrid, the research she put into tracking down the Commander’s son was useful, because even the steps she thought he would take were correct, and Veezara was able to snatch him traveling solo through Dragon Bridge. Like a fool, to travel alone through Skyrim when it is known that the Dark Brotherhood killed the Emperor’s cousin. What reason have we to f*ck with Vittoria Vici if not to pick off people the Emperorneeds one by one.

And that is the whispering amongst the barracks of soldiers we encountered. There is significant rumor of a possible attempt on the Emperor’s life. And this is exactly what Motierre wanted, for the Emperor himself to be shaking in his elegantly polished boots before a blade is even brought to his throat.

Tonight, though, the blade was against the Commander’s son’s neck, and Veezara drew a sharp slice that did not summon any blood. Working clean, the way that he likes, no trace of our presence other than the body that houses a particularly incriminating note, crafted by Astrid herself. Intolerable as she is, she’s tastefully dramatic. I’ll give that to her.

Veezara and I set up camp outside of Haafingar hold when we become too exhausted to walk anymore tonight. It’s sort of a camp, no fire to draw attention to us and no bedrolls to shield us from the dirt below us. Still, it’s nice to rest, and my aching body is grateful.

What I am not grateful for is the level of detail Veezara goes into explaining the sex he has been having with Cicero. I could have gone my whole life without the vibrant image of their naked bodies molded together with post-coital sweat or the graphic description of the curve of Cicero’s dick. It was not necessary, and now that I will never recover from this traumatic conversation, I lift a hand and wave it near violently to stop him.

Veezara rolls his head to look at me, confused. “What? Need me to go back and start again?”

f*cking no. Please, for the love of all that is moral, no. I shake my head, mocking vomiting. He gets that I’m not desperate for more detail, but instead desperate for him to stop explaining his sexual encounters, and Veezara laughs. “sh*t, okay! My bad.” He rolls his eyes, turning back to face the night sky again. “I’m just saying. It was f*cking hot.”

Cicero has been more tolerable the last few weeks. I’d hate to break it to him, but if he truly believes that love is for the weak and undesirable, he is going to have to eat his f*cking words. He’s either playing a really f*cked up game with Veezara’s emotions, or he’s so full of sh*t, it’s not even close to funny.

I’m confident it’s the latter, because Cicero has been less intimidating, for lack of a better way to describe the interactions I’ve had with him. He’s a little more patient, more reserved, unacting on his impulsive desires to squeeze me and much less intent on instilling fear in me.

And I probably have Veezara to thank for that. Veezara has made Cicero seem a bit more human, and I guess they talk about things a bit more deeply than I understood before tonight. Veezara and I don’t get much chance to talk at home, since I am trying to maintain the illusion that I am a tongueless wonder who has no interest in social interaction, and he is trying to maintain the illusion that he is so allegiant to Astrid that my company is wildly inconvenient to him. We don’t want anyone to know that we’re closer than we pretend not to be.

Truthfully, I care a lot for Veezara. I think that he’s clever and funny, and I think that his unwavering desire to be loved is admirable in the realm of the Dark Brotherhood, where death and solitude are the preferred cultures. I believe that he is truly the most dynamic person I have ever met in my life, and I get excited for our time spent together on contract, pretending to hate each other until we are far enough away from Falkreath that no one can hear our one-sided chatter and near constant laughter.

It’s nice to have a friend. As much as it pains me to admit, I suppose I didn’t realize how alone I truly was until Veezara made it his mission to draw silent words from my unspeaking lips. It’s been nice to have someone in my life that does truly care about me and wants to know what I think. This is the first time in my life I’ve had someone desperate to hear me speak, instead of desperate to make me silent.

And Veezara is genuinely happy. He’s discreet, waiting until Astrid and her puppy have gone to sleep or otherwise preoccupied themselves for the evening before he slips into Cicero’s room. They've created a funny sort of routine around their private relationship, and it seems that I am the only person that notices the way Cicero’s eyes linger on Veezara in the halls, the way Veezara smiles to himself when Cicero’s spooky f*cking whistling trails from rooms beyond. Admittedly, as uninterested in any romantic horse sh*t as I am, it is really cute, and I’m glad that my friend is happy. Veezara says that the thing he’s most content with is not having to leave the sanctuary to be held for a little while.

I’d been wondering if that’s why he fled to Falkreath when things were hard in the sanctuary, when he didn’t know that I’d made him my personal snooping project, before we were friends. Before I really knew him, I assumed Veezara was a loose whor* who wandered into Falkreath in pursuit of sex. Now, I think he ran to lay in the arms of anyone who would touch him gently and make him feel like he is more than his work, more than the reason he was hatched, more than Astrid’s servant.

It seems that Cicero has given him that. I’ve eavesdropped a few times on them, nosy as I am, and they speak softly to each other, tender in their communication. Truthfully, I listened in, on the sly, because I found it very hard to believe that the same Cicero that threatened to hurt me if I didn’t make him feel included in the Night Mother’s tea party gossip is the same man that cradles Veezara’s head into his chest and assures him that he is more than his intended purpose. Knowing this truth about him, and being Veezara’s companion, has made Cicero less frightening and my role in the Brotherhood less unbearable.

Veezara sighs. “I’m dying to go home.” He says softly, smiling up at nothing. “This is the first time in ages I’ve been dying to get home.” Enthused by the admission, I waggle my fingers in his face in a teasing sort of way that he understands. He laughs and swats my hand away. “Shut the f*ck up, freak. You’re being an ass.”

I smile to myself, relaxing back against the grass and making myself comfortable to continue to listen. Bitch silently as I may, I do like listening to Veezara talk. I like hearing the way his voice softens when he talks about Cicero.

“I am, though.” he says, granting what I’ve silently requested from him. “Dying to go home. It’s so f*cking dorky, but he’s all I’ve been thinking about. He’s shockingly…I don’t know, gentle?” He props himself up on his elbow beside me, resting his head in his hand and staring down at me. “He does this thing.” Veezara makes a demonstration of tracing my round jawline with the knuckle of his index finger, from where my jaw begins by my ear down to my chin, then uses his thumb to graze my lower lip gingerly. It’s very comforting, this kind of touch, and I understand why he’s sharing it with me. I nod and smile, and he sighs as he flops back onto the grass, folding his arms behind his head. “Yeah, I’m a f*cking sucker for sh*t like that.”

I grin as he speaks, staring up at the night sky with him. I’m so enamored to have been met with the point in my life where I actually crave and enjoy companionship. I’m so genuinely content to lay beside him and listen to him talk.

Veezara reaches for my hand, as if he can hear my thoughts, and he squeezes it gently. “Thank you for listening.” he says. “I mean, I guess that’s sort of all you’re good for, huh?”

I pull my hand from his to smack him a few times in the chest, and he winces away as he cackles with laughter. When I decide he’s been punished enough for being funny, I take his hand again. We lay quietly for a while, just smiling and staring up.

“I’ve never had any family.” he shares, looking over at me. Our eyes meet between us. “I’m a Shadowscale. Born under the sign of the shadow. Basically means I’m a f*cking badass.” He nudges me, snorting a laugh. “I once served as an assassin to the king of Black Marsh, you know. When I was young. Really young. I’m the last of my kind, now.”

He’s silent for a moment, then he takes a long breath. “When I ended up here, with the Brotherhood, I really thought at first I’d have a family. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted, I guess. To be loved and to be part of a family. Sometimes in the sanctuary, I feel lonelier than I ever have.” He looks back upwards. “I sometimes forget why I was hatched. To kill, not to love. I have to be reminded sometimes that’s why I’m still here. To kill.”

I squeeze his hand encouragingly, the only words of comfort I have to offer him.

“Cicero gets that, I think. He understands that, having to serve a purpose and want nothing else.” Veezara explains, turning toward me again. “He’s from Cyrodiil, actually. He saw two sanctuaries fall, and when the riots started in Bravil, like years back, the Listener before you died and the Night Mother’s crypt was desecrated. He said everyone who didn’t die abandoned the sanctuary, but he stayed to protect the Night Mother. He said his duty was to remain with her. He was down there for eight years.”

I watch his face as he speaks, watch the stoic and understanding expression etched into his green features. “I guess that’s why he snapped on me when he did. The coffin thing.” He shakes his head, like he still cannot believe he had to do that. “Imagine giving eight years of your life to complete and utter solitude, begging Astrid to take you in and give you shelter, and then the first people you interact with in eight years climb into the coffin you gave up everything to protect. I’d have lost it, too.”

A lot about Cicero makes more sense now, I suppose. I did not endure the bullsh*t that I did to find a Listener just to have her spit in my f*cking face. It makes sense now. He suffered almost a decade of silence, only to be met with more. It’s pathetically tragic, and empathy overtakes me. Suddenly, I feel terrible for Cicero, and I’m glad for him just the same as I am glad for Veezara, that they have each other.

“It’s just nice to feel…like I can relate to someone.” Veezara continues. “It’s nice to feel like I’m seen, and wanted.” He looks at me deeply, smiling warmly. “And it’s nice to have someone to talk to about all of this. Thank you for listening, and for being my friend.”

I smile along with him, and I’d thank him too, if I could. I’d thank him for being the only person that has ever wanted an unspeaking girl to be heard. I appreciate it more than he will ever be able to know.

There’s a rustle beyond us, the snap of twig. Our finely tuned ears hear it before it is meant to be heard, and we freeze, listening more closely for what it could be. Bandits are no challenge, and neither are thieves or f*cking wild animals. But this seems different, like something is deeply wrong and it’s only a matter of time until we’re seized.

Veezara must feel the same way, because we exchange a look before silently rolling into the brush nearby. We crouch low and await the sound to reveal itself.

Penitus Oculatus. The Emperor's guard. How the f*ck did we screw this up this badly? There are three, moving as quietly and stealthily as they can in their clunky armor. Looking at each other, Veezara and I unsheathe our weapons, and I tug my cowl up over my mouth.

It’s for nothing. Two hands grip under my armpits and drag me backwards from the brush. Swinging back with my blade, I plant the dagger in the thigh of the enforcer with his hands on me. When he releases me, his instincts overtaking him and screeching for him to satiate the wound in his leg. When he falls back, I withdraw my blade from his muscle and crawl over him, plunging my knife deep into his belly, and then his diaphragm, and his neck.

A hand around my neck pulls me off of him, the tight grip on my windpipe creating an audible choking sound from my unspeaking lips. I am slammed harshly against the soil below, with enough force to knock the wind out of me. My arms are pinned above my head when the weight of another man settles on my legs, pinning me defenselessly beneath him and plucking my blade from my hand.

My arms held over my head. Heavy weight on top of me.

I am unable to do anything but watch as Veezara extends his leg to kick the gut of a pursuing Penitus Oculatus enforcer, knocking him back before turning to face another oncoming body. He drags a sharp slit in the throat of his attacker, sloppy blood spurting out onto his shrouded armor when the opponent falls.

There are so f*cking many of them. How the f*ck did we miss this? I wiggle a hand free from the enforcer on top of me, connecting my closed fist with his nose and breaking it with a repulsive snap. He releases me, wobbles, and allows me enough time to snatch his own blade and drive it upwards into him.

I’m up again and moving to help Veezara. There are far more enforcers on him than there are on me, more than a fair fight calls for. With the falling of one’s throat slit, Veezara is battling four sets of swinging blades and arms. As he’s plunging his blade deep into the chest of another, the back of Veezara’s knee buckles with a blow stomped downward onto him, bringing him to the ground just a moment before a boot connects with my jaw. I can’t suppress a moan of agony when I hit the ground, unable to clutch my face the way my body screams for me to. My arms are pinned behind my back and the heavy boot holds my head to the ground.

I have to watch as, even with the low ground, overtaken by three more guards, Veezara swings his arm to punch the stomach of the enforcer before him, his blade lost somehow, then reaches back to snatch the foot of another behind him, knocking him flat. But it isn’t enough. A sword cuts through his armor and slices Veezara’s upper arm deeply, deep enough for an immediate flow of his blood.

I’m flipped onto my back, and the controller of the boot on my head now holds my arms over my head, pinned again. Another enforcer holds my legs, slithering over me and pulling my cowl down to expose my face.

“Easy there, sweetheart.” he deep voice coos, putrid f*cking breath puffing into my face. “Lay still while your friend dies.”

His hot breath on my neck, his voice in my ear.

I can hear Veezara’s yelps of pain and the deafening slosh of his flesh as it splits beneath slashing blades. He’s without a weapon and there are too many for him to fight off with just his fists. It isn’t possible for him to hold on much longer, and my body radiates with fear. Fear that Veezara, my first and only friend, is being stabbed to death beyond me, and there’s nothing that I can do about it.

The enforcer on top of me laughs as his thumb drags my lower lip down. “f*ck, look at the chompers on this bitch.” he says to the one who holds my arms. “f*cking gnarly.”

Veezara is grunting as he’s repeatedly stabbed, flesh opening to end his life. I can hear the sickening swing of arms and the blades connecting with his scaly body, I can hear the noise emanating from him becoming weaker. He’s going to die, and I’m going to have to listen and not help him. I have to get out from under this f*cker.

“What’s the matter, baby girl?” the enforcer says, yellow plaque decorating his hideous smile. “You want to watch us kill him?”

My arms held over my head. His hot breath on my neck.

He turns my head to face the scuffle beyond, where Veezara is somehow back on his feet and fighting weakly, the blade in his hand unfamiliar but successfully bursting into the chest of one of his attackers. Blood runs profusely from his sides and his back, an arm clutching his torso, as if to keep his f*cking guts inside his body for the time being.

The enforcer on top of me tugs me by the cheeks to look at him again. He presses his lips into my jaw, laughing wickedly when it’s audible that Veezara’s finally been overcome and taken to the ground.

His hot breath on my neck.

My time spent in silence and solitude was filled with many different distractions. Strategic distractions to keep the voices out of my head and keep the memories from returning. For nearly a year, I stored myself away in a library study in Winterhold and read tomes. Obsessively, repeatedly, until the skills that I absorbed from reading them so frequently were exceedingly powerful and took a lot of practice to control. Even with that precautionary study for control of my distractions, I read enough tomes enough times for discipline to be ineffective in steering the power I’d acquired. Afraid of it, I have not practiced anything but healing in years.

But Veezara is soundless now beyond me, and I cannot lay still while they kill him, so I channel what force I learned years ago and direct it up from my chest up into my hands, letting telekinesis send the man that holds my arms falling back into the dirt above me. My hands free, I lift one to beckon the blade from the hip of the enforcer on top of me, and it quickly meets my palm. Before he has a moment to really process my freedom from his partner’s grasp, he lifts off of me enough for me to slit his throat, and his blood leaks out onto my armor.

I use the same telekinetic force to throw him off of me, and I’m on my feet sprinting to Veezara’s gaggle of f*cking bastards. He’s trapped beneath their hands, just two of them now, one holding his body steady and the other stabbing still.

I lift a hand and send the one that holds him flying back, standing behind the enforcer that repeatedly wounds him and driving my stolen blade into the top of his skull. Veezara stares at me, panting shallowly in pain and exhaustion on the ground below me as he bleeds, continuously bleeds.

I’ve neglected to pay attention to the man who had my arms pinned, my focus too intent on saving Veezara, and he’s returned. His sword rips a wide gash into my side, wide enough to bring me down with the blinding screech of cut flesh. And god, it f*cking hurts. The feeling of my flapping, open flesh touching and untouching, touching and untouching, is f*cking agony. With another swipe, he creates another deep cut in my upper arm, against my shoulder.

But I cannot linger on either for long. In the dirt beside Veezara, who is too weak to lift himself up to help when he tries, the enforcer is on top of me, driving his fist into my face repeatedly. The deafening thud of the bones in my face being slammed against is louder than anything I have ever heard. It’s loud enough for me to not even care that I’m getting my ass beat, I just want the sound to stop.

I lift a hand, the telekinetic force freezing his fist mid punch. He stares down at me in confusion when he cannot move his arms, but I can hear the footsteps of the other remaining Penitus Oculatus f*cker dashing toward us, and I know Veezara is in danger of a final blow being delivered. To give him enough strength to bear it and survive it, I let my other hand extend toward him, a soft, yellow glow emanating from my fingertips and stretching to him. He gasps in discomfort when some of his stabbed skin pulls back together, something broken within him snapping back into place.

I lose control of the telekinesis and the frozen fist connects with my face again. Blinding pain. Searing pain. Shattering pain. I take one more punch before I lift my hand again, willing the strength left in me to send that same force outward, to wherever it will go, and it sends the enforcer off of me. It also sends the bastard approaching Veezara forward into us, and Veezara is stabbed again in the side.

Mother of f*ck, when is this bullsh*t going to end? I drag myself upright and lift my hand, calling the dagger from the enforcer's hand to mine before I plug his nose with it. He falls forward onto Veezara, the force of his head hitting the ground face first enough to plunge the steel into his brain and kill him.

I stagger to the last man standing, or crawling, his leg snapped from his flight off of me. I drag his sword from the ground and lift it weakly, plunging it into his chest and leaving him there.

Cradling my aching body, I shuffle my feet back toward Veezara. I shove the Penitus Oculatus enforcer off of him and assess just how f*cked up he is. Dozens of stab wounds, and slices, and punctures. His breathing is wet in his lungs, and his eyelids flutter.

I call upon the yellow light again, covering his chest with my hands and letting the healing power work its magic. He moans as his severed muscles and his torn skin pulls back together on its own, as his punctured lungs close beneath the surface of him. His breathing becomes less watery and steadier, pain leaving him.

The sun is cresting over the horizon, reflecting on the water beyond us, and f*ck, I’m too exhausted to move. I let my knees buckle and exhaustion bring me to the ground, letting the yellow light heal my face and my aching muscles.

We lay side by side again, as we did before the Penitus Oculatus caught up with us and tried to take us out. Veezara is able to move now, and his hand reconnects with mine. We lay silently and stare upwards, dusk greeting us like an old friend returning from a long time away. Veezara drifts into unconsciousness, his body willing him to recuperate.

I lay still as I realize I’ve neglected to heal the gash on my upper body. The throb of pain on my side stretching up to my back is delicious. I decide to let it pulsate with pain a little longer. I hope it gets infected. I like the sting of infection. It’s tempting to rub some dirt in the wound and hope a parasite sticks. I let my head roll to the side so I can watch Veezara sleep. His green face is so peaceful, free of pain, and that brings me comfort, enough to lull me into blackness with him.

I awake to the cold chill of water engulfing me, gasping in shock and fighting hard to orient my sight. I shoot upright, my hood falling away from my head and exposing my hair. Veezara stands over me, a look of horror on his face.

“sh*t, okay. Good. You’re not dead.” he pants, exhausted from exerting his weak body to drag me to the water’s edge and splash me. My limbs are weak, and I don’t have the energy to lift my hand and fix my cowl. I just stare up at him in confusion. “You’re f*cking bleeding out! Do your…healing sh*t!”

I lift my arm half-heartedly and inspect the sweet wound under my armpit, which does indeed continue to bleed profusely. My entire left side is saturated in blood, oozing from my shoulder and my ribcage. No wonder I feel so f*cking weak. There’s more of me open than I realized. I watch intently as the blood dribbles away from the cuts and soaks the fabric of my armor, and I don’t want to heal it. Let it run a little longer. Only a little. A little won’t hurt.

Veezara scoops me up and drags me toward the water’s edge, and I fight him the whole way. My legs trash and my arms swing weakly, but he’s a lot bigger than me, and he’s successful in his pursuit for the water. I groan as the icy liquid touches my hot skin, a whine escaping me as he drags me in with him. I don’t want to do this nurturing, wash-my-wound thing that I know he’s trying to do. I don’t want his help. I raise my hands to signal that I give up, and I let the yellow, healing light stretch from my fingertips to the wound, tugging my skin closed with a disgusting squelch.

Veezara watches in confusion, shaking his head. “You’re so f*cking stubborn. Just let me help you.” he says, fumbling with the buckles of my armor. I shove his hands off of me, and when I push away from him, I plunge deep into the water. My legs are too short to stand where he’s standing and I can’t f*cking swim. I sink like deadweight, and I’m panicking when my feet touch the bottom.

He tugs me out of the water and holds me against him while I cough and sputter. “Dammit, f*cking hold still!” Veezara shouts, a beg to his tone I haven’t heard before. “I’m not going to let you sink, stop thrashing like that.”

I realize how violently I’m flailing still, panicked in the water at the possibility of drowning. I pause my movement and test him, and he hasn’t lied. He holds me tightly against him in the water, everything above his shoulders visible over the surface as he stares down at me.

“f*ck, you’re really short.” he sighs, shaking his head. “This isn’t that deep. You can’t swim?” I shake my head, and he laughs a little. “Just hold still, I won’t let you drown.”

I shake my head, pointing back to the land surrounding us. I don’t want to be in the water. I want to get out.

He sighs, fumbling with my armor straps. “You didn’t feel these, and it nearly killed you. I just want to make sure there aren’t any more.” I shake my head again and give a thumbs up, a signal that I’m fine and don’t need that. He sighs heavier, more exasperated, and not in the funny way he normally does. He’s f*cking freaking out, and he’s not going to rest until he’s completely confident that I’m not going to die. I should be grateful, but desperately, I wish he wouldn’t care, just this one time. “Just let me check and we’ll get out.”

I try to pull him toward the land, and when I do, I sink below the surface again. He pulls me back up for air again. I feel like a helpless child.

“sh*t, will you calm the f*ck down?” he whines, pulling me against him again. I wheeze and cough out the water that entered my lungs when I went down. “Just let me f*cking help you! Impossibly stubborn mute girl, I swear to the f*cking gods. Let me make sure you’re not cut anywhere else!”

I don’t know what to do, tell him the truth about two wounds or the truth about many. I decide the former is safer. I place my hand on his chest in a way to beg for attention as I try to tell him what I need to tell him, and he nods, understanding. I guide his hand to touch one of the freshly patches of healed skin through the gash it’s left in my armor, tender flesh raised in a rippled scar, and he nods to say he gets what we’re talking about. I point to myself and nod, doing my best to look apologetic.

To my surprise, he understands instantly. “You knew it was there? Then why didn’t you f*cking heal it?” he asks, bewildered. I roll my eyes and let my head fall back in exasperation, trying to convey that I don’t want to discuss that. He gets it. “No, tell me. Were you just going to let yourself bleed out?”

I shake my head again, clinging to him in the water. He purses his scaly lips. “Okay, well now I really don’t trust you. Let me make sure there aren’t anymore.”

I’m at a loss. What other choice do I have, other than to try to swim back to shore? I’ll f*cking drown if he lets me go. Reluctantly, I grit my teeth and undo the buckles of my armor, tugging the armor down past my shoulder to expose my upper arm quickly. I twist a little and show him my arms and shoulder, then quickly yank my armor back up to cover myself.

He catches the fabric, staring in horror and confusion at my grotesque skin. I fight for control of my armor sleeve, but he wins, and he isn’t even trying. He runs his hand over the welts that stretch up my back, the small cuts that litter my shoulder. It’s like he’s searching desperately for just one patch of untouched skin, but there isn’t any for him to find. I wait for a reaction, something bigger than what he’s doing, staring in deep, layered disquiet, but it doesn’t come. There isn’t judgment in his eyes, only concern. And that is far, far worse than judgment.

He looks at my face again, only for a moment and then, his eyes are trailing to the little brands of burnt flesh that are sprawled across my collarbone and chest, little circles left behind from my father’s cigars and rolled joints, from the picks in his forge. He touches them too, his fingertips gentle against my skin.

I lean back from him, a silent request for him to stop, and he immediately removes his hand. I reach to pull my armor back over my shoulder, but he catches it again, holding it to inspect the raised lines of white flesh on my shoulder. He pulls the sleeve down further to see how far they stretch, covering the length of my arm that is visible.

“Please, Veezara.” I say softly, pulling away from him again. I surprise myself when I hear my voice, and I know I’ve shocked him. His eyes fly back to my face, like he isn’t sure if he truly heard me, but once he knows for certain that he did, he releases my sleeve. I tug it back up over my shoulder and cover myself, my trembling hands struggling to rebuckle the armor. Veezara sees this, and he tugs me back toward shore. When I can stand again, he sets me down. He leans deeply, low enough to put himself level with my armor and rebuckles the straps for me.

I trudge out of the water toward land, and I feel much better when my feet are firm on the ground. Tears burn in my eyes, especially now that I can feel Veezara’s gaze on my back, staring in concern and confusion. I pull my hood back on to cover my short hair, which doesn’t hide the welts that reach up the back of my neck into my hairline. I can feel them when I tuck the hood into my wet armor, brushing my fingertips and reminding me of the slashing and sharp pain of my father’s belt.

“You will not speak until I tell you to, you little sh*t. You won’t breathe a f*cking word of this.”

My father’s voice is back, and I freeze. I have fought for years to suppress him, to make myself forget all of the evil, vile things he did to silence me. And he took much more than just my voice. He took much more than a father should take from his daughter. Along with his deep voice, I can hear the echoing crack of his belt on my bare back, ear splittingly loud and continuing until I stopped screaming, until I stopped crying, until I was silent. I learned not to speak, not to make a f*cking sound, until he told me.

Anger rips through me, and my fists slam against the side of my head. I was just a child. I was just a f*cking child. My lungs burn, and my cheeks streak with hot tears. I do not want to unravel the way I feel that I am going to in front of Veezara. I don’t know how to stop the momentum, but I don’t want him to see this. But more than that, I don’t want to hear this again. I don’t want to see what it turns into. His large hands hold me down, my arms pinned over my head and his weight on top of me, and when I squirm, he puffs on his cigar and ashes it on my chest. I could vomit at the sound of his voice, the thought of his hands on my skin.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. You just look so much like your mother.”

I was a child. My knees hit the ground, knowing what comes next in this dark memory. I grip the sides of my head, tapping with the heels of my hands to make his voice stop. My breathing has become ragged, I fight to intake air normally. My lungs are on f*cking fire, and I feel like I’m suffocating beneath him again. I have fought so hard to put this part of my life away. I have tried for years to remain silent so that I don’t have to hear his voice in my head, telling me that I cannot share our secret with anyone, reminding me not to speak, even though I’m no longer a child. But I am. I am a child who still trembles at the sound of her father’s voice, and the thought of his hot breath.

Every part of me is laced with pain. It flows through my every vein, the agony I feel at the thought of my father. I was never safe with my father. I was trapped with him, unspeaking until he missed the sound of my voice and coaxed the words he wanted from my lips. I don’t want to think of my father. I don’t want this pain. I want the pain that he doesn’t inflict, the pain that I can control. I don’t want the suffering I have to endure at the thought of him.

But there’s no stopping it now. I think of my father, and I hear his low voice. I think of his footsteps when he came in from forging at the end of a long day. I think of his hateful eyes, his cruel hands. I think of his burly shoulders and the way that his skin smelled of soot, the way my bed creaked when he climbed into it. I think of his calloused fingers tangled in my long hair at night, his hot breath on my neck and his voice in my ear.

“Good girl. You’ve made Daddy feel much better.”

I snap, a scream escaping me as I let rage take me. I let out the little girl that’s meek and trembling, that’s aching with pain and praying for someone to save her from the man who pretends to protect her. In her place, I have become bitter, angry, frustrated by how f*cking cruel the unseeing world as been to me, how goddamn sickening it is that nobody looked twice when I emerged from my home with welts and bruises. There is no room in the world for little girls who cannot bite their tongue and learn to be silent. At least, that’s what my father said.

I outstretch my arms, allowing the power embedded deep within me to do what it wants. I reach out to anything I can touch with the telekinesis, the large rocks that line the river’s edge, trees in the field surrounding me, the crumpled bodies of the Penitus Oculatus enforcers that ambushed us earlier. I pull them up from the ground with my mind and I slam them back into the dirt before me, sending fragments of bone splintering and ricocheting away. I just want to hurt something the way that my father hurt me, I want something to feel this same ache in my chest that I’m cursed to carry with me until my end. I let everything I can reach shatter and fly in my wake. I don’t stop until the area surrounding me is obliterated and I am exhausted, panting near violently.

I do not have to remember my father’s belt, or his hands, or his hot skin on mine. I can remember the way his blood ran that final night, remember the life that drained from his eyes when I decided that I’d earned the right to take from him what he’d taken from me. I get to remember that he died in fear of me and what he’d turned me into. I choose now to remember that, and none of the rest.

My breathing levels out, and I straighten, fighting to gain composure. I clear my throat, brushing dirt off of my armor, adjusting my hood and cowl to better cover my hair and the lower half of my face.

Finally, I turn back to Veezara, who stands frozen in fear, his arms still partially lifted in what I’m sure was to block debris flying at him in my destructive rage. Good. His fear is better than his concern. Clearing my throat, a signal that I am speaking with no words, I nod south. It’s not a request for him to follow. It’s just a silent explanation that I’m done, and I’m ready to go home.

The walk back to Falkreath is silent. He stays forty paces back, afraid to hover any closer. Back in the sanctuary, I stand silently and listen as Veezara has to explain to Astrid that we were not aware that we were being followed, that we were tracked and found, but that we eliminated all of the Penitus Oculatus that knew of our location. After the long explanation, I am sent away so that Astrid can speak with Veezara privately, to dig deeper and ask questions she doesn’t want me to hear the answers to.

For the rest of the day, I am left alone to sleep. I crash into my bed and submit to sleep until night falls. When I rise, the sanctuary is asleep and Veezara’s bed is unsurprisingly empty. I’m sure he’s crawled into Cicero’s bed now that nobody is looking. Unwilling to be here and awake when he slinks back in from his lover’s chambers, I slip out of the sanctuary for some true alone time.

I drop to sit outside, savoring the way the night breeze blows. The air is sweet and cool, not thick and muggy the way it normally is in Falkreath. I pull my cowl down to expose my cheeks and my mouth, shutting my eyes and enjoying the quiet.

I hated the silence when I was a child, when it was forced upon me, but now, it is my closest companion. It is what has made me the strongest, the truest testimony to my existence as a relentlessly untrusting person. The silence comforts me now, the only family I have anymore in this unseeing, uncaring, f*cking twisted world.

I don’t turn when familiar heavy footsteps approach, locking my jaw and staring straight forward at the woods surrounding me. I’ve wandered far enough away from Falkreath that I doubt anyone could follow and hear us. He lowers himself to sit beside me, more silent than I have ever seen him. There’s a bone chilling awkwardness between us, one that even he can’t fill with a clever remark or a joke.

After a long silence, he takes a breath. “I’m really sorry,” he says softly. “I shouldn’t have pushed you the way that I did. I shouldn’t have…” I just stare at his face as he struggles to get out what he’s trying to say. “I’m just sorry.”

I nod softly, a long sigh escaping me. I don’t want things to be weird between me and Veezara. He’s the only friend I’ve ever had, and I don’t want to lose him because he knows some of my terrible truth. I turn to face away from him again, staring back out at the woods for a few quiet minutes.

Veezara shifts beside me, and it draws my attention back to him. He hands me a small book and a charcoal, and I turn them over in my hands curiously.

“I’m not going to say anything.” he continues, his voice gentle. “About anything what happened, the magic or, you know…” He opens the cover of the book for me to reveal that all of the pages are blank. “In case there’s anything you want to talk about. I don’t want you to have to…break your silence to get me to back off. I feel terrible for that.” I’m not sure what to say. This is the most genuine apology I’ve ever heard. “And we could burn the book, you know. After you’ve said what you need to say. I’m sure you’re able to burn sh*t out of thin air too, you f*cking freak.”

A laugh escapes me, and though it makes a sound, I’m fine with that. I hold my palm out and let flames ignite, illuminating the space around us and eliciting a genuine laugh from Veezara. I tuck the flames away, turning the book over in my palms for a moment before I open to the first page. I take a moment to scrawl words out before I turn the book out to show him.

You’re the freak. You nearly drowned me.

He laughs again and shakes his head. “I told you, I wouldn’t have let you drown. But you were caked in blood and I couldn’t tell what was yours and what wasn’t. You needed a rinse.” He sighs softly. “Which, by the way, I never thanked you for. You saved my ass.” I shrug, not wasting paper on a response for that. “Why don’t you want anyone to know you can do that?”

I scribble and turn the book out to him again. They already don’t trust me. Why give them a reason to fear me too?

“That’s fair, I suppose.” he says. He fights a dumb grin. “Actually, you have very nice handwriting. I was a little worried you might not know how to read or write, you know, on account of you being a f*cking jack-tooth hillbilly.”

I shut the book and smack him with it, grateful that the tension between us has melted as he cackles with laughter and swats my vicious hands away.

He shakes his head as his laughter subsides, staring down at the ground before us. “I guess we’re…a different kind of friends now, aren’t we?” I nod, because I suppose that’s the truth. “We can tell each other things now. Full things. The truth. The things we want to share.”

I nod again, and I know that no matter what truth we share, I’ll have to go first.

“What is this?” he asks, his gloved fingers tapping the sleeve of my armor. I take a breath, unbuckling the top straps of my armor and tugging my arm out of the sleeve. I hold my bare arm before him and let him inspect the hundreds of little white scars that litter my arm. There isn’t much free space left, everything is lines now.

He over turns my arm a few times, shaking his head in bewilderment. “Who did this to you?”

I take another deep breath, lifting my other hand. His blade removes itself from the holster at his hip and flies to my hand, which thoroughly shocks him. There is still some free space on my hand, and I demonstrate the practiced artwork of making a quick and sharp slice to watch the blood flow, then letting the yellow light from within me drag the skin back together. When he blinks at the first slice, I make another, much deeper, and it’s accompanied by a grunt from me when the pain hits. I let it bleed a moment before I close it up. I hand his blade back to him.

Veezara’s jaw is set, and he shakes his head slowly as he tucks it away. “f*ck. Is that…healing practice, or just for the pain?” I don’t have the will to answer that question, too ashamed of the truth. As he does with everything else, Veezara understands what I truly think without me saying it, and he nods slowly. He tugs my armor down in the front to expose the circular welts from cigar burns littering my collarbone and chest. “Did you do this too?”

I shake my head. I pick my book up and scribble quickly. I don’t smoke.

“Who does?” Veezara asks gently, brow furrowed.

I write. No one now.

“Was it the same person who did this?” he asks, his hand on my back when he refers to the welts left from my father’s belt. I sigh, nodding to confirm.

His hand doesn’t move from my back, and I know he can feel the raised flesh through the tight fabric beneath his palm. “And…they’re gone? You killed them.” I nod at that too, and Veezara finally lets his hand move. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and tugs me into him, embracing me in a kind and brotherly way. “Good,” he says simply. “They f*cking deserved it.”

I blink, processing what he’s just said to me and relaxing into his shoulder. I’m not sure what to do with the feeling that being held by him gives me. I lift my book to write again, and he watches my hand move.

You’re the only person who knows.

He takes a breath. “And I’m sure I don’t know all of it.” he offers. “And that’s okay, if this is all you want. But if you want to share the rest, I’m listening.” He laughs a little. “Well, I’m reading. Listening might not be the right way to describe what’s happening here.”

I write again. You’re the first friend I’ve ever had.

Veezara’s jaw sets, tightening like that’s made him emotional. He tucks it away quickly. “Yeah, I’m glad we’re friends. Even if you are a f*cking freak.” We both laugh quietly. “It’s alright. I am too. Although…if we’re friends, I have to be completely honest with you about things.” I nod encouragingly, eager to hear what he has to say. He grins wickedly. “Your haircut is terrible. Who the f*ck did that to you? Don’t tell me it was the same person, because if that’s true then they truly f*cking tortured you.”

I laugh audibly, and Veezara stares curiously at the sound, laughing along with me awkwardly. I lower my cowl to show off my crudely chopped dark hair. I run my hand through it and ruffle it out so he can see how truly f*cked up it looks. I lift my hand again, and his blade flies from his hip into my palm, and I demonstrate wadding my hair in my fist and slicing it off bluntly, dropping it into a pile at my side.

Veezara gasps and takes the blade from me. “You’re not even using a f*cking mirror, stop that! You look psychotic!”

I shrug and lift my book again, scribbling. It’s not like anyone sees it.

“I have to see it!” he whines, as if making him look at my hair is truly torturous. “Why the f*ck are you doing that?”

So that no one puts their hands in it. I write, and Veezara sighs, lifting up on his knees behind me and running his hand through my hair, which I guess truly offends him. And that’s sort of funny to me. I trust his hands in my hair, trust that he isn’t going to use it to hold me down and harm me. He ruffles it to inspect the uneven pieces and sighs even louder.

“Do you want me to fix it?” he asks, tugging a few longer pieces on my neck in the back. “I can make it look a little less…hillbilly-ish. This hair and the teeth make you look like you f*ck your cousins, you know.”

I laugh again and nod, sitting up a bit straighter so that he can begin using his blade to cut my hair to a length that looks better to him. I just don’t really care what my hair looks like, but I can tell Veezara is searching for a way to comfort and nurture me. If cutting my hair makes him feel better, makes him feel like he’s protecting me from someone thinking I f*ck my cousins or whatever, I’ll let him. I’ll let him take care of me in a way that he knows how to.

He hums to himself while he chops my hair off. It’s the same tune I hear Cicero whistling sometimes. I write in my book while he’s chopping, then hold it up for him to read.

Does Cicero know what happened?

Veezara sighs above me. “Oh yeah. I mean, the healing thing is pretty cool, but f*ck, it leaves some pretty obvious scars. I’m covered in them.” He pauses his hair cutting to wrap his arms around my shoulders and squeeze me for a moment. “Which, thank you for, again.” I nod, and he releases me, going back to grooming me. “I took my armor off and, I mean, it’s pretty obvious that I got my ass handed to me. I told him that you saved me. I didn’t say anything else.”

I appreciate that he protected my secrets the best way that he could. He could have easily blabbed to Cicero the way that I know he’s capable of, but he chose not to for my sake, which I think speaks volumes for his character. I write again and hold up the book. What else does he know?

“He knows you’re my friend. He knows we speak, in our own way.” He laughs to himself. “But he knows as well as I do that you have your tongue, so that didn’t feel too big to share with him.”

I nod, agreeing. I hold up my book again. Do you trust me with Astrid sh*t now?

He’s silent for a few minutes, finishing my hair. I genuinely think the answer is going to be no, and I wouldn’t blame him. He’s been with Astrid for years. I wouldn’t blame him for taking time to open up about what seems to be a very strained relationship.

When he’s done with my hair, he ruffles it one last time and brushes little hairs off of my shoulders. I run my hands through it as he makes himself comfortable beside me.

“Yeah, I do.” he says quietly. “And she’s f*cking pissed about the Penitus Oculatus. Said that she doesn’t understand how so many of them got the jump on us.” He shrugs. “And f*ck, I really don’t either. But I told her I was glad we stopped to rest because if we hadn’t, they’d have followed us all the way back to the sanctuary and raided it. That would have been worse. But she is f*cking livid. She doesn’t like it when I botch jobs.”

I scribble. What happens when you botch jobs?

Veezara’s jaw is tight, and he takes another deep breath. “Astrid is…” I can tell that he doesn’t speak about this with anyone. He doesn’t open up about some things, and Astrid seems to be the biggest one he’s reluctant to speak on. But still, I can see how badly he wants to. I can see how badly he does not want to lie to me, but he’s fighting to get the words out.

When they finally come, they spill like vomit. He speaks fast, almost too fast to follow. “She’s vindictive. I’m not supposed to cross her. When I do, she makes my life hell. And it’s more than just Arnbjorn beating my ass, it’s bad. She knows how badly I want…”

He’s stuck again, and I try to unstick things for him without forcing the words from his mouth, the way that he does for me. I try to think the way that he does when he doesn’t understand what I’m trying to tell him, I try to work through context clues and make him heard, without forcing him to speak. It takes a few minutes, but I get there.

To be loved and to be part of a family. That’s all he’s ever really wanted.

He’s been telling me from the beginning how Astrid has been hurting him when he f*cks something up. He’s been sharing his dark truth from the moment he parted his lips to tell me about his deep desire to be loved, to be more than his intended purpose, to be more than the reason he was hatched. I see now why when things were bad in the sanctuary, he was slinking off to Falkreath for comfort, why he watched over his shoulder in hopes he would not be seen. It wasn’t about anyone seeing him other than Astrid. He did not want her to know he’d found a lover.

I scribble in my book again to speak to him. The man in Falkreath?

He breathes a quiet laugh, shaking his head and looking out toward the city beyond us. “That’s my partner. Was my partner, I guess.” He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “There have been a few before. I was married once, too.”

Was. I understand what he’s saying, finally, but I have to ask anyway. What happens to them?

Tears shimmer in his eyes, and he shakes his head, swallows the lump in his throat. “Astrid gets rid of them when I piss her off. She never lets me keep them for long.” When tears spill, he wipes his face quickly, unwilling to sit crying before me. “A few years back, she had a private contract and I f*cked it up, royally. She knew the whole time that I was married, and she knew that I would stop to see my husband before I came back to the sanctuary. He was already dead when I got there.” he explains hollowly, grimacing. “Him and the black hand. On parchment, waiting for me to find. She left me a f*cking note. ‘We know’.”

I’m listening intently, my chest tight for my friend who just wants to be loved. He continues. “I forget the reason I was hatched, sometimes. I have to be reminded.”

I take his hand, unwilling to let him sit alone and grieve any longer. He squeezes my hand tightly, resting his head on my shoulder. “I’m going to be in some deep sh*t over this contract, too. I don’t know what she’s going to do.”

I don’t either, and I’m fearful for him. But silently, with the squeeze of my hand, I promise to help him with whatever it is Astrid chooses to do to punish him this time. He doesn’t have to suffer alone anymore, not while I’m watching and listening.

As he always does, Veezara gets what I’m saying, and he tells me. “I know. Thank you.”

Chapter 5: The Cure For Madness

Chapter Text

I’m jealous of the corpse. I’m intensely jealous of the fact that she gets to shut her doors and be left alone. I haven’t been able to afford that luxury since my arrival in this sanctuary. I haven’t found one real moment of peace since I’ve been here, or at least, not one within the stone walls we all live in.

It’s always something that f*cking snatches my solitude away from me. I set myself up in the kitchen well after everyone has eaten, and Nazir decides that’s where he wants to station himself to pay out contracts. I relax in my bed to get some rest, and magically, Gabriella is overcome with the deep desire to read a book in her bed beside me. I get comfortable in the main room by the water, below the glass shrine of Sithis, and Arnbjorn suddenly will not survive unless he’s grinding hot metal and clanking hammer against anvil. And if there’s anything here that could make me toss my lunch, it’s the sound of him forging, the smell of soot and embers, the scalding heat of flame.

My unfortunate escape has been time alone with the Night Mother. The very thing that keeps me prisoner here is now one of my greatest comforts, her f*cking existence. Nobody really comes in here, aside from Cicero, and I’ve become rather practiced at avoiding him. He’s either in here rambling to the corpse or in his room awaiting Veezara’s sneaky return when the rest of the sanctuary is asleep. There’s really no in between with him, as of recent, and that has proven to be beneficial to me.

I’m in here alone with her now, and wishing desperately that I could also crawl into an iron box and hide from the others here. I wish that I could be engulfed in the silence of being left alone because I am grotesque and untouchable.

But then, I remember that there is one pure, good person trapped within these walls with me, and I feel a little better. It’s difficult for me to pass Veezara in the halls or see him come forward when Astrid calls and say nothing. But I do, and for once in my life, it’s for his sake more than mine.

Astrid has not yet punished him for f*cking up the Gaius Maro contract the way that we did. I can tell that Veezara has been tense awaiting what she deems fit. And I know that deeply, regardless of the fact that Astrid is unaware of his secret relationship with another member of the Dark Brotherhood, Veezara is fearful that Astrid will take Cicero away. I believe he’s found some comfort in the notion that if Astrid sent her sheepdog to kill the Keeper, there would at the very least be an settlement amongst the masses she rules, so that punishment could likely be avoided, even if she did become aware of the deep feelings Veezara has for Cicero. She’d rather keep the peace than hit Veezara where he would hurt the most, and as unfortunate as that truth is, he has found some comfort in it.

There’s a slight shuffle behind me, and I turn quickly toward it. Cicero drops down from the beams above me that line the room. The same beams I’ve used to snoop on him before. Silently, I scold myself for entering this room without thoroughly checking, and allowing him to get the jump on me.

I know more about Cicero than I cared to, courtesy of Veezara’s over sharing mouth, and I find it sort of difficult to look him in the eye now, admittedly. Not because of the numerous threats he’s laid against me, not because of his overall creepy demeanor toward me, but because I have received many vivid descriptions of his nether regions and what he’s like in the sack. I can’t really stomach the thought of looking him in his face when he stalks toward me, so I focus on his chest.

He doesn’t bother playing a clown with me anymore, so he doesn’t see fit to dress up for me. He wears the pants of his motley, but a worn white undershirt, patterned with sweat stains and tears, and no hat. His stringy red hair falls to frame his bony face, his angular jaw and defined cheek bones.

There’s a moment, when he’s on his feet, where we just stare at each other. Then, he moves for the table in the corner where a worn red journal lies. He flips to a clean sheet past pages and pages of his writing, then sets it up for me to write with the same thin charcoal he uses.

I approach the table cautiously, awaiting his command before I touch anything. He opens his mouth to talk, after an agonizingly long pause. “Is Mother speaking?” I shake my head slowly, and his lips draw into a tight and unreadable like. “Then, why are you in here?”

I lift the charcoal and scribble. In case she decides to.

He stares at my words, blinking like they’re more important than they are and he doesn’t know how to process them. I write again, below what I’ve written before.

Why are you in here?

He lifts an eyebrow, his grin mischievous. “In case you decide to.”

His eyes are two different shades of brown, his left much darker than his right, which is sort of golden and shimmery. He stares more through me than at me, like I’m just a vessel. And I suppose that’s truly how he sees me. I am just the conduit that his mother speaks through, and when she’s unspeaking, I’m like a piece of furniture that he knows is there but doesn’t need to look at.

In one swift movement, he has me in his grasp and pressed up against the wall near the table. On instinct, I’ve pressed my hand into his shoulder to keep the distance of my extended arm between us, and he jams him elbow into the bend in my arm to buckle it. He tucks one of my hands between our chests and presses against me firmly so that I cannot move it, my other arm captured by his tight grip on my forearm. I’m defenseless and trapped between him and unmoving stone.

“I’m trying very hard not to like you.” he says casually, as if that’s just an easy way for him to start a conversation. “Trying very, very hard to convince myself that you are not likable.” His grip on my forearm tightens, his brows drawn together like he’s confused by his own actions, out of control of his own body. “You’ve created a sort of conundrum for me, where I can’t make heads or tails of what I’m feeling.”

I don’t understand, but I don’t dare move. Not when I’m pinned between him and the wall, and the only other person in the room is what’s left of the Night Mother. I doubt she’ll be much f*cking help.

“For example,” he continues, tracing my jawline with his fingertip in a menacing sort of way. As if to say he’s mere inches from my windpipe and would happily crush it inwards and stop my breathing. “I find you to be particularly undeserving of Mother’s voice. I think your initial reaction was stuck up, like you’re above her. Like she’s just a corpse.” His finger pauses on my chin, tipping my head back to look up at him fully. “Is that what you thought?”

He already knows the answer, so I don’t dare lie. I nod slowly, and he tsks his teeth in disappointment.

“See, you’re f*cking snobby .” he speculates, his upper lip curled in disgust. “That’s so goddamn maddening, to me. That just—” His hand leaves my face and his fist slams sharply into the stone wall beside my head. I jump at the movement, at the thud and crack of his bone against rock. At my reaction, he laughs quietly, running that same hand up through his hair to push it out of his face. His bloody knuckles drag a dark red trail through his greasy locks.

“I wanted her voice so badly. I gave up so much to have it, and still, it was bestowed upon an uncaring bitch who sees no reason to marvel at our Mother.” He squints at me, that bloody hand capturing my face by the jaw, squeezing. “Do you know how old her mortal body is? Because she is preserved in a very specific way, her immortal spirit can still congregate with her enduring body. It is because of me that you are able to serve your purpose in this realm. Is that not spectacular to you?” he begs, like he wants me to lie to his face to spare his sanity.

But he knows I won’t, and I think her voice is decidedly unspectacular and rather inconvenient, as it has led me to have to endure moments like this with him. He’s unphased by the shake of my head.

His fingertips glide down from my face to my neck, and he squeezes more tightly, with more force. “See, that exact ignorance could encourage me to break your f*cking neck. And you’re like a twig, you would be so damn easy to snap. My mouth waters at the thought.”

It’s becoming harder to breathe, but I remain still. Cicero must feel the pleading twitch of my windpipe as it fights for air. His grip tightens for a few seconds more, and then releases me entirely, his arm falling at his side. Sharply, I suck air into my lungs, an instinctual reaction that my body naturally conducts, and that seems to satiate his desire to hurt me.

Now, instead of holding me against the wall, one of his arms curls around my torso and the other lifts a hand to cradle my head into his shoulder. He rocks us gently, like he’s seeking to comfort us both. And this, to me, is worse than being forcibly pressed against a wall and choked. This is a hundred times worse.

“It would have been so easy before.” he says quietly, his voice vibrating against my chest. “A few weeks ago, if harming a Dark Sister would not invoke the wrath of Sithis and greatly displease the unholy matron, I would have torn you in half and bathed in your blood.” His hand smoothes over my hair, like I'm his very favorite toy and his affection for me is tender. “But now, I'm met with this great difficulty.”

I don’t know what the f*ck he’s on about, but I want him to let me go. I cannot stand the scent of his sweat or his hands on me in an endearing manner. I don’t want to be held, or caressed, or hugged.

Cicero holds me close to him, his lips on my ear. “Thank you for saving him.”

I pull back from his unsettling embrace to look at him, and for the first time, his eyes don’t seem vacant or hollow. Finally, I can see Cicero behind his irises, where he’s been hiding from everyone with the show that he puts on. The show for everyone else is the animated jester. The show for me has been the Keeper capable of and willing to kill me if I push him past the limit he’s set for me. But beyond the act, I see a man alone, solitary and watching hopefully through the film over his eyes for someone who may peer in and see him. I can comprehend how pathetically lonely he is now, how desperate he is for compassion and companionship. Just as Veezara is. Just as I am.

I didn’t see myself finding out that I’m akin to the f*cking clown, but now that I’ve seen him for who he truly is, I suppose there’s no going back to how I saw him before. So I submit, leaning into him and letting him hold me the way that he wants. I let him comb his fingers through my short hair. I let him press kisses into my forehead with his dry lips, and let him chant praises in my ear for saving his shot at finally getting to be happy, the only shot he has now that I’ve taken his mother’s voice from him.

When he decides that I’ve been thanked enough, he releases me. Standing apart from each other now , he takes a breath. “Do you promise that you’re actually listening? Or are you…just promise me that you’re listening.”

I nod, pointing to myself, then cupping my ear, then pointing to his mother in the iron tomb beyond us. Then, I extend my pinky finger, a silent way to let him know he has my word. Huffing an exhausted laugh, he lifts his hand and connects his pinky with mine, squeezing tightly.

Later in the night, or earlier in the morning, I suppose, I make myself comfortable at the long communal dinner table to begin my daily routine of seeming uninteresting. After an hour or so, Veezara enters the kitchen from the main room. It’s only me in here, and though I know nobody will hear us, on the off chance someone is watching, I do not smile the way that I want to when he sits down at the table on the same side as me, all the way to the other end, as far from me as he can.

This is a funny game we’re playing, the silent game. Neither of us really look at each other, or dare to speak, just out of fear someone will listen.

Cicero joins us in the kitchen too, his whistling greeting us before he does, and he’s rather chipper, today. His stench of skooma doesn’t follow him, but instead, some masculine smelling salve or something does. It’s actually sort of pleasant. He put on f*cking cologne, and his typically stringy hair is clean. He cares deeply about what Veezara thinks of him, which I suppose is sort of cute.

He sits opposite me at the table and over his bowl of leftover stew, on the flame still from last night and beginning to stick to the bottom of the pot. He glances up occasionally at Veezara. His expression never changes, and neither does Veezara’s, and neither does mine. We just exist in the same room together, an unspoken agreement that none of us will give anything away that we shouldn’t, not when we all must know the truth about how vindictive Astrid is.

Eventually, Astrid enters the kitchen herself, and thankfully, none of us are looking at each other. She ignorantly smiles at the sight of me, dropping a satchel on the table before me. “Perfect, there you are. I need an errand run.” I stare up at her, challengingly, as if to ask her to her f*cking face when the hell I became her do-girl. She catches it and lifts an eyebrow. “Is that an issue?”

Suppressing a sigh, I shake my head and place my hand on the satchel, silently asking what the task is.

“I need that appraised. It’s the amulet that Motierre handed off to you.” she explains. “I need you to take it to Riften and speak to Delvin Mallory, down in the Ragged Flagon. He’s an old friend, he’ll give a fair price.”

Riften. Of f*cking course it’s in Riften. I tap my lips, an unspoken question about how the f*ck I’m supposed to tell him all of that without my tongue.

She blinks, like she just forgot that I’m mute. And now she’s spiraling, like she’s not sure what to say to make herself look like anything but a fool. She clears her throat, looking up at the table. “Veezara can be your tongue.” Making a show of the falsehood we’re living in, I shake my head and make myself look exasperated with the idea, like I’d literally rather anything else happen. She blinks. “Is Veezara suddenly not a sufficient companion, New Blood?”

I sigh, mocking unhappy, then shake my head, like I’ll submit to company.

“Very good.” she says. “Veezara, does that work for you?”

Veezara shrugs. “Sure, yeah. Whatever you need.”

“Actually, if there’s travel to Riften,” Cicero chimes in, his ludacris over-the-top diction emerging for the one person in the room that doesn’t know he’s a f*cking phony. “Cicero could use some salves from the apothecary for Mother. Ingredients to oil her properly. Cicero has not made time to leave the sanctuary since arrival.”

All three of us sort of blink at him, and then Veezara hesitantly nods, like he’s disturbed by Cicero even interjecting. “Okay? Sure, I guess. Just…make me a list, I suppose.”

“No need for a list.” Cicero says happily. He makes a list on his fingers, as if the gibberish that comes from his lips is simple to remember. “Blue mountain flower, butterfly wing, ash hopper jelly, netch jelly, felsaad tern feathers, Cicero needs four or five of those. Let’s see, scathecraw–”

“A list would be helpful.” Veezara reiterates.

“Fine, fine. Sure. Cicero can restart for you, start writing.” Cicero continues, waving Veezara to hurry up, as if there’s any paper or charcoal at this table in the literal kitchen. “Blue mountain flower, butterfly wing, ash hopper jelly–”

Astrid is getting fed up with the conversation, shaking her head. “Just get my f*cking amulet appraised and be back before dusk tomorrow.”

Veezara fetches some paper for Cicero to write a list. Veezara looms over his shoulder as he writes, and their hands touch at the pinky on the tabletop. They’re so desperate to touch each other, even through their gloves in plain sight of anyone who could walk through the kitchen.

When we’ve traveled almost an hour in silence, ensuring we’re far enough away from the sanctuary to relax, Veezara sighs. “Alright, I’ll say what we’re all thinking.” I turn to look up at him, an eyebrow raised. “That could not have worked out any f*cking better than if I planned it myself.”

Those are the words to soften us, and there’s a laugh breathed from both of us in unison. I lower my cowl and my hood, unafraid of Veezara’s eyes on me in the early morning light.

Veezara snaps his fingers and twirls his hand, like I’m not moving fast enough for his liking. “Pull your book out. We haven’t been able to talk in, like, more than a week. I’m f*cking dying to gossip. I have so much to say. Hurry up.”

I grin as I open to a blank page, scribbling quickly and passing it to him to read.

You’re not pregnant, are you?

He lets loose a guffaw of laughter, loud enough to disturb birds in the trees around us and send them flying away in fear. “Oh, f*ck. That’s f*cking funny , you freak. I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of f*cked up, psychopathic infant we would create if that were at all f*cking possible.”

I laugh along with him as he continues to snicker to himself at the thought of Cicero knocking him up, and my laughter, though quiet, makes a sound. Veezara makes me feel comfortable enough to make sound, and if I ever get around to speaking, I’ll thank him for that.

“You will not speak until I tell you to, you little sh*t.”

Immediately, my smile draws into a dull grimace, and I go silent again. I retreat from my moment of shared laughter with my friend and withdraw into myself, clasping my right arm tightly in my left hand and craving my blade splitting my flesh to get rid of my father’s voice.

“No, I’m not pregnant.” Veezara says, laughing still. “But I am very…enamored with my current situation.”

Enamored. A pretty big f*cking word to use for the situation. I nod and encourage him to continue.

“I think that he was really shaken up by the whole…me-returning-with-stab-wounds thing. He’s been very affectionate, more than he has been. I guess that maybe the thought of me dying got stuck in his head or something.” He sighs dreamily. “It’s sweet that he doesn’t want me to die, isn’t it?”

I lift my book and scribble again. Sort of a low standard there.

Veezara chuckles. “Maybe, yeah. I guess before we got back, it sort of felt like maybe we were still just f*cking around.” He smiles privately to himself. “Definitely feels like we’re more than that now.”

I twirl my hand so he’ll elaborate.

He shrugs. “He kisses me more, and not just like…lustfully. He kisses my forehead and my cheeks, my hands.” Veezara pauses to look at his palms, then sort of cradles them to his chest, like Cicero’s kiss remains and he wants to protect it. “He says he sleeps better when his arms are around me. He calls me ‘baby’. No one has ever called me that but my husband.” He lets his arms fall at his sides again. “It’s not even so much about sex anymore. Some nights, we don’t do anything at all. He just holds me. It’s really f*cking nice.”

Veezara is a kind and gentle man. I really think he’s the only man I’ve ever met that I know with most certainty wouldn't hurt me, even if I gave him reason to. He kills because he was created to, not because he has genuine desire to hurt anyone. I think it’s sad that all Veezara wants is to be held, and every time he finds someone who will hold him, Astrid takes them away.

I write again and hold out the notebook. Does he know you were married?

“He does, yeah.” Veezara says with a nod. “And I told him that my husband died. I just didn’t say how.”

I write. He calls you baby, he calls me an uncaring bitch.

Jerking his head back, Veezara stares at me. “When did he say that ?”

After I disrespected the corpse this morning. I write for him, adding a shrug so he knows I don’t really give a f*ck.

“Wait, so you and Cicero, like… fight ?” I snicker to myself and nod, and he stares dumbfounded. “How did I not know this?” I tap my book cover so that he’ll understand it’s only because, technically, I haven’t spoken much without the book to write in. Veezara smacks my shoulder a few times to convey his urgency. “Well, f*ck, fill me in!”

We walk silently for a few minutes while I scribble out a brief synopsis of the rivalry between me and Cicero over the withering body. Endearingly, I end my summary with a short and sweet statement of opinion. A lot of bullsh*t over a dead bitch.

Veezara whistles and shakes his head. “He takes the Night Mother sh*t very seriously, so I guess I get it. Damn, you’re sort of vicious.”

I scribble for him again. Weirdly enough, Cicero is my ally. I trust him.

“That makes me surprisingly happy. Wow.” Veezara says, smiling widely. “My secret partner and my secret best friend are secret allies. I’m geeking out over that a little. Wow.”

I smile privately, staring down at my feet and letting my teeth show as my grin stretches my cheeks. I never thought I’d be anyone’s friend, let alone anyone’s best friend. I never sought out or wanted anyone’s companionship before I met Veezara. I would truthfully do anything for him. I’d do anything to protect him and make him feel as secure as he has made me.

I was raised by my father to think I was nothing important, nothing worthwhile to fuss over. There is no room in the world for little girls who cannot bite their tongue and learn to be silent. Veezara has made me feel like I am more than I ever have been, like I’m worth protecting too.

Veezara sighs, scratching his chest. “Man, I’m in the mood to gab. Hope you’re in the mood to listen.” I nod, genuinely happy to hear him talk. “Let’s see…what can I talk about?” He drums his fingers on his cheek as he thinks. “You know, I like Riften. Riften is a decent city. I don’t think there are a lot of places I haven’t been in Skyrim in my travels or for contracts, and Riften is up pretty high on my list.”

Glad it’s high up on his list, because the thought of entering Riften today makes me want to tuck my blade under the flesh of my arm and poke around blindly until something tears. Still, I nod him along and hold my smile.

“The inn there, the Bee and Barb, it’s Argonian run, and f*ck , Keerava can cook. I don’t really know if I had parents or siblings or whatever, since I was hatched and handed over, you know, but sh*t, Keerava’s cooking makes me feel like I’m part of something.” Veezara smiles to himself, staring forward.

Riften isn’t far from Falkreath, probably only three hours walk, and we’ve already killed about an hour and a half, so it won’t be much longer until we arrive. My stomach knots at the thought of the gates, and the city behind them. I didn’t get to leave the city much when I was a child, trapped working at my father’s forge with him.

I tried to leave once, just a child wondering about what was on the other side of the gate. I was going to come back. When I stepped too far away from the forge, my father snatched me back. There was a metal poker twisted to match the sign that hung over his forge, and he used it to brand leather and armor that he crafted for purchase, to mark what was his. At the thought of my escape, though I was truly only curious, he pressed the hot poker into my left arm below my elbow, and I was not allowed to make a sound as my flesh melted around it. He told me that now, anyone that found me would know I was his and bring me back to him.

“I always try to swing in and grab something to eat, if I have time to.” Veezara continues as I rub my left arm where my father’s brand remains. “If that’s alright with you.” I nod, keeping my eyes forward. “It’s f*cking delicious, I promise. And Keerava is so nice to talk to. Maybe I just like talking to other Argonians. I guess I just like feeling like I’m part of something.” He shrugs and steals a glance at me, grinning like he’s hoping I’ll laugh. “And she’s a gossipy bitch like me, so she tells me all of the sh*t that happens in Riften.”

I fight to remain attentive to what he’s saying, but I struggle. I smile to mask it, nodding him along.

“Let’s see, Riften gossip.” he says, clicking his tongue and popping his lips like that helps him think. He snaps his fingers. “You know, the Thieves Guild is set up there. They’ve been without a Guild Master for…years now, I think. Last I heard, anyway. And they are a total cluster f*ck, let me just tell you. I’ll point out some of the people I’ve heard sh*t about when we get down in the Flagon. Some freaky f*cks down there, that’s for sure.”

Veezara sighs and stretches, his back popping as he holds his arms over his head. “What else? There have been some interesting contracts in Riften. Oh man, one time, there was a contract out on one of Maven Black-Briar’s henchmen and Astrid sent me to see it through. I f*cked it up badly . Arnbjorn broke my ribs and sliced my face up pretty good.” He touches the scars on his cheek, three jagged lines left by Astrid’s puppy. He shrugs again. “Worked out though, because now Astrid has Black-Briar connections.”

My brand is still aching with unfathomable pain when my father sits on the edge of my bed, and he stinks of Black-Briar mead. He wipes the tears from my cheeks and treats the wound he left on me with oils and salves meant for burns of a lesser degree. He cradles me against his bare chest and presses his hot mouth into my ear. He apologizes and tells me that he’s afraid to lose me, the way he lost my mother. He knots his fingers in my long hair and begs me to tell him that I love him and that I won’t leave him here by himself. When I do, he beats me for speaking.

My stomach is turning as Veezara continues. “We got credit for a kill here, once. People said it was the Dark Brotherhood, but Astrid knew damn well we didn’t do sh*t. She said that false glory is still glory.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I’m just excited for the food. I could f*ck up some of Keerava’s stew right now. f*ck .”

We enter Riften just before the sun begins to set. We’ve got a few hours of business to attend to, so we won’t be walking back home until well after dark. Veezara goes to the apothecary first to fill his satchel with things for his Cicero, and I nod to tell him I’ll meet him in the Ratway. The thought of my father has made my chest burn and fill with the deep ache that screams for me to inflict pain.

The Ratway entrance is guarded by looters and bandits, and I soothe my ache with blades in bellies. The slice of my blade against flesh, the ooze of dark crimson blood on my gloves when my dagger twists, dulls the pain in my ribcage. But it’s not enough, my stomach still flips and flops at the thought of his hot breath on my neck, his voice in my ear, and I heave onto the ground beside the litter of bodies I’ve left behind in my wake.

Veezara’s unsubtle footsteps approach, and he greets me with a low whistle as he looks around at my mess, then at the swipe of bile on the back of my hand. “sh*t, you could have left some for me, you greedy freak.” He nods to the pile of my vomit. “You sure you’re not the one that’s pregnant?”

I offer him a middle finger, and he laughs, and the sound further soothes my ache. He pulls out a tin of mints from the satchel on his hip to sedate the sh*tty smell of my breath, as he puts it, and I roll a few around in my mouth as I replace my cowl to cover my face. And I feel better. His companionship makes me feel better, much better than the onslaught of dead bodies that I produced.

Veezara gets the amulet appraised. He makes notes on the value and pockets them for Astrid. On the way back to the surface from the gutters below, Veezara gossips about people he knows in the Thieves Guild. We emerge from the Ratway and into the dark of the city. And I can smell fire salts from the forge near the center of the city, in the marketplace. That forge should be unlit, unburning. It should be vacant, as I left it.

“Huh. Must have gotten a new blacksmith.” Veezara mumbles, his eyes following mine to the trail of smoke that rises over the rooftops. “That’s the kill we got credit for, actually. Poor f*cker got gutted, and I mean brutally . I mean, he royally pissed someone off. It was gross.” He hums in thought. “Kind of late to be forging. You hungry?”

I shake my head slowly, watching the creeping line of hovering smoke and listening to the clank of hammer on metal, frozen where I stand, fearful that if I found the corner, my father will be crafting swords and waiting for me to come home to him.

Veezara points over his shoulder to the Bee and Barb. “Want to come with me for supper? Smells f*cking amazing from here. I want Argonian food.” I shake my head and point to the city gate, a silent explanation that I’ll wait for him outside. He shrugs and nudges my shoulder. “Suit yourself. Don’t kill any bandits without me, selfish. Save me one, at least.”

I nod as he slips into the tavern, and I point my focused footsteps toward the marketplace. My father is not at home waiting for me. I tuck myself behind a stall and watch the new blacksmith forge in my childhood home. He’s thin, bald and bearded, his body exhausted as sweat drips from him, hot from looming over the flame of the forge. He looks like my father’s opposite, and that brings me some relief. I listen intently to the sizzle of hot metal being rapidly cooled as he finishes an axe, then stamps the wood handle with the branding poker to mark his work.

My father puffs on his cigar in his chair by the fire in the living room. I sit in the chair beside him and polish the branding poker for him, as he’s requested. My charred skin is stuck to the forge emblem, and that takes extra scrubbing to buff off. He tells me to hurry up so we can go to bed.

When I’m outside of the city gates and down past the stables waiting for Veezara, I tug my glove off and slice my palm. I heal that cut and make another, and another, until I don’t have to think about my father sleeping beside me in my bed sheets, his bare body pressed against mine. Where Veezara is cherishing Cicero’s dry lips pressed into his palms, I shut my eyes and slice blindly into mine, trying to erase the feeling of my fingers entwined with my father’s. Like a never ending f*cking nosebleed, the thought of my father is something I just have to endure, and wipe the blood away after.

I’m tucking my blade into my holster and tugging my glove back on when Veezara finds me, some pastry shoved halfway into his mouth. He talks around a mouthful of food, chewing as he goes. “There you are.” He extends a little brown sack. “I brought you some dinner anyway. Even if you’re not hungry now, maybe later.” He takes another bite as I take the bag. “Have you ever had a pasty? They’re f*cking amazing.”

I take the sack and tuck it into my satchel as we walk. Veezara chatters about what the very nice Argonian lady gossiped to him about. I can still smell the fire salts from the forge, even as we put distance between us and the city.

“You’re being weird.” Veezara says, staring at me curiously as he wipes his hands on his armor. “Everything alright?”

I just stare forward for a few quiet moments. When his look of concern gets the best of me, I sigh and lift my book again, scribbling slower than I normally would, reluctantly truthful with my script. The moonlight above us illuminates the page for him to read.

I grew up in Riften.

Veezara reads my words, rereads them, reads them again. He stops walking, dead in his tracks on this pathway away from the city gates. He’s clutching my book and staring, like he can’t read what I’ve written enough, and occasionally glancing back at the city gates.

He looks down at me when I stop walking too, his eyes sad. “You grew up here.” he says, like he’s repeating my words to make them make sense. I nod slowly, feeling my brows draw together. He hands the book back to me, then runs his hand along my right arm, the same arm he’s seen bare before, where he knows what’s underneath.

Veezara pulls me toward the water surrounding Riften, away from the path back to the sanctuary and under the cover of trees. When we’re by the water’s edge, he takes his hood down so that he can look at me more fully. Following his lead, I remove mine too, along with my cowl, the cool wind of late fall grazing my bare cheeks.

He’s quiet for a while, just looking down at me and out at the water, like he can’t figure out what he wants to say or how he wants to say it. It’s brighter over here, without as many trees. I stand quietly and wait, watching him as he looks down at my handwriting again.

“You grew up here.” he repeats. I nod, not really sure why we’re talking about this over and over again. “It’s hard for you to be here, right?”

I nod again, truly unsure of where he’s going with this.

He tucks my book under his arm and takes my hands in his, squeezing them tenderly. “You can tell me that. I would have gone by myself so you didn’t have to go into the city. I’m sorry that you had to be there today.”

I genuinely don’t understand the apology. Veezara hasn’t done anything to wrong me. He’s the only person that has never, ever done anything to wrong me, so I don’t know why he’s the only one standing before me apologizing. I shake my head, hoping he’ll get that I don’t understand.

He does, and he explains further. “I wouldn’t want to go back to my husband’s home. I wouldn’t want to go back to a place where something awful happened to me.” He squeezes my hands again. “I don’t want you to hurt anymore than you have. Tell me next time so that I can help you.”

Oh. I suddenly, instantly, understand what he’s saying. He’s not sorry that he did something, he’s sorry that he didn’t do more. He’s sorry in a way that only a true friend can be, an empathetic and caring kind of sorry where I can see in his green eyes that he would take the pain from me if he could.

Overwhelmed with the comfort his friendship brings me, I release his hands so I can slip my arms around his stomach, resting my head against the base of his chest and squeezing him gently in a hug. For the first time in a long time, I feel stronger than my father’s voice telling me to remain silent, and I part my lips to speak.

“Thank you.” I say softly into his chest.

At the sound of my quiet voice, Veezara’s arms encircle me, and he hugs me tightly. “You don’t have to say anything else.” he says above me, his voice gentle. Veezara is gentle with me, more gentle than anyone else in this unseeing world has ever been. “I understand.”

He holds me for a few minutes, until my grip loosens around him. He pulls away from me, running his hand down my right arm. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, I nod. I remove my glove and hold my hand out, palm up so he can see the marks that I left on myself at the memory of the mark my father left on me. He cups my hand gently in his so he can inspect the freshly healed scars. He runs his thumb over the length of each of them, from end to end, before he brings my hand to his mouth. He presses a tender kiss into my palm, then rests his cheek in my hand.

“I’m sorry.” he says again, shutting his eyes and pressing my hand to his scaly face. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know how hard it was for you to be here, and I f*cking talked all goddamn day. I should have listened. I’m sorry.”

I shake my head, hoping he’ll understand that it means that he doesn’t have to be sorry, not when his friendship alone helps me more than anything else ever has. He just dips low to kiss my forehead and hugs me again, and I relax into him. I’m receiving a lot of hugs today, a lot of forehead kisses. A few months ago, both would have repulsed me. Today, I feel comforted and grateful to be seen.

As we walk back home, I eat the pasty he brought for me. And it is really good, filled with some warm chicken and sh*t. I get why he likes them. Veezara’s chatter resumes on our journey, and I’m grateful for it. I’m glad that the sh*t I have going on doesn’t change his interest in being friends with me. I’m glad that he sees me as a whole, and not for just my issues.

We arrive back at the sanctuary just before dusk, as Astrid requested. The wind chills me, and I’m actually eager to get inside. I guess there’s a first for f*cking everything.

There is commotion in the main room, and after exchanging a brief look with each other, Veezara and I move toward it. Within the stone walls of our home, others trickle in as we do, eager to know what is going on and watch in on something possibly juicy.

And it’s not so much juicy, but it is disturbing. Cicero is on top of Astrid on the ground, his grip tight around her throat only for a moment before the sheepdog rips him off of her. Arnbjorn slams him into one of the stone posts that keep the ceiling upright, his fist pummeling into Cicero’s face to incapacitate him.

Cicero has his blade out, and he swipes at Arnbjorn in means of self defense. The other and I watch on dumbstruck, mouths hanging agape like mine is below my cowl and staring like f*cking idiots at the fight unfolding before us with no context.

Veezara doesn’t stand still. A good man, a man who jumps in to help, and a man afraid for Cicero to get hurt, stupidly, he inserts himself in the mix. I don’t even have a moment to process that he’s moved in to help before he’s in there, so I don’t have time to stop him. He steps between the two of them and holds back Arnbjorns swinging fist before reaching out to catch Cicero’s wrist and stop his blade.

He misses, and Cicero’s dagger plunges deep into Veezara’s hip. He grunts at the contact and hits the ground, and I’m the only one that understands the horror on Cicero’s bony face when he sees that he’s injured Veezara. And that horror distracts him, like a fool in love.

Arnbjorn snarls as he swipes for Cicero again, and without much other option to protect himself, Cicero flees. Arnbjorn leaves on his heels, the sickening snap of his bones and rip of his flesh echoing off of the stone walls as his lycanthropy overtakes him in the pursuit of the hunt.

We all stand sort of awestruck, unsure of what to do now that Astrid picks herself up off of the ground, Veezara grips his stabbed torso in pain, and the rest of us just f*cking stare, unable to do much else.

Nazir speaks first. “What the f*ck just happened?”

“All of you, return to your contracts, your beds, another room.” Astrid commands, and like magic, everyone backs away obediently but me. I hesitate in as unobvious a way as I can manage, making my steps slower than most so that I can listen in when Astrid’s gaze lingers on the one person wounded in all of this mess. “Veezara,” she calls, and no one but me turns to look. “Let me help you with that injury, brother.”

I can see his reluctance. Astrid doesn’t want to help him with sh*t. She wants to speak to him privately, and I know it just as well as he does. Still, he obeys, and he slinks after her into her chambers.

I’m too nosy for my own good. I have not been able to leave Veezara alone to have a private conversation with Astrid since I discovered that he has them, since long before we became the kind of friends that kiss each other’s wounds and hold hands when no one is able to see us. It’s for that very reason, because I care deeply for him and know that whatever Astrid has planned for him is of ill intent, I do not follow her command. Instead, I wait for the room to clear out and then follow after them, clinging to the wall the way I normally do when they speak in hushed voices beyond the main room.

When they’ve deemed themselves unheard, Veezara speaks quietly to her. “Is Arnbjorn going to kill him?”

Astrid scoffs. “He attacked me and fled the sanctuary. Would you have had Arnbjorn throw him a party , instead?”

“No, of course not.” he says, confused. “But I don’t understand what happened. Why did he attack you?”

“It doesn’t matter why. What matters is that I have been attacked in my own sanctuary, by one of my own. He must be dealt with accordingly.”

“Which…I understand, but why must he be dealt with in this way? Why is this what must become of him?”

She sighs. “You’re a smart man, Veezara. Use your brain. What has become of your other lovers?”

There’s an agonizing pause, long and silent, and then, Veezara speaks. “You know.”

“Do you take me for an imbecile?” There’s another pause, equally long, while she waits for Veezara to respond.

“No.” he says quietly.

“You have been distracted from your work, Veezara. This is what I find every time you f*ck up what I’ve assigned to you. You leave a trail of breadcrumbs for me every time you find yourself involved with a new man.” Astrid hisses, her tone sharp. “All I have to do is follow it, and you lead me right to him.”

“Astrid, please,” Veezara begs, crying audibly. “He hasn’t done anything. He hasn’t done anything but care for me. He doesn’t deserve—”

“ Care for you?” she laughs wickedly, evilly. “Veezara, you are a warm mouth and an easy f*ck to them, they do not care for you.”

“That isn’t true.” he says through his tears. “That is not true. Yes, they do.”

“None of them cared for you.” she says. “None of them really knew you! Do you think they would treat you so tenderly if they knew you were an assassin and a murderer? A cutthroat?”

“Cicero knows, and he cares for me just the same.”

“They distract you from your work. They make you sloppy . You’re unfocused, so I’ve eliminated what is hindering your duty.”

“ Hindering my duty ?” he chokes out. “You’re taking away people I love . You’re harming people who have no fault in anything that’s happened.”

“Their fault is distracting you from your duty, Veezara. We’ve discussed this too many times to repeat it once again.”

Veezara sniffles, and my chest aches for him. I hope in the deepest parts of me that he will say what he thinks instead of letting Astrid walk over him. “So, because the f*cking Penitus Oculatus followed after me, and even though they were eliminated before they posed any danger to the sanctuary, you’re going to kill Cicero.”

“Because you are unable to do what I’ve asked when you crawl into the man’s bed at night, I am having him removed from the sanctuary.” Astrid corrects, high and mighty, as if she has every right to take what she wants from him.

“You can’t just…” Veezara stammers, fighting to breathe. “You can’t just take my relationships from me.”

“And how did it begin , Veezara?” she spits. “The same as it always does. A man pays you a morsel more attention than others and you present your mouth for f*cking. You develop feelings that they do not reciprocate, and then you live in a fantasy land where there are no consequences for your actions because nothing bad happens when you’re in love.” I can almost hear the condescending shake of her head. “It’s vulgar. I’m doing you a favor.”

“A favor .” he laughs hollowly. “Some f*cking favor.”

“If not a favor, then to put you back into your place.”

“You would rid the Dark Brotherhood of the Night Mother’s Keeper to put me back in my place?” he asks, bewildered. “What will the others think of your disruption in our family?”

“Of my disruption?” Astrid laughs, the sound cruel and venomous.

“You’re killing a Dark Brother to punish me! You’re murdering one of our own!” It’s hard to listen to Veezara this distraught, in this much pain. “You’d kill any of us to get your f*cking way. What will they say about you?”

“They will say I was attacked , and my husband protected me. That is what happened, after all. You saw it for yourself.”

“You instigated him! You antagonized him to the point of breaking, what else should he have done?”

“Respected my authority instead of the f*cking dead body he worships.” Astrid spits. “ I am the leader of this sanctuary, make no mistake about that, and the presence, the concept , of the body undermines that.”

Veezara takes a stuttered breath. “You cannot just… decide that I’m not allowed to love. You can’t . It isn’t fair to any of them, to love me and meet their fate for it. Caring for me should not be punishable with death.”

“But you know that it is.” she says. “And yet, you continue to lure them to me.”

“I cannot help who I care for.” he cries pathetically. “I care for him, Astrid. Please, I care for him.”

“Then stop caring!” she hisses. “You were made to kill , and you serve me . My word is law , and you have constantly broken it with childish adoration for love and marriage. You cannot have them! You forget, again , the reason that you were hatched !”

“I am more than why I was hatched, you poisonous bitch.”

There’s a sharp slap when Astrid lifts her arm to backhand him, and suddenly, unthinkingly, I am in the room too. I have Astrid on the ground and we’re fighting for dominance as fists swing between us, arms flying in an attempt to overtake each other.

Veezara is with me, on my side, and he is blocking knuckles that could connect with my jaw, knees that seek to ram into my stomach. In a moment distracted, I lose my sense of direction, and suddenly, Astrid is on her feet and I am on my knees on the floor before both of them as Astrid holds a blade to Veezara’s throat.

He rests on his bent legs, as I do, and he remains still. We stare at each other a moment as Astrid laughs, neither of us daring twitch out of fear that she will slit his throat. And we both know she would do it in an instant. It’s not even a question.

“I see what I’ve missed , now.” she says, genuinely humored at my sudden involvement in this private disagreement. “It wasn’t just Cicero. You have a friend , Veezara.”

He keeps his eyes on me. “Am I not allowed a friend, either? Am I allowed nothing?”

“You are allowed what I assign to you.” she says simply. “And I did not assign you to be her tongue so that you two could have a f*cking tea party together.”

“Are you sad you didn’t get an invite?” he laughs, and the blade presses further into his throat. His hand remains on his hip, where blood still oozes from his untreated wound.

“Shut the hell up.” Astrid says, her eyes locked on me. I look away from Veezara and up at her, and she lifts the corner of her mouth in a sinister smile. “I knew you were trouble from the moment I laid eyes on you, and against my better judgment, I set my worry aside and gave you sanctuary. You have been a hard lesson to learn, but I have learned. I will not make that mistake again.” She tips her head to the side. “But you are a member of my sanctuary now, and you serve me just as your friend does, and you are not allowed any of the luxuries he desires either.”

Astrid shifts her footing, her eyes never moving from me. “Since you desire so desperately to be involved, I’ll let you choose. Veezara’s life, or Cicero’s.”

“Don’t make her do that.” Veezara says sharply, past crying now and into anger. “She should not have to make that choice.”

“ Choose , New Blood.” Astrid reiterates. “Veezara’s life, or Cicero’s.”

A f*cking blade is at Veezara’s neck. He’s my instantaneous choice. I can figure out how to save Cicero for him later. Lifting my arm slowly, I point to Veezara.

“You cannot just kill him.” Veezara says, his voice hollow and vacant, like he’s doing an impression of himself. “He doesn’t deserve to die because of me.”

“Do you hear that, New Blood. I cannot just kill him.” Astrid laughs, and there is no soul in the sound. She laughs the same way my father did when I cried, like my pain was fun for him. I stare, and understanding that there is a game to Astrid, a game that Veezara has failed to play, I nod, like I am obedient. This seems to please her. I cannot tell if it’s a facade, as I put on for her. “Since Veezara says that I cannot, you will follow after my husband and see through the end of Cicero’s life.”

Veezara’s eyes widen, and he stares at me pleadingly. “Don’t. Don’t do it.”

“You’ll do as instructed.” Astrid says, and painful as it is, I look away from Veezara and nod to her again. I can feel that he’s lost, confused. But as he looks at me, though he cries, I can feel that below those outward emotions, he trusts me. I’ve trusted him with my wounds. He trusts me with his. Astrid only sees obedience, and her tight grasp on the knife at Veezara’s throat softens. “There’s a sanctuary in Dawnstar. It’s abandoned. He went there before he came to Falkreath. That’s where he’ll go.”

I stand before the Dawnstar sanctuary, at the black door, and the Night Mother’s jarring voice lets me in. Arnbjorn lays crumpled and unconscious outside, his injuries overcoming him and his body willing him to lay still and recuperate.

This sanctuary is older, almost ancient, and the stagnant air smells like sh*t. I cannot stand the smell of stale air. Open a f*cking door and air the place out or something. The entire area is unbreathing, soundless, and while that would typically bring me some comfort, in the context, it only disturbs me. My pursuit within is silent, as most everything I do is, and I step carefully over broken glass and soot from years ago when the halls were abandoned.

I find Cicero curled up on the ground in a room not far from the entrance. I’ve yet to see him so limp, so weak. The interactions I’ve had with Cicero have always been sort of intimidating, like I’d better not step a toe out of place without his consent. I don’t recognize the Cicero before me. There’s blood everywhere, and his bony face is pale as it drains from his abdomen. Arnbjorn got him good. I’d be shocked if he survived this naturally. He’s too weak to fight, and when I stand over him, his eyes are dark again, emotionless.

“Oh, I knew you’d come. I knew it’d be you. The pretender sent you to end me.” he says hollowly. “What a work of f*cking fiction. It’s not at all what Mother would want. You kill the Keeper, or I kill the Listener. That’s f*cking madness.”

He moans in agony, then laughs to himself, like the sound is funny to him. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now. I cannot bring myself to harm someone Veezara loves, no matter the circ*mstance. I cannot put myself on the same level with Astrid, the pretender.

“Get on with it, worm.” Cicero mutters, spitting blood onto the ground beside him. “We’ve reached a grand finale, and I’ve no fight left.”

Spare me the f*cking dramatics, clown. I heave a sigh and step toward him to assess his wounds.

He shoots upright and hooks his arm around my waist to bring me to the ground. His knees pin my arms down at my side and his hand finds my face, covering my mouth and nose. There’s the Cicero I know, pinning me down so he can speak his piece.

“You’re not very hard to get the upper hand on, Listener.” he says, crushing my face in his grasp. “It’s a wonder you survive when you’re out on your own.”

“You won’t survive out there on your own, sweetheart. Not without me.”

I blink, trying to focus on Cicero’s voice instead of my father’s. It’s becoming more difficult to intake air around his hand, and instinctively, I squirm. I wiggle my arms free to mash against his bloody face and shove against his chest.

“I should have known that you would take the pretender’s side.” he spits around my struggle. “I should have known you’d cast Mother aside. You played me like a f*cking fiddle.”

I didn’t. I just can't part my lips to tell him. I fight his hand on my face when my lungs begin to burn, screeching for air. He’s going to suffocate me if he doesn’t loosen his f*cking grip.

“I guess I respect it.” he continues, an eyebrow raised skeptically as he ignores the struggling flail of my hands as I battle to remove his hand from my air passageways. “I guess I admire it. But I’m f*cking livid about it, nonetheless.”

Panicking, I lift my hand, my pinky extended toward him. He stares at it for a moment, as if it’s a foreign f*cking language and not an exchange we just made a day ago, where I promised to listen to the corpse and he thanked me for saving the man he loves. When it processes, he releases me, and I heave for air. I’ve been f*cking strangled as much as I’ve been hugged and kissed in the last twenty-four hours, which, at this point, feels like a f*cking joke.

He hooks his pinky with mine, squeezing tightly as I pant below him. After a moment of silence, he breaks, crying softly over me and tucking his face into his shoulder to try to conceal it.

“I didn’t want to hurt him.” he stammers, blood dribbling from his dry lips. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. I never would have hurt him. He doesn’t deserve to be hurt.” He wipes his mouth with his gloved hand, smearing blood over his cheeks. “Is he hurt badly? Is he alright?”

Aside from the fact that I’ve been sent to kill you, yeah, he’s fine. I nod, and Cicero blubbers further.

“Does he know that I didn’t mean to hurt him? Does he know that I don’t want him to be hurt?” I nod again, and he only cries further. “I don’t want to hurt him. He’s breakable. I can’t be the one who breaks him. I can’t.”

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, so I just lay beneath him. I stay still and let him get out what he needs to.

“I’m going to die here. I’m f*cking torn up.” he says, looking down at his torso between us. He looks back at me. “You’ll look after Mother. You’ve promised me that, I trust it. But who will look after him ?”

I nod slowly below him, cautiously, and I take his hand and place it over my heart in my chest. I lift my hand again and hold up the same pinky, praying he understands that I’m vowing to protect Veezara too.

He does, and he connects our pinkies again as he sputters. “I don’t want to be alone again. I can’t. I can’t be alone again.”

He’s spiraling, and I know I need to stop him before he spins out of control. I tug the strap between us that has attached my satchel to my body, then pantomime writing. He lifts off of me, slow enough not to further damage his aching body, and I retrieve my notebook and scribble out a message for him.

Will you shut the f*ck up for a minute so I can hear myself think?

Cicero blinks at the pages, then breathes a laugh. “Yes ma’am.”

I pull myself back to my feet and rub my aching face, which will most assuredly bruise. I try to gather my thoughts and figure out what to do. I will not kill him. I wont be a part of the f*cked up game she plays with Veezara’s life. I choose to let Cicero live for Veezara’s sake, because he is so much more than why he was hatched and he deserves a chance to make a choice for himself.

I know what I have to do. I cannot return to the sanctuary whole, or without evidence. I will not be believable if I don’t come back with proof. And I can’t leave him here unhealed. He’ll succumb to his injuries and then all of this will have been for nothing. I suppose if Cicero is going to trust me with his deepest secrets, I will have to trust him with a few of mine, too.

I call upon the yellow light within me and press my hand to his chest to heal his injuries. He stands and watches me, shocked, like a moment ago he was convinced I would really kill him, and now he’s not so sure. His skin tugs closed beneath my palms, and with an audible gasp, his pain is relieved.

I undo the front buttons of his motley and slip his arms out of the sleeves. When the bloody thing is off of him, I toss it into a lump by the door and remove his hat to add to the pile. And he seems to understand. I have to bring back evidence, and his bloody clothing peeled off of him will work just fine.

I sigh and pull my own blade from my hip, passing it to him. When he holds it, perplexed, I lift my arms over my head and stare up at the ceiling, hoping that he’ll understand that I cannot walk back into the sanctuary unharmed when he left Arnbjorn looking the way he did. I have to return severely injured if we’re going to make this believable.

“Oh, sh*t.” he says, twirling the knife in his hand. “You’re thorough. I respect the f*ck out of you right now.”

I’m clutching my bleeding torso when I stand before Astrid again, crimson dripping onto my boots and floor before her when I drop Cicero’s bloody garb in her hands. Her sheepdog stands behind me, just as injured and dripping in the same way I do. I’ve kept the stab wounds Cicero stuck me with unhealed just enough to bleed. My organs are repaired beneath.

Astrid shoves me into the main room of the sanctuary like a poorly behaved child, uncaring of the way my blood drips from my body when she presents me before everyone. They all stand around Veezara, who is finally having his wound treated with some help from Babette and Nazir.

Veezara’s eyes fall on me when I’m before them all, then to my bleeding torso. I can tell he doesn’t know what to make of the way I’ve returned, because it’s very convincing. But he gives nothing away. He just stares at me vacantly, his eyes turning to Astrid, who grips Cicero’s bloody coat and hat. His face falls visibly, and that only riles Astrid further.

“How many times have we vowed that my word is law?” she spits loudly, hoisting the jester motley over her head to show it off.

As Gabriella grabs my elbow and presses linen to my stomach to stop the flow of blood, Veezara inhales deeply through his nose. “Ask her what the law is now.” he suggests in a low voice, and that earns the attention of the room. Veezara is chatty, but never against Astrid. The entire room knows that for him to say something out of line right in front of her, something is truly, deeply wrong.

Astrid laughs in his f*cking face, and she steps forward to snatch the back of his armor and stand him before everyone. “Ask Veezara what the law is now. Allow him to explain.”

There’s a few silent moments before Veezara gives up, his eyes resting back on the floor. “Her word.”

“ My word.” she calls, and she drops Cicero’s motley on the ground before him. Veezara stares down at it, his hands balled into fists at his side. Without explanation, I know that everyone understands what’s happened. “Let this be a lesson to all of you. Let Veezara be the example. My word is law . Do not break it.”

I can see the exact moment that Astrid realizes she’s taken this too far. I can see, quite clearly, the moment that words leave her lips and she longs desperately to suck them back in. The whole sanctuary, the entire coven of cutthroats, stares at Veezara helplessly. And it’s clear that they all feel bad for him. Veezara is a gossip, and occasionally a pest, but he is a gentle man, and everyone knows it. They look back at Astrid, whose fist still grips the back of his armor and holds him out like some sort of prize she’s won for being a c*nt and taking away his affair.

And they stare like she’s a f*cking monster. They all see her for what she truly is, just as I do. A sniveling, fearful child afraid to be dethroned by a dead body, and willing to do anything to eliminate anyone who stands against that.

She sees it, too. She sees the fear in their eyes, and she scowls. She knows that she’s taken it too far, but she cannot take it back. So, she releases Veezara’s armor and retreats to her chamber.

Chapter 6: Death Incarnate

Chapter Text

Veezara has not been himself for the last few weeks. And unsurprisingly so. He’s incredibly wounded, and on top of that, he’s embarrassed to have had his personal business put out on display for the entire sanctuary to see, a mockery made of his deepest pain. He’s been quiet, withdrawn. He hasn’t spoken much.

Neither has the rest of the sanctuary, not out in the open anyway. I have heard their hushed whispers in the sleeping quarters and the halls, out of Astrid’s earshot. But no one speaks to her. No one dares, either too afraid to open their mouths or too appalled to see fit. The sanctuary has turned against her, which is the very thing Astrid was seeking to prevent with her grand display of revealing that she’s a massive bitch.

She, though, has not been particularly quiet. She finds ways to interject into private conversation, she takes her meals at the table in the kitchen. She even walks through the sleeping quarters, as if she just wishes to look in on her children like a parent concerned for their sweet dreams. But it isn’t perceived that way, not the way that Astrid hopes. Her followers are afraid of her, enough to want to follow someone else, anyone else.

And shockingly, they look at me now. Not that I am much in the way of a leader, considering I would rather be left alone and remain unbothered, or that they would ever look to me for guidance. But they have been nice. Very nice, in fact. Much nicer than I have been to them. Astrid’s spectacle that she made of forcing Veezara’s friend to kill his lover to prove a point did not land, and now, Gabriella says hello to me in the halls. Festus asks if the Night Mother has spoken to me. Nazir asks me if there are any contracts that need to be dealt out to Dark Brothers and Sisters. But no one speaks to Astrid.

And Veezara hardly speaks at all, but if he does, he speaks to me. That’s one thing I guess I should be grateful to Astrid for. Her discovering that Veezara likes me has only made it safe for Veezara to trail me at home. He joins me when I revel dutifully before the iron coffin. He rises and wakes when I do, takes his meals at the same time as me. He sits where I sit when I post up and wait for the time to complete a contract to come, and he speaks quietly, only to me.

Astrid has royally f*cked up her reign. She expected everyone to cheer, to drop to their goddamn knees and plead their loyalty when she threw Cicero’s bloody motley before us. She expected us to kick it to the side, to step over it when we passed. Instead, someone unknown to me or Veezara washed the motley and cap, and folded it neatly before laying it on Veezara’s bedside table. An act of respect and apologetics, on behalf of a leader too self absorbed to see how deeply she has cut one of her own, deep enough to sever her tie to all of them.

And no one even knows the f*cking half of it but me. And Arnbjorn, who looks remorseful when Veezara slinks past him. They only know that Astrid ordered Cicero to die when she found out that Veezara cared for him. But they don’t know about his lover in Falkreath, who he ran to for comfort when Astrid’s dog beat him senseless. They don’t know about a man in Markarth that had his throat slit right in front of Veezara, while he begged for his life and told Veezara how much he loved him. They don’t know about Veezara’s husband, who has been described as the deepest love of his life and was used as a pawn in Astrid’s f*cking twisted game played to keep Veezara complacent, too afraid to step out of line.

But I do. I know these things, and I see Astrid for how deep her evil runs, and I do not trust her. I do not think that the moment she realized she went too far, when her coven looked at her in horror and cast their loyalties for her aside, that she took that moment and digested it, processed it and decided to change.

I think that she’s bitter. I think that she’s simmering, watching. She is formulating a plan to rid Veezara of me, the way she does his lovers, because in her eyes, I am worse than any of them were. To her, Veezara’s partners made him sloppy, weak, and distracted. But I have not. I have made him strong, brave enough to tell Astrid that he is more than why he was turned over to her, that he is a living being capable of emotion and she cannot have that part of him too.

This makes me a problem. I'm well aware that I am the sole problem in her sanctuary right now, and she’s seeking a way to eliminate me. But I doubt it will come before we secure the coin for this Emperor contract bullsh*t. I believe I have some time to figure out what she’s planning, and how to catch her in the act and expose her for plotting to kill another one of her own. Until then, I lie low, and I do as I am told.

So, I have traveled with Veezara to kill the gourmet and steal his identity. I have sat in on strategy planning with Astrid and her dog, I have ungrudgingly followed orders set forth by Astrid to maintain the illusion that Veezara and I fear her, that we truly believe her word is law and won’t step against it again. This is what she must believe for us to survive her.

The plan she has crafted for us is f*cking dramatic. Presence over practice, but not performance. What a crock of sh*t. After having killed the gourmet, Veezara is to pose as the gourmet himself and poison some f*cking soup, then feed it to the Emperor in Solitude, sat at a table amongst his allies. Like a tea party for little girls who live in a fantasy land. What a noble death for an Emperor.

Veezara is silent on the journey to Solitude, and I understand why. The last time we journeyed here together was fun, silly. On this exact path, he excitedly shared the humble beginning of him and Cicero, when he was dying to talk about a man who was kind to him, who he saw himself having more with, but would settle for whatever space Cicero made for him.

Things are different now. Terribly different, and I can feel his hurt from where I stand beside him. As we walk, I reach for his hand, clasping it tightly into my own. He looks down at me, smiling half-heartedly.

“I know,” he says softly. “I’m okay.”

I cradle his hand to my chest, resting my head against his upper arm to tell him that I know that isn’t true, and I’m here for him regardless of the truth he wants to share. I’d do anything for him, anything at all.

He breathes a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “I know. I’m sorry I haven’t been very chatty. I know that’s got to be bizarre.”

I release him so I can pull the notebook we share together out and scribble a message for him to read.

I miss your blabbering mouth, yes. But take your time. I understand.

Veezara smiles and looks forward again, shaking his head like sometimes I am just too much for him to deal with. “Blabbering. I do not blabber.” I nudge him a little, and his smile widens. “Much. I do not blabber much. Is that better?”

I write again. Still untrue, but I’ll take what I can get with you.

“Fair enough.” he says, watching the road ahead. We aren’t too much further from Solitude, about a half hour walk. “I have plenty I could talk about, it’s just not particularly positive or funny. I’ll be a downer, and I don’t want to do that to you.”

I shrug and nod him on, just hoping that talking about anything can help him in some way.

“If you got to walk into a room filled with every person you’ve ever known, who would you run to first?” he asks, his voice kind of soft. He doesn’t let me think very long. He’s already prepared his own answer in the time he’s been simmering silently. “I’d run to my husband so fast. I’d run to him and apologize for taking his life from him. All I wanted was to love him, and I loved him so f*cking deeply.”

I nod again so he’ll expand, and he does after he sighs. “I just…I’m beginning to wonder if I am the problem, you know? Maybe Astrid was right. I know what she’ll do to them and I just keep getting on my f*cking knees, like a pea-brained whor*.”

I tug him to a halt. He stands patiently while I scribble. You are not the problem. You never have been.

“Well, it’s my fault that they died. I just wanted to be loved.” he says quietly, staring down at the ground. “I guess I’m lucky to have been loved when I was. I just wish I’d been loved a little longer.”

We continue walking. There is nothing I can write to comfort him, so I don’t try. After a few paces, he speaks some more. “Maybe I should take a page out of your book, you freak. I’ll just…completely turn off and tuck away my interest in romantic relationships. I’d probably be better off for it.”

That, I do respond to, and I press charcoal to paper. It’s not that I’ve turned it off. I just don’t have that in me.

“No interest whatsoever?” he asks skeptically, and I shake my head. “You truly don’t like men or women. You don’t have sex?” I let my lip curl and shake my head again, so that he’ll know that the concept of having sexual intercourse with someone legitimately repulses me. He blinks like I’m crazy. “You’ve never had sex?”

I don’t answer that in any way. I just stare forward, hoping he’ll move on from this so that I don’t have to explain anything deeper than what he already knows about me. I fear his stomach would turn if he knew the truth, the same way that mine does when I think of my father. I couldn’t bear for Veezara to look at me the way that I’ve grown to look at myself.

I’m greeted by the creep of burning bile in my throat threatening to spill at the thoughts I cannot ever escape for very long, the things I am too ashamed of to share with anyone, especially Veezara. I’d rather drown myself in the shallow water that continuously laps at me than tell him that what my father lost when my mother died, he found in me instead.

And it’s repulsive. It’s vile. Of the many torturous things my father did to keep me silent, none of them make me hurt worse than being the object of my father’s affection. I’d take ten more years of his beatings, and his burns, and his brands to prevent myself from ever having been who he wanted to be with when he needed to feel loved instead of feared.

Veezara pauses our steps again, and I realize when he halts that I have reached across my torso to rub my right arm absentmindedly. And he knows what’s underneath. Veezara doesn’t know the full details, but he knows that the pain that I inflict on myself has to do with my childhood, and now, stupidly, he knows it has to do with the questions he’s asked me about relationships and sex.

He stares at me like he wants to help, like he’s dying for a chance to understand me so that he can be who I need him to be. I scold myself for being so careless with my emotions, for being so close to letting Veezara know this horrible truth about me, for almost breathing the filthy words.

“You will not speak until I tell you to, you little sh*t. You won’t breathe a word of this.”

I swallow, fighting to keep him away. Veezara still watches me intently, parting his lips to speak. “Are you okay?”

I nod quickly, violently fast, trying to make this entire situation end.

“You look like you’re going to vomit.” he says, his fingertips brushing my upper arm. “I’m sorry. I don’t want talking to me to be something that hurts you.”

Veezara apologizes more to me than anyone else ever has, more than people who should have apologized to me for one reason or another. I shake my head, and I hope that he knows that it means he has nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m the one who consistently makes this sh*t so weird for him and then doesn't let him understand. But I can’t bring myself to speak, even years after my father has been dead and unable to hurt me for sharing his secrets.

He drops it, thankfully, but he continues his questioning. “So, are you able to love?”

This one isn’t a hard one to explain. I reach for his hand and squeeze it again. He smiles, looking down at me. “Yeah, I love you, too. Thank you, for loving me. You’ve done more for me in a few months than anyone else has in my entire life.”

It feels nice to be loved. It feels nice to be cared for gently, to be loved in a way that is soft. I’m not used to this kind of love where we would both do anything to keep each other safe, to survive this bullsh*t together. It feels really good, amazing, even, to be Veezara’s friend, to be loved by him.

“Do you think…” he stammers as we begin walking again, his browline draw together tightly. “Do you think he’ll still care for me, if we ever find a way back to each other? Do you think he’ll resent me?”

I shake my head, squeezing his hand gently.

“I just worry about what Astrid may have said to him. I worry that…I worry about what he thinks of me now.”

I release his hand and open my book again to write. It takes a few lines for me to scribble out what I want to share with him, and when I finish, I pass it to him to read for himself the only things that Cicero cared about when I spoke to him after he lost his place in the Dark Brotherhood.

He doesn’t deserve to be hurt.

Does he know I didn’t mean to hurt him?

I can’t be the one who breaks him.

Who will look after him?

I don’t want to be alone again.

Veezara is quiet for a few minutes while he reads what I’ve written, rereads what I've written, and puts some context to it. He clutches the book to his chest for a moment, as if my left-handed scrawling on parchment is as close to Cicero as he may ever get again.

“Thank you.” he says as he hands the book back to me. “Thank you for that.”

I write some more and pass him the book again.

You’ve let Astrid think she can control what you feel. Do not give her the power to control what you think.

He nods as I tuck the book away for now. “You’re right. I won’t.”

We’re closer to Solitude now, and things are unsettlingly still. The wind doesn’t blow in the trees, and birds do not chirp in their branches, and the overcast sun does not shine down on us. It’s eerily quiet, so the only sounds out here are Veezara’s heavy ass footsteps and his voice. Solitude is one of the biggest cities in the country. Perhaps the people in this hold are remaining indoors until the Emperor returns home. Or until he doesn’t.

Veezara chatters on around me, oblivious to my curiosity about the quiet. “Nazir told me that Anrbjorn asked him how I was doing. Isn’t that weird?” I nod, because it definitely is. And shady, shady as sh*t. My gut wants me to believe that it was Arnbjorn that washed and folded Cicero’s motley, to apologize for his wife’s behavior by ensuring Veezara could keep just a piece of his lover. The rest of me screeches not to trust him farther than I can throw him. “Yeah, I thought so, too.” He glances down at me, smirking. “Think I should f*ck him to screw with Astrid a little?”

I laugh when he does, and I shove him playfully. Veezara always has some clever ass remark when things get too intense, and I value that.

Veezara sighs and shakes his head. “Nah, can’t do that. Don’t want to add another body to the list. I’d hate for Astrid to lose her husband, too.”

That one is dark, and neither of us laugh. He huffs out a breath. “Sorry, that was in poor taste. I’m just being bitter.” He nods toward the city gates, which are visible now down by the stables. He pats his satchel, which holds his awful costume for impersonating the gourmet today. “Listen, I promise not to fling you off of the city walls today as long as you promise not to make fun of me when I’m playing chef.” I laugh a little, pulling on my hood and cowl. “And you better not distract me around the Penitus Oculatus again. I’m not really in the mood to fight for my life today.”

Suddenly, I understand my unease. There were a dozen Penitus Oculatus on the prowl over the Commander’s son. Why the f*ck aren’t there any cuirasses in sight? They couldn’t possibly schill out enforcers for a low ranking officer and not barrage the city gates for the f*cking Emperor.

I stop walking. I cannot f*cking believe I didn’t see this. I cannot believe I missed this, that I almost let us walk right into a trap, spring loaded and set delicately by the f*cking c*nt that wants rid of us both.

Veezara stops walking too, staring at me with that sad look on his face that’s been plastered there for weeks now. He stares expectantly, hoping I’ll pantomime some explanation for my hesitation, but an unspeaking girl cannot find the will to part her lips and make a sound. With a sigh, Veezara gives up and trudges forward, just ready to get this over with so he can be done with this heinous set of high profile contracts that he just wants to end.

I fight hard to make a sound, a noise. Anything to stop him, but I cannot make a word come out. I’ve been bred not to speak when I know something is wrong, when I don’t want to do something. And now that the one person that I care about the most in this f*cked up, unseeing world is waltzing into Astrid’s carefully constructed ending for him, I cannot make my goddamn vocal cords work.

My silence is my undoing. Just as it has eroded me for years, fueling the power that my father still holds over me, now, my silence holds a deafening power over Veezara. And in so many ways, my father has taken my life from me. I will not let him take Veezara’s, too. My silence is not worth his life, and I will not be the little girl who bites my tongue any longer.

I spring forward to close the distance that Veezara has created between us as he’s moved on without me, and I grip the back of his armor in my fist. He stumbles backwards as I drag him into the stables nearby, and I knock him back into the hay behind one of the horses penned in.

He stares at the horse and covers his nose with the back of his hand, lifting his other hand off of the hay like it’s contaminated. “Are you f*cking kidding me right now? There’s horse sh*t in here.”

I pull my cowl down, meeting his gaze when he looks expectantly at my satchel, awaiting the retrieval of my notebook to jot down some quick notes about what’s going on. I take a breath, and before I can push any words out, I hesitate. The truth hovers just beyond my lips, right at the edge of my f*cking crooked teeth, but I cannot make them come out. I am stronger than I have been before. My voice is stronger than my father’s.

“What the f*ck is going on?” Veezara whines, shifting like he’s going to make a move for the fresh air. I place my hand on his chest and force him to stay put. “Why the f*ck are you making me sit in squalor?”

Finally, I’m able to make words come out. “It’s a set up.”

He blinks, his mouth hanging open in shock. “Why the f*ck are you talking?”

“Shut up and listen to me, Veezara.” I say, and instantly, he obeys. “It’s a set up. Astrid set us up.”

“What are you talking ab—why the f*ck are you talking right now?” he asks, staring in disbelief. “What the f*ck is happening?”

“God dammit, will you f*cking focus?” I ask, shoving him once.

He shakes his head. “I feel like I hit my f*cking head and I’m hallucinating right now.”

I huff sharply in exasperation, taking the hand that covers his nose into my own. “It’s you.” I tell him, clinging desperately to his hand and pressing it to my face. “If I was in the room, with all of the people, I’d run to you.” I take a breath, teary, broken. “I would f*cking sprint to you, and I wouldn’t even look at any other mother f*cker in the room. It’s you. And I don’t want you to get hurt, Veezara. I don’t want to lose you, so you have to listen to me. Please, listen to me.”

His eyes shimmer too, like my words mean more to him than anything else ever could. “I’m listening.”

Grateful for his attention, I take another shaky breath. “Think for a moment. What is distinctly wrong with the world around us right now?”

He winces like it pains him to be funny. “I mean, it smells like sh*t, currently.”

“The guards, Veezara!” I hiss, lifting my head to look around and make sure we are still unseen, unheard. “The Emperor is in the city. Where are the goddamn Penitus Oculatus?”

Finally, he hears me. He lowers his arms, peeking up from over the stall wall and out toward the city. And there isn’t a f*cking soldier in sight.

“They sent a dozen guards after us over Gaius Maro.” I continue, onlooking with him. “Why the f*ck wouldn’t they be lined up at the entrance and screening anyone that approaches?”

“f*ck.” he mumbles, turning back to me and dropping low again. “She did. She set us up. You’re right.”

“I know I’m right.” I whisper. “What do we do now?”

He shakes his head slowly, his eyes roaming aimlessly as if it helps him think. “Well…what would happen if no one arrived, as planned? What will the Penitus Oculatus do if the assassins they’re awaiting to make an attempt on the Emperor’s life never show up?”

“They’ll go after the person who misled them.” I say softly, my jaw clenched as we both realize the ugly truth.

“And she would hand over anyone else in that sanctuary to save herself,” he says. “And then she would find another way to end us. It’s not going to stop, is it? It won’t stop until we’re all f*cking dead or allegiant.”

“It’s not going to stop.” I echo, and he nods. We both understand there is no work around. There is no alternative. Someone is going to die, and I swear, I will not let it be us.

Veezara takes my hand again, clutching it tightly. “We can’t just let her f*cking kill them. We can’t.”

I know he’s right, so I nod, and slowly, we rise from our hiding spot and head for home.

I forged with my father when he thought of me as his daughter. He taught me how to make small daggers, how to tan leather. He showed me how to craft with flame. I am used to looming over the heat of molten fire, used to the intensity of fever from the forge on my cheeks, the beads of sweat on my forehead.

I am not prepared for the intense heat of a sanctuary in flames.

It is too late when we arrive.

Veezara and I have been separated in the chaos, and I cannot f*cking find him.

The deafening crack of bones clacking together fills my head when a fist connects with my face. I stagger backwards and catch my footing, just enough time between me and the enforcer’s sword for me to sidestep and escape being sliced. I bring my dagger forward with my hand when I swipe, splitting the stomach of the enforcer before me and lifting my leg to kick him onto his back. When he’s on the ground, I drop on top of him and ram my blade into his chest.

My dagger is lodged in bone, and I can’t pull it back out. Of f*cking course I can’t pull it back out, when I need it the most. Lifting my hand, I use the telekinetic power within me to crack his ribs and splinter his bones beneath his skin to free my weapon, and I tug it from his ribcage with an audible slosh of blood.

A boot connects with my jaw, and crying out in pain, I fall to the side with a thud. And god dammit, why do I keep getting kicked in the face by Penitus Oculatus mother f*ckers? I clutch my throbbing jaw on the ground, rolling out of the way when the enforcer’s foot swings out again to stomp my chest in.

I pull myself up to my knees and snatch his footing from beneath him, sending him collapsing onto his back and into flame, where his frilly cuirass ignites and roasts him, the sound of his screams louder than the roar of the fire. And it is loud. It is so f*cking loud in here, I can barely form a coherent thought.

I don’t hear footsteps behind me over the flames, and my head is held steady for a moment, enough time to bring a blade to my throat and slice. But I wiggle away with only a f*cking moment before my undoing, just enough time to save my jugular but earn a deep cut, which I lift yellow light to heal immediately. As my skin is tugging back together, the slicing hands grab me again, and I twist myself out of their grasp to duck beneath a swing, and I ram my blade into the enforcer’s thigh. When he buckles, I return the favor he bestowed upon me and slit his throat, too. But I do it the right way, and his blood runs heavy over his chest.

With a spare moment, I scour the space around me frantically for a tall form that would loom over the high flames. I have to find Veezara. I have got to find Veezara in this f*cking mess. I cannot let him fall. Giving up hope in the hall, I head toward the kitchen in search of my friend.

Within, Nazir is cornered against three enforcers, and without a thought, I step in to help him. I’ve come a long way in my time with this coven. I left Veezara to get his ass handed to him by Cicero many months ago. Now, I don’t even blink before I’m helping peel Penitus Oculatus enforcers off of Nazir, who I don’t even particularly like. I’ve got one on the ground and my boot on his neck as I bury my blade deep in the belly of another, which gives Nazir time to end the one closest to him and deliver a final blow to the one below my foot.

He looks over at me, blood smeared on his robes and his face. “You’re alive.” he says simply, nonchalant. “I was beginning to wonder. Thanks for the help.”

I tug my cowl down for some air in this smoke filled room, and this is the first time Nazir has truly seen me.

He doesn’t dwell long, nodding me toward the stairs to the sleeping quarters. I follow, but the sound of struggle distracts me, and I turn to face the room off of the kitchen. I look back at Nazir, contemplating leaving whoever it is to fend for themselves. But I am not who I once was. I will not leave these people to suffer when I am able bodied, not the way that Astrid would.

Cursing myself for getting involved, I slip back into the side room, where an enforcer is on top of Gabriella with his hand up the front of her robes. She is fighting from beneath him, but he has a clear upper hand and she has little capability to save herself from being forcibly groped. Which is repulsive, and I am glad I made this choice. f*ckers like that do not deserve to live.

I step behind him and ram my blade into his throat, and when I pull it out, the crimson flood gives way onto her chest. I shove the enforcer to the side to free her, and I help her to her feet.

She opens her mouth to speak, but before any words come out, the ceiling caves. And f*cking crushes her. In one moment, she is grateful to be alive and in another, she is just sediment below collapsing rock. I fall back out of the way to avoid joining her in the rubble, scrambling on the palms of my hands to get out of the room. And to find Veezara. I have got to find Veezara.

I don’t have to fight very hard to get out, because I’m caught by the shoulders and dragged out by my arms. The sharp slice of rock below me cuts up the back of my legs and torso as I’m snatched out into the main room again. Before I can thrash my legs or try to catch something with my foot, my legs are captured by another enforcer, who renders me defenseless as I’m carried out into the room engulfed in flames.

They sling me to the ground and crawl over me, one’s hand over my mouth and the other prying my blade from my tight grip. Knees weigh down my arms and my legs, my armor is wadded up to keep me pinned down. And I cannot stand this feeling, this utterly helpless feeling of being held down, especially just inches from the roaring fire that is searing my forehead and burning my palms.

In a last attempt to regain some control, I open my mouth wide and bite down hard on the hand on my face, drawing blood and chomping through flesh with my awful teeth. The hand releases me, but three more capture me, and I’m f*cking trapped. Trapped in this f*cking furnace that’s going to incinerate all of us, every last soul in this underground sanctuary.

A monstrously large figure appears above me, and the horror on my face must tip off the enforcers seeking to end my life, because they all turn to look along with me. The wolf version of Arnbjorn swings an arm out and knocks two of them away from me, plucking the third off and tearing his arms from his torso, his legs from his hips, tossing what’s left of him into the fire surrounding us. And I watch on in terror as blood rains down on me, unable to move lest I be engulfed in flame myself.

He picks off the other two in the same fashion, tearing limb from goddamn limb and showering me in pieces of flesh. When he’s satisfied, he’s unable to show it, because a great sword rams through his back and pops out through his gut above me. In an instant, Arnbjorn’s fur falls away from his body and he shifts back into the version of him I recognize, limp and lifeless as he falls forward onto me.

It’s a struggle to pull myself out from underneath him. I barely made the cut for normal adult height, and Arnbjorn is massive, and f*cking heavy. Telekinetic force has to assist, because I am not about to die underneath Arnbjorn, of all people. By the time I’m on my feet, another Penitus Oculatus enforcer is pursuing me. And I’m f*cking exhausted. This sh*t is exhausting.

I swoop down to scoop up a makeshift weapon, just something to defend myself, and I lift a sword to block a blow when it’s swung down upon me. I’m not good with swords. I don’t like having both of my hands preoccupy a single thing that’s too heavy for me to wield with one. My swings are sloppy, unpracticed. Worthless, as I am in this fight with my legs and arms as weak as they are in this heat that’s beginning to suffocate me. The heat is all I can feel, on every part of me. It’s starting to burn my f*cking flesh, this heat.

I don’t have to fight for long. Nazir steps in to help me, and nearly in sync, he slices open the enforcer, and the enforcer slices him. They both fall, in unison, unbreathing.

And I’m f*cking alone here. I’m by myself in a burning sanctuary that I was forced to join to begin with. This goddamn sanctuary is falling, audibly falling with the crinkle and crack of the ceiling above, and it’s going to take me down with it.

I can’t even bring myself to care about being crushed, because the scorching warmth is overwhelming. After a few swats, I realize that the heat that’s encasing me is not just from the room around me, as I thought it was. I’m in flames. My armor is on fire. I’m going to burn with the rest.

Another person slams into me, flinging us both into the water below the shrine of Sithis to extinguish the flames that have engulfed us. And I cannot f*cking swim. In a sanctuary burning, my useless ass is going to f*cking drown. But I don’t. The lanky form that has saved me plunges me deep into the water with him to spare me from melting and then lugs me back to the surface to breathe. I’m coughing and sputtering above water, clinging to Veezara as my feet dangle helplessly, too short to stand.

He holds me tightly to him, our burnt armor flaking away in the water. The roar of the flames is deafening, and he has to shout for me to hear him. “Are you hurt?”

I shake my head as a creak sounds out above us, and we look up just in time to see the glass of the shrine above us shatter, the Night Mother’s coffin falling down toward us. Veezara cradles my head to his chest and drops us deep into the water again, a literal breath before the coffin breaks the water’s surface and pins us to the bottom. Veezara is trapped beneath the Night Mother, and I am trapped beneath him as he fights to free his legs from the heavy weight of the corpse’s chamber.

I cannot swim. I cannot f*cking swim, and I am drowning. Veezara is bred to be okay underwater, to hold his breath for much longer than I can, and though he’s struggling to free us, he is not drowning. I can see the fear and worry in his eyes through the cloudy water between us. I can see that he’s panicking for me, that he knows I’m far less likely to survive this than him, that he’s desperate to save us both. He is trying to dig our legs out when my screeching lungs take my consciousness.

Suddenly, I am coughing and wheezing, sprawled out on the scorched ground beside the water. Veezara cups my face in his hands, relief on his brow when I look at him. “f*ck, are you okay?”

I just can’t f*cking breathe. He lugs me forward to sit up so that I can expel the water from my lungs properly, patting my back as I choke up disgusting water into what’s left of the lap of my armor.

“You’re okay.” he says, more to himself than to me as he smooths his hand over my wet hair. “You’re okay. We’re okay.” He wraps his arms around me and hugs me tightly against him. We spend a few minutes just like this while I pant against him, trying hard to catch my breath.

Everyone is dead. We don’t have to speak to each other to know with most certainty that everyone we know is dead. Burnt alive if they weren’t forcibly eliminated by the Penitus Oculatus. And it isn’t safe here anymore, not for the two remaining cutthroats whose location is very known to the enforcers.

Bodies litter the room, and our coven is mixed in with them. Babette’s little legs stick out from beneath the body of an infiltrating guard. What’s left of Nazir is not far beyond. And I’d be dead too, smoldering with the rest of the corpses if Veezara had not valued my life over the others, if he had not been searching for me in the burning rubble, if he had not protected me from the crushing blow of the Night Mother’s coffin.

It bobs in the water, taking in liquid and sinking slowly, the way that we would have if Veezara wasn’t a good swimmer. When I’m able to get up and move again, we drag the dead bitch out and drain the water from her iron tomb.

We both stand before her and hope for some sort of guidance on what the f*ck we’re supposed to do now, our armor burnt away to expose our chests and arms, our lower legs. We match this way, and in a dozen others. Our matching Cicero stab wounds decorate our torsos, the dark scars exposed as our armor renders them visible. There’s a moment spent just staring at each other, taking in just how f*cked up we both look and how lucky we are to have survived. How lucky I am to have him. How lucky I am to be looked after by him.

And when her doors are open, the Night Mother lets me know that she’s okay, too. She speaks still, and her grating voice places one bitter-tone sentence in my temple. And it is not a request. It is not just relaying information. It is an order, laced with malice and specific intent that doesn’t need to be spoken for me to understand.

As I stare up at her and absorb her words, Veezara nudges me. “What is she saying?”

I look up at him now, my voice low. “Astrid lives. She’s still here, in the sanctuary.”

We have to climb through rubble, and debris, and soot, and bodies to find her. We have to drag our way through her wreckage to get to her. Astrid hunches over Arnbjorn’s body, a bare and broken lump on the ground. And had it not been for him, it would be me in his place, and Astrid would not be on the ground weeping over me, nor any of the others. Not a single f*cking one of us would she mourn for but her husband.

She hears Veezara’s ever-stomping footsteps, and she looks up at us, eyes shimmering and cheeks streaked. “By Sithis, you lived. You’re alive. I thought that it was only me.”

“We wouldn’t have lived,” Veezara says softly, sort of like he’s in shock at the sight of her crying and hasn’t yet processed what’s happening. “If we hadn’t figured out that you sent us to die.”

She nods, like she doesn’t have the energy to stand her ground and defend her vindictiveness. “I’m sorry.”

We both stare, equally perplexed by the words. Never did I ever envision standing before the pretender and hearing an apology. Not in a million f*cking years, yet here I am, beside Veezara, standing in what’s left of my armor after Astrid’s flames left it in shreds, listening to her apologize.

Veezara is just as shocked, and he shakes his head. “For which part?”

“For all of it. For…” Astrid takes a breath that stutters on the way down her windpipe. “The Penitus Oculatus…Maro…he said that by giving you to them, he’d leave the Dark Brotherhood alone. Forever.”

“And you bought that?” Veezara asks, his voice level. “You believed him.”

“I was a fool.” she says, shaking her head. “I was such a f*cking fool.” There’s a silent moment where we all just stare at each other, Astrid’s hand on her husband’s unbreathing chest. She takes another breath and continues. “You’re the best of us, Veezara, and I tried to kill you. Just as I killed everyone else. I killed them.”

“I wish I could tell you that I’m surprised,” he says. “I wish I could say that I’m shocked. I am not.”

“I just wanted things to stay the way they were.” Astrid stammers, crying still. “Before Cicero, before the Night Mother. Before…” She gestures haphazardly to me, like I’m a whiny buzzing bug that’s been pestering her all damn day. “Before her.”

“So you sent us to be executed?” Veezara asks, disbelief coating his words. “You walked us to our death so things could remain as they were.”

“I thought I could save us.” she corrects. And there’s that venomous tone I recognize, like she’s never wrong, like her word is law. Her tone softens as she continues. “But I was wrong. I was so f*cking wrong. I see that now.”

Veezara and I just stand. We just stare. We stand in the ruin of her actions, in a sanctuary in f*cking ashes because she just couldn’t be wrong. We stare at a goddamn traitor, who murdered her chosen family so she could be right. And she stares back, unable to muster anything else to justify her actions when her husband’s corpse rests below her palm.

Veezara wipes his running nose with the back of his scaly hand. He sniffles, trying to keep his wits about him. “What are we to do now? Everyone is dead.”

“Not everyone.” Astrid says quietly. And I can feel the tension between me and Veezara thickening, because neither of us can believe she has the nerve to rest on her knees before the bones of her coven and rationalize that not all perished. “Not everyone. You both are alive, and so am I. There’s still…a chance.”

“A chance for what?” Veezara demands, his anger overtaking him. “They’re all f*cking dead!”

Astrid remains calm, unsettlingly calm. “A chance to rebuild. A chance to…reform our numbers and try again. There is still an opportunity for me to lead the right way.”

“You think either of us would follow you now?” he asks, his lip curling at the thought. “Setting aside anything before, you think that we would look to you for leadership and instruction, when your decisions would lead us to our f*cking graves?”

“It was a poor decision.” she says, glancing at me. “I’ve made many of those over the last year. I regret them. That does not mean that I cannot change.”

“You…” Veezara tries, too stunned by her words to speak at first. He gets there after a moment. “This isn’t some…simple mistake. It’s not like you coordinated a job poorly or mistook someone’s name. They are dead. You killed our entire family.”

“And I regret it. I would stand before the Night Mother and offer penance. I would beg for forgiveness. I was wrong, I am wrong, I know this. I voluntarily submit to the punishment seen fit.”

Straightening, Veezara looks down at me. “Listener,” he begins, a subtle acknowledgment that I am the authority he will look to. “What punishment do you see fit?”

Astrid stares, and she has the audacity to laugh. She has never seen my role in the Dark Brotherhood as commendable. She has never seen me as important. She has seen me as a thorn in the f*cking foot that she holds to Veezara’s neck to keep him complacent. She sees me as a problem, not a person, and most assuredly not an asset. I straighten too, lifting an eyebrow as I stare down at her, unsmiling, unapologetic.

Veezara understands, as he does with everything else I say silently. He steps toward Astrid, outstretching his arm as if to take her hand. When she clasps her palm into his, he snatches her forward and turns her to face away from him. His hand balls her blonde hair in a wad in his closed fist, his dagger at her throat. And for the first time in a long time, Astrid is speechless. She’s f*cking silent, silent enough to go up against me. I step slowly to round my stance out, to stand before her, my hands folded simply behind my back.

Finally, defenseless, Astrid breathes a pitiful laugh. She raises her hands in surrender at a snail’s pace, sarcastically, even, like she’s inconvenienced to be at the receiving end of Veezara’s blade.

“So, this is what we’re doing, huh?” she asks around her laughter, and I let my head drop lazily to the side, like I don’t understand, so she’ll explain further. She sighs as her laughter subsides. “Sure. I’ll tell you that you were right. You both were right. The f*cking clown was right. The Old Ways…they guided the Dark Brotherhood for centuries. I was a fool to oppose them.”

Slowly, I shake my head, furrowing my brows for her like I don’t know what she’s on about.

She falters, then huffs, nodding below Veezara’s tight grip. “Alright. Yes, I submit to your leadership. You lead this family now.”

Shaking my head again, I let a smile form. The bitch thinks we’re seeking repentance for her sins. She’s too blinded by her pride to see that we are not threatening her life, we are taking it.

Veezara can’t suppress a laugh, wicked and quiet. “What family is left, Astrid? What family is there to seek patronage from?”

“The three of us.” she says, confused, like she still does not understand. To help her get the picture I lift my hand, holding up just two fingers. Finally, she gets there. “You’re saying…you…”

“Any last words?” Veezara asks, his dagger pressing further to her throat. “A luxury you did not grant anyone else.”

“I will spend the entirety of my existence repaying the Dark Brotherhood.” she cries, a helpless child now before us. A sniveling, fearful child. Just as she always has been. “I will serve faithfully. I will serve loyally.”

“Faithfully.” Veezara laughs, shaking his head. “Loyally, she says. Because she has proven herself to be so loyal.”

“Please,” Astrid weeps helplessly, her eyes on Arnbjorn’s unmoving body in the corner. “Please, Veezara. Please.”

She’s a f*cking loon. She’s a hypocrite, as well as just a c*nt without any sense. It’s fathomless, the gall it takes to rest before Veezara and beg for his empathy because her husband is dead. I can see in his eyes he feels the same way. I can see there is no sympathy, not when in the tally of lost lovers, it is because of her that he is far outranking.

“Please,” she continues, snot running from her nose and fat tears from her eyes, as if her word wasn’t law hours ago. “Please, I am begging for your mercy. I’m begging for forgiveness.”

“It is not my forgiveness you should beg for, because you’ll never have that.” Veezara explains. “And you do not have my mercy. But I serve the Listener.” He stands firm, still, awaiting my instruction.

I watch Astrid, whose eyes are planted on the floor before me, awaiting my forbearance, my compassion. I have none for her, none at all. Not when she has endlessly shown who she truly is. I take a step forward, dip down to put my face level with hers.

“Dearest brother,” I say, mocking Astrid’s inflection, and her head whips toward me, shocked by my ability to speak. “It seems that Astrid has forgotten the reason you were hatched. Perhaps you can remind her.”

Astrid’s eyes widen in horror, still locked on mine when Veezara grips his blade at her throat, drawing a quick, clean slit.

Chapter 7: The Dark Brotherhood Forever

Notes:

hi! there is a time jump at the page break, it’s like a year and some change after the first part.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Astrid is dead.”

“It is as it should be.”

“May she find redemption in the Void.”

Apparently, this bullsh*t contract is still on, even after everything we’ve just f*cking been through. We are still to travel to the Bannered Mare to speak to Amaund Motierre and figure out what he wants us to do now that Astrid has f*cked our sanctuary and killed our family. And I f*cking hate Whiterun, almost as much as I hate Amaund Motierre. And I hate Amaund Motierre, almost as much as I hate the traitorous bitch that burnt the sanctuary. And I hate that traitorous bitch, almost as much as I hate this f*cking situation, and the dead bitch in the back of the wagon, and goddamn Dark Brotherhood.

But I don’t truly hate the Dark Brotherhood. I cannot hate the Dark Brotherhood when it brought me purpose and gave me Veezara, who struggles to steer the undead-horse-drawn wagon we’ve settled ourselves into. He’s never driven one before, which I think is completely normal considering his occupation. But bless him, he’s trying, and we’ve made it to the outskirts of the Pale. There is only about a day’s worth left of travel before we arrive in Dawnstar.

Giving in for the night, Veezara pulls us off of the path and under the cover of trees to settle in for the evening. And that’s probably for the best, since we have not slept in days, since before we left for Solitude nearly a week ago, and we’re fighting to remain upright. With the constant travel and battle in a burning sanctuary, we’re both exhausted beyond description.

We have not spoken much. There hasn’t been much to say. We’ve been taking turns on watch, in our own unspoken way, but neither of us sleeps. I can tell it’s beginning to wear in Veezara, and I nod him toward the back of the wagon in the space between wood and the Night Mother’s coffin, urging him to lay down and rest.

He does climb over the seat and get comfortable, but he outstretches his arm for me to join him. And it’s tempting. It’s f*cking cold out here, and we are wearing just the scraps of armor. Veezara’s legs are truly more exposed than his arms, and though most of my legs are covered, the grotesque skin of my arms is completely visible. I decide not to take the offer, shaking my head and turning back to keep watch while he rests.

“Don’t be so goddamn proud. Impossibly stubborn, part-time mute girl.” he mumbles, and at the jab, I glance back to look at him again. “Just come sit with me. I can see you shivering.”

At his words, I realize how I shake, even with my arms folded the way that they are to shield me from the icy breeze in the air. Sighing, I step over the seat of the wagon and into the back with him. We sit stoically for a few minutes, but eventually, Veezara tugs me into his warmth. He wraps his arms around me and drapes the ratty blanket in the back over us.

And I relax. I rest my head against his shoulder and curl myself into his chest. I feel safe with Veezara. Safer than I ever have with anyone else. He runs his hands along my disgusting arms in an attempt to warm me up. He presses his cheek into my cold forehead, hot exhale from his nose ghosting my freezing cheeks.

“Are you okay?” I ask into his neck.

He takes a breath, stalling. “I’m in shock, a little bit, I think. I don’t know that I’ve truly…processed any of it.”

“Me either.” I whisper, and it’s unsettlingly true. It’s hard to think that just a week ago, everyone was alive and living in unspoken tension. It’s difficult to wrap my mind around. “I’m sorry they died.”

He nods. Veezara understands what I mean when I don’t say it, even now that I speak. They were his family more than mine. He grieves for them in a way that I do not, a way I never will. “Thank you.” he says, his lips brushing my forehead. “I’m sorry, too. I nearly drowned you.”

I fight a smile, which is so inappropriate in this situation. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Thankfully, he breathes a laugh and squeezes me tighter. “Yeah, I guess not, huh?”

“You saved me.” I correct, completely at ease against his warm chest. “I would have burnt with the rest. Thank you.”

“Yeah.” he says, smoothing his hands over my forearms. His fingers spend extra time grazing the ridges of my scarred right arm, like if he touches them long enough, he’ll be able to understand why I’ve tortured myself this way. Even after everything that’s happened, he still desperately longs to understand me, to help me through my pain and make some sense of it.

When he grows tired of the raised lines of new skin on my right arm, his hand moves to my left arm. His thumb traces the shape of the brand left on me, which has been visible to him for the first time since he’s known me. He’s never seen this awful part of me. I’ve never let him. I have caught his eyes on my bare skin several times over the last few days, uncovered by what’s left of my armor. I can see how badly he wants to ask, to know. There is never any judgment in his eyes, only concern. And I used to think that was far, far worse than judgment, but I know now how deeply Veezara cares for me. His concern is like a touch that I’ve been starved for my entire life.

“The Scorched Hammer.” Veezara says quietly, his thumb ever moving on the emblem of my father’s business burnt into my flesh. “The blacksmith’s shop, in Riften.”

I can’t bring my voice to be louder than a whisper, but I respond. “Yes.”

Veezara’s hand moves to the burns along my collarbone that he’s seen before, little circular divots from my father’s cigars and latticing lines from metal picks he stuck me with when I made him angry. Veezara grazes them tenderly, like he’s afraid for me to hurt any more than I already have.

“You grew up in Riften.” he says, cautiously, like he’s worried I’ll unravel.

I nod against him. “Yes.”

“You killed him.” Veezara says, his fingers finding the brand again. “It was you. You killed the blacksmith in Riften.”

It takes me a few moments to make my voice work, to be able to utter the words I never have to anyone else. “I killed my father.”

Veezara nods, and he holds me tighter. “Is he why you didn’t speak?”

Like a child forever trapped in my grown body, my response is infantile. “He didn’t want me to tell.”

That's not really an answer, but as always, Veezara knows what I’m trying to say to him without having to hear it. He cradles me into his chest, like he would take all of it from me if he could. “You don’t have to tell. I won’t make you. But if you decide you want to, I’m listening. Whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you.” I breathe, shutting my eyes.

“Yeah.” he whispers back to me, his arms tight around me. “And you don’t have to speak any more than you have, if you don’t want that either. You don’t have to say anything at all. That won’t stop me from listening.”

I appreciate Veezara more than I’ll ever be able to make him understand. I lift my head so I can face him, so I can see his gentle eyes as I speak. “I want to speak. I don’t want to be silent anymore.”

He nods again, smiling encouragingly. “Okay.” he says softly. “Well…what do you want to say?”

The corner of my mouth lifts in a half-hearted grin. “Thank you. You’re the only person that has ever cared about what I want. Thank you for that.”

Veezara cups the side of my face, his eyes shimmering the way mine do. “I care very deeply about what you want. Always tell me. Okay?”

“Okay.” I say, nodding along with him. “Can I tell you something I don’t want?”

His browline draws together, intense concern weaving into his scaly features. “Yes. Absolutely. What is it?”

My smile widens, my f*cked up, crooked teeth showing. “ Please stop describing Cicero’s dick to me. At this point, I feel like I’ve seen the damn thing myself. I do not want to imagine him like that, you sick f*ck.”

Finally, after ages of lingering tension from the past week’s events, Veezara lets loose one of his wicked cackles, like nothing has ever been funnier to him in his entire life. He drops his head to my shoulder, like he’s laughing too hard to control his neck and keep his head upright. And it feels good, to know that things can remain just as they have been between me and Veezara, that after all of this, we can still be best friends.

He lifts his head and wipes at the moisture under his eyes. “Oh, f*ck. You f*cking kill me. That’s so funny.” He sniffs deeply and sighs, like he needed that laugh more than he needed any other sort of relief. “My bad, alright? You have my word. No more Cicero dick for you.”

“Much appreciated.” I say, grinning stupidly at his familiar smile. I take his hand into mine and squeeze. “Are you excited to see him?”

He tips his head from side to side. “I’m nervous.” he explains with an awkward laugh. “I’ve never…been able to freely exist. I’ve never been able to…not worry about Astrid finding out who I’m with.” He shrugs. “It’ll be nice, if he even wants me anymore.”

“He will.” I assure him. “I’m certain he feels for you what you do for him. I know it.”

“That may have changed.” Veezara says timidly, like he’s fearful that saying it any louder will make it true. “My punishment took him from the Night Mother. Being with me took him from his duty and sentenced him to solitude, and I know how hard that is for him, after everything.”

“He’ll understand.” I say, and I believe that in my core. “Things will work themselves out, Veezara. You don’t have to worry the way that you do.”

He sighs, shaking his head. “But what if…I’m right to worry? What if he loathes me, or resents me? What if everything we…found in each other was for nothing?”

I press his palm to my cheek, smiling softly. “Then you will not be unloved.” I tell him. “You will still be very, very loved.”

He pulls me back into his chest, hugging me tightly. “So will you.” His hand cradles the back of my head, his touch gentle and caring. “I meant it, you know. With Astrid, before. The Dark Brotherhood, or what’s f*cking left of us, serves you now.”

“Gross.” I sigh, shaking my head. “None of that my-word-is-law bullsh*t, okay? No thanks.”

“No, none of that.” he laughs, and I lift my head to look at him again. He squeezes my arms, my shoulders, all endearingly, and kind. “And you won’t have to do any of it alone. I’ll still be your tongue, you f*cking freak.”

We exchange a smile, a nod, and I feel relieved to be doing this with him. To be doing all of this with him. “Tonight, we will rest. Tomorrow, we will reunite the Keeper with the Night Mother.” I say, and Veezara nods.

“What about after that?”

“We’ll go talked to that f*cking Motierre.” I grumble, resting my head on Veezara’s shoulder. “But for now, let’s just rest. I’m so goddamn tired.”

Veezara yawns. “Me, too.” he says quietly against my forehead, and after many long days, I finally shut my eyes.

In the morning, we finish our journey to Dawnstar. Just after midday, we arrive at our new sanctuary, where I left Cicero what feels like ages ago, at this point. And for midday, it is stupidly cold. It’s f*cking freezing. Light snow dusts our bare shoulders and the top of our heads. In the off chance the Night Mother can hear me, I silently pray for new armor within so that I do not have to continue to brave the f*cking snow, which I am assuredly not used to.

For a dead body, essentially just bones at this point, the Night Mother is a pain in the ass to unload from the wagon and stand upright inside. In fact, we’re so preoccupied by our dragging and grunting that we don’t realize we have an audience until we’ve finished toting her inside.

Cicero stands at the top of the stairs, his eyes locked on me. For a few moments, we just glare at each other, like we’ve got to learn how to interact again, like Cicero isn’t sure how to be around anyone anymore. And I can smell the skooma dribbling from his pores from over here, the scent is so goddamn strong. I’d forgotten how he copes with silence and solitude, by drowning himself in whatever poison he can bring to his lips. He blinks, like he isn’t really sure what to do, or say, or if he even believes that we’re really here.

But instead of any other way I could react, I only offer him a solemn nod. He returns it, his eyes somber as they fall on the iron coffin he fought for years to keep safe and secure. When he looks back at me, at long last, I’ve earned a genuine smile from the real Cicero, an actual, true smile that is his only expression of gratitude. For keeping the promises I made to him, to protect his mother, to protect Veezara, both of whom have been returned to his dutiful watch and possession.

When Cicero’s eyes finally rest on Veezara, who sits slumped, exhausted, in the chair he’s chosen to rest in, his genuine smile sort of fades. It’s clear that he worries the same way Veezara does, that perhaps their feelings for each other are no longer reciprocated, or they’ve outgrown each other, or there is no longer appeal. There’s a moment where they both just f*cking stare, because there is plenty unspoken between the two of them, and not enough words to sound it all out.

But Cicero steps forward still, closes the distance between them, and smooths his hand over the top of Veezara’s head. Even from here, I can see the tears shimmering in Veezara’s eyes, like he has truly realized that finally, he can be with anyone he wants, completely free of worry that Astrid may find out and take this love from him, too. Unapologetically, shamelessly, when Cicero pulls Veezara’s head into his chest to cradle him gently, lovingly. Cicero’s touch is kind, tender, loving. And that is exactly what Veezara has longed for all this time. It’s exactly what he deserves, to be treated gently, as he treats everyone else. After what feels like ages, Veezara shuts his eyes and exhales, allowing himself to be comforted.

Admittedly, I am not a very good leader. I don’t really do what I’m supposed to do. Like this morning, after I swore I would be up to ensure the timely relaying of contracts, I slept in. The Night Mother would have been wise to choose someone else to be her voice, because even after what’s close to two years of being her tongue, I still rise in the late morning thinking this is sort of bullsh*t.

Even a year after we’ve seen through to the assasination of the Emperor, I can find reason to bitch. Even after all of the coin, putting it to use, and settling into a quiet life in Dawnstar, I can find reason to be unhappy and bitter. I guess that is sort of my thing, gripe but endure, endure but gripe.

And this morning, f*ck, I could gripe about how cold it is in this goddamn sanctuary, in my entire room. I lug myself out of bed to shuffle toward my dresser and fish out my armor and something warm to put over it. My room wouldn’t be so cold if Cicero would do as he’s said he would and patch the fallen stone in my wall to close up the holes that let in the cold air, but he has not followed through on his end of that deal. And I know exactly what he’ll say if I ask, that if I’d get up earlier, he would be able to find time in his ever so busy schedule to patch the holes in my bedroom wall. As if his whole job isn’t to sit around and oil a goddamn corpse, who sits around and waits to be oiled and yap in my ear. He’s got the time, he’s just being an ass.

Veezara usually comes down to my room to wake me when I sleep this late. I expect to see him soon, so I tug open my dresser drawers and begin pulling things out, my armor, an undershirt, two pairs of socks, a sweater that I took from Cicero’s closet, boots I stole from Cicero’s bedroom. It’s not my fault that we wear the same size in most everything, clothes and shoes. I’d steal clothes from Veezara if they would at all fit, but Veezara is almost two feet taller than both of us, with giant, stomping feet to match.

I take a moment to look at myself in the mirror. I’ve gained a little bit of weight in my face. Nothing unhealthy, just enough to make my cheeks less hollow and my round face fuller. I look normal, for the first time in my entire life. I had to become the technical leader of a religious cult of assassins to look healthy, which sort of feels like the wrong way around to me, but I guess it’s okay. Aside from that, I don’t feel like I’ve changed much. My teeth are still awful, my eyes look the same, my lip still curls into a grimace that displays to everyone how little I have interest in being here. But I’m here, and I have purpose, so I’m not going anywhere.

My hair has grown out over the time since Veezara cut it last, too, and it stretches past my ears and down the back of my neck. I haven’t let it get this long without a crude chop in years, not since I cut all of my long hair off the first time that I did. It’s nowhere near long, not even long enough to be considered medium-length. But it is long. Long enough for me not to feel like myself when I look in the mirror. Long enough for me to be able to see the little girl who has her father’s fingers tangled in her hair at night, the little girl who can’t escape from underneath the weight of him.

And that’s what I feel now, the crushing memory of my father’s mouth on my throat and his calloused fingers knotting in my hair is suffocating me. His hot breath on my neck, his voice in my ear, his heavy weight on top of me. I could get away with crying when I was younger, but at fourteen, Daddy says I’m old enough to like it. He pulls on my hair, painfully, until I tell him what he wants to hear, that this feels good, that I like it, that I love him. And I have to sigh, and pant, and moan, and make a show of convincing him that all of those things are true because he beats me when I show I don’t like any of this, that I don’t want it and never have.

I grit my teeth and run my hands up into it, gripping chunks and pulling sharply so that I can feel my fingers in my hair, and not his, but it’s for nothing. All I can feel now is that I cannot breathe beneath him again and my hair is only going to help him hold me down. And his belt on my back. And his cigars ashed on my thighs. And his tongue on my skin.

And suddenly, I’m unraveling in front of the mirror. I can’t bear to look at the little girl trapped beneath her father. I can’t stand to see her when I look at myself, not when she should have done more to get away from him, to get help, to tell someone. I can’t keep from getting sick to my stomach thinking about how much more she could have done to stop him.

“Good girl. You’ve made Daddy feel much better.”

I long desperately to make the sound of his voice go away, and I pull my blade from my holster on top of the dresser and get to slashing. I drag several short and sweet slices in my flesh that do literally nothing to help me feel better, so I dig deeper. I press my dagger firmly to my skin and stick the blade up under my skin, pulling sharply, quickly. I swipe at my arm until his voice stops, until I’m a bloody f*cking mess, and that doesn’t take away the feeling of being held down. It’s my f*cking hair, and it has to go.

My arm dripping blood onto the stone floor, I lift the messy blade to the top of my head and grip a wad of hair to slice. Before I can chop it, Veezara’s gentle hands catch my wrists and stop me, shushing me softly and waiting for me to process his presence before taking the knife from my hand. He cradles my bleeding forearm, his eyes on mine in the mirror.

“You’re okay.” he assures, nodding slowly and waiting for me to nod along with him.

I’m fighting to breathe normally, gasping for air around the smothering weight of my father. Veezara’s free hand wipes tears from my burning cheeks, and the touch of his cool skin works wonders in helping calm me. “You’re okay. You’ve got to heal it.” he says softly, tenderly, because I know that he wants to help. Veezara is the only person that I know for certain just wants to make me feel safe. “You have to heal it so that I can help you. I want to help you.”

I follow instruction, and yellow light tugs my skin closed beneath the flow of crimson, which halts abruptly. Veezara reaches into my washbasin for a rag and tenderly wipes away blood. Even though he knows my skin is healed and my arm does not hurt now, as I stand before him and fight to breathe around the way that I am crying, like the helpless child I am underneath my bitter mask, he’s cautious with the cloth to ensure he is not someone who hurts me.

When the washbasin is ruined and my arm shows him that I’m no longer bleeding, he looks back at my reflection. “What is it? What hurts?”

I sob before him, gripping my growing hair to explain to him without words that I’ve got to get rid of it, I can’t breathe with my hair this long. Immediately, he understands, and he takes shears from my drawer before lifting a chunk of my hair to snip off. And instantly, as the dark snippet of my hair falls to my shoulder, I can breathe again. Sweet air fills my lungs and the heavy weight lifts off of me, like each cut with the shears drops an ounce of pressure from my chest.

I breathe deeply and will myself to relax against his chest, watching his hands make slow work of cutting my hair off. He’s methodical with it, using his index and middle fingers as a guide to make sure all of the pieces fall to the same length. He’s gentle with my hair, just as he is with me in everything. My crying softens, less hysteric and really just sad now, embarrassed to let myself lose control this way in front of the one person that I care deeply about what he thinks of me. But Veezara doesn’t falter, he doesn’t miss a beat. He chants praises to me for regaining my composure, reassurances that I’m alright and that he’s here for me, promises that nothing can hurt me anymore.

And it’s unfortunate this is just how it’s going to be. As much as I wish it would have, ending my father’s life didn’t erase him. He didn’t take my memories with him when I butchered him in the same bed in which he held me at night. I’m left with the agonizing responsibility of walking free from his grasp and carrying him with me. Killing him rid me of him, but it did not make me free.

And recently, more often these days, I struggle to choke him down, to pack him away and leave him to collect dust. There’s less distraction, less going on. A peaceful life in Dawnstar has not brought me any peace. It’s given me more time to think, to remember. I have days like today where his memory is smothering. Even now, as Veezara lovingly lifts bits of my hair to cut them short, so that I won’t have to think of my father’s fingers tangled in it, it’s hard not to think of him. I wish, exhaustingly wish, that I had done more to stop him, that I had done more for myself sooner, so that I wouldn’t have to suffer the way that I do now. I have no one to blame for that but myself.

“You’re doing good.” Veezara says softly, encouragingly, as he tugs at my hair and snips. “You’re doing so good.”

“You’re doing so good. Just like that.”

I blink as Veezara ruffles the side of my head he’s finished with, trying to make the pieces lay the way he thinks is right. I fight hard to focus on his voice, and not my father’s. “Okay, I’m half done. Is that better?” he asks, looking at my hair alongside me in the mirror. “Do you like that?”

“Do you like that, sweetheart? Tell me that you like it.”

I haven’t taken in any air, and I wobble, my legs weak and my head spinning. Veezara steadies me, his arm around my stomach to hold me up. “Breathe.” he instructs, and I suck in a harsh breath around my tears. My body becomes more present, and I feel less like I’m suffocating. Veezara just holds me, pausing my haircut to ensure that I am able to stand upright and that I’m okay.

“He’s not here.” he says, holding me tightly. “He isn’t here. He’s gone. It’s just me.”

That relaxes me, and I take another deep breath to soothe my aching lungs. I nod, shutting my eyes as if that will help me, as if just looking away from my hair will shut my father up.

Veezara smoothes his hand over my hair to comfort me, and that’s a better feeling. That’s a stronger feeling than the memory of being held down. His arms around me feel protective, his touch is gentle and caring. His voice is endearing, not harsh. And I feel safe with him. For the first time in my life, I feel completely safe.

“He can’t hurt you anymore.” Veezara says, rocking me gently. I open my eyes to meet his gaze in the mirror. “You’re okay.”

I exhale deeply, and I push my pain out with the air in my lungs. I feel better, comforted. I feel safe. I feel like I can move again, and I reach up to wipe my face, wet with sticky tears. I part my lips to speak.

“I won’t hear it.” he says, smiling softly at my reflection. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I won’t hear it.”

I nod, resting my head against his chest and shutting my eyes again. “Thank you.”

Veezara squeezes me a little tighter for a moment, then runs his hand over my hair again, half cut and looking pretty f*cked up. “Do you want me to keep cutting it, or do you want to take a break? We can stop, if you want.”

“Yeah, a break.” I say quietly. “Maybe we can try again later.”

“Of course, yeah.” he says, and he sets the shears down. It’s such a simple action, to immediately stop when I no longer want something and to ask my consent before continuing. It’s simple, but it’s a luxury I’ve never been granted, and I appreciate it deeply.

“Thank you.” I say again, and he’ll never really know how much I mean it.

“Yeah.” he says, squeezing my shoulders before running his hands down to my forearms, overturning and inspecting to make sure there’s nothing left for him to help me nurse, nothing else to tend to. “Are you okay now?”

I sigh. “I mean…no.” I admit, wiping my face some more, which doesn’t do much, considering how splotchy I look after crying. “But I will be, I think.”

“What do you need me to do?” he asks, genuinely hoping I’ll give him something to do to assist. “What will help you feel better this morning?”

“Noise.” I say, breathing a quiet laugh. “Something else to think about.”

“I can do that.” he says, nodding eagerly. “I just came to see if you wanted breakfast. Get dressed and come down to the kitchen with us.”

“Okay.” I say, nodding when he does. He presses a brotherly kiss into my cheek before he leaves me to get ready for the day.

I tug on both pairs of socks, the under shirt, my armor and the boots, then I cover it all with Cicero’s very thick sweater. I splash my face with some of the drinking water on the table nearby and tousle my hair to look a little more normal. When I take a deep breath and decide that this is as good as I’m going to get this morning, I leave my room in pursuit of the kitchen.

I drop myself into my usual seat across from Cicero. We’re able to all coexist in the same room and look at each other in the safety of the Dawnstar sanctuary, free of Astrid’s suspicious eye. This is actually where most of our bickering is done, at the breakfast table, when grumpy Cicero and the grumpy Listener have an open space to bitch at each other.

“Oh, f*ck .” Cicero says, his lip curled when he looks at the top of my head. “Your teeth alone weren’t bad enough ? You had to make yourself look more inbred than you already did?”

“Leave her be.” Veezara says firmly from over the fire as he works on finishing breakfast, knowing the truth about the f*cked up current state of my hair. “It looks fine.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Cicero says, shaking his head. “It looks like sh*t . You look like a hillbilly, even more so than usual . You look like you f*ck the cattle that you tend.”

I huff a sharp breath and drop into my usual seat across from him. “A cowl covers my teeth, a hood covers my hair. There’s no disguising that massive f*cking honker in the middle of your face, you pretentious mother f*cker.” I grumble, and Cicero’s hand flies to his face to touch his nose. “How about you wait for your goddamn breakfast and shut the f*ck up?”

I can hear Veezara laughing quietly over our meal, but Cicero just glares. I’m accustomed to his glare at this point. His face is molded around that glare that’s ever resting on me. Cicero’s face is fuller too, less bony now that his regular skooma use has, for the most part, dwindled into nothing.

“How about you put on a cowl and a hood so that I’m not subjected to staring at your terrible haircut?” he spits angrily.

“I’ll have to put them on,” I say, folding my arms over my chest. “Because my room is so f*cking cold that I’m going to freeze without them.”

Cicero scoffs, looking away from me and over at Veezara, like the back of his head as he stirs a pot of oatmeal is far more interesting than conversation with me. “Perhaps if you could find it within yourself to rise with the rest of the sanctuary, we could work out a time sufficient for both of us to fix your bedroom wall.”

“The rest of the sanctuary is two people who share a bed and rise together.” I remind him. “How am I supposed to know when the f*ck you two wake up in the morning?”

“Perhaps listen , Listener.”

“Oh, sure . I’ll just get up, press my ear to my f*cking door and wait to be graced with the sound of your awful f*cking voice.” I offer, and his scowl deepens when he turns his attention back to me. “And by the way, if my wall doesn’t get fixed, the rest of the sanctuary will be without a Listener, because I will have died from the cold.”

He gives me a firm once over, on what he can see over the edge of the table. “Is that my f*cking sweater?” he asks, and I just shrug, like I have no idea what sweater he’s talking about. He outstretches his palm, a signal to hand the sweater over. “ Stop taking my sh*t! I’m not having this conversation with you again .”

I pull the warm sweater up over my head and chuck it at him across the table, letting it hit him in the face. I fold my arms over the chest of my armor, sighing. “Now I’m cold again.”

“Then go into town and get your own f*cking sweater.” Cicero suggests as he pulls the sweater on to settle on his own chest. He pushes the sleeves up to his elbows and gets comfortable again.

Veezara sets my breakfast before me, which is a wooden bowl with oatmeal fixed the way that he knows I like it. There’s a generous scoop of peanut butter and plenty of brown sugar for me to mix in and make disgustingly sweet. I smile up at him, and he smooths his hand over my half-cut, raggedy-looking hair before he squeezes my shoulder encouragingly, like he’s just proud I’ve made it to the table to eat my specially made breakfast after my morning meltdown.

Cicero glares. He doesn’t much appreciate when Veezara is gentle with me, jealousy much stronger in him than his common sense that would remind him that our relationship is simply platonic and nothing further. He folds his arms over his chest, his mouth drawn into a tight, visibly unhappy line.

“Listener, that looks disgusting.” he says as I stir my food together to mix all of the elements up. Like he has to whine about my food preferences to fill the void of whining about the attention Veezara gives me.

I take a large bite and chew, humming in satisfaction in a way that’s over the top and dramatic, for emphasis.

Cicero’s lip curls. “I’m serious, that’s f*cking nasty.” I reward his commentary by sticking my tongue out to expose my chewed food, and he groans loudly. “Nice. Really ladylike. Great.”

I slide the bowl toward him a little and lift my spoon to offer him a bite. “You want some?”

“ f*ck no.”

“Stop it.” Veezara sighs, setting Cicero’s breakfast before him. His is specially made too, the way that he likes it, which is so plain, it’s inedible. “Both of you. Eat your breakfast.”

I grin to myself and stare at Cicero, which he meets with an unhappy stare of his own. I turn away in pursuit of trouble. “Veezara?”

He smiles back at me over his shoulder as he makes his own breakfast. “Yes?”

“Cicero would like some sugar for his oatmeal.”

“ No , I would not .” Cicero clarifies, waving me off. “It’s disgusting . Sugar is not for breakfast.”

“And you’ll notice that there’s no sugar on yours, because I know that’s how you feel.” Veezara says simply, joining us at the table. He stirs his oatmeal and takes a bite. “Do we have to start every f*cking morning with an argument?”

“Yes.” Cicero and I both say in displeased unison. At our moment speaking the same word at the same time, we go back to glaring at each other.

My bowl is nearly finished, and I lift the rim to my lips to scoop the rest into my mouth. I spend a quiet moment chewing and swallowing the mouthful, then rise to put my bowl in the washbasin. Cicero is muttering under his breath about my poor table manners when the Night Mother’s gratingly harsh whisper is planted in my head, beckoning me to approach her so that she may relay contract. I sigh, rinsing my bowl and setting it aside to wash later.

I step back to the table, putting my hand on Veezara’s shoulder and squeezing once. “Thank you for breakfast.” I say, and when he nods at me with his familiar smile, I know that he understands that I’m thanking him for far more than just breakfast. Breakfast was the distraction I asked for, the noise I needed to feel less alone and trapped. I feel better now that I have bickered with Cicero and shoveled food into my mouth. “I’ve got to get to work.”

That captures Cicero’s attention, and he looks up at me quickly. “Is Mother speaking?”

I lift an eyebrow. “Well, what other work do I do , genius?”

Veezara lifts my hand from his shoulder, squeezing it once and kissing my knuckles before releasing me. “Go on, then. Duty calls.” he encourages, and we exchange a smile. “I’ll wait for you here to plan the contract out after.”

“Sounds good.” I say, backing out of the room.

“I’m coming.” Cicero says, though I didn’t f*cking ask him to follow. I never do, but he always comes. Participation is as close to his mother’s voice as he’ll ever get, because of my existence. “I’m right behind you.”

“Oh, joy.” I mumble under my breath, slipping out of the room.

Beyond the kitchen, in the room just past the connecting hall, I press my back to the wall and listen in on Veezara and Cicero talking softly to each other. Which is nosy, and I know that’s not my best quality, but I like to listen to them talking. It makes me happy to hear Veezara getting exactly what he’s always wanted, to be loved and to be part of a family.

“Why are you petting the Listener so much?” Cicero grumbles, like a jealous child feigning for attention. “You’re being awfully handsy with her today.”

I can hear Veezara’s tender laugh as he scoots closer to Cicero at the table, accompanied by the soft scratch of the chair he rests himself in moving. “The Listener is having a hard day. Be gentle with her.”

“Well, she wasn’t very gentle with me .” Cicero gripes, and I imagine him folding his arms over his chest to pout like a toddler. “She’s being an ass.”

“She’s being an ass because the alternative is crumbling.” Veezara explains. And I appreciate the discretion he uses with Cicero, explaining what’s happened without telling Cicero things that I don’t want him to know about me. “Let her be an ass. She’s not being malicious, just funny.”

“ I’m not laughing.” Cicero says. I listen to the scuff of his spoon in his bowl, rushing to finish his meal and join me in the Night Mother’s chamber. “I’m going to strangle her if she keeps on.”

“No, you’re not.” Veezara laughs, because he knows that there is no depth to our arguing.

Cicero sighs, and there’s more scraping. “No, I’m not. Is she alright?”

I smile to myself, resting my head against the stone wall between us. Cicero and I are allies, not enemies. Arguing is just too much fun for me to let it die out into peaceful coexistence. I shouldn’t eavesdrop on them, but I like these moments where Cicero acts human, like there’s soul beyond his dark eyes.

“She’s alright now.” Veezara assures, and I’m still selfishly warmed by their care for me and my wellbeing. “Hard morning, but she’s alright.”

“Good.” Cicero says, rising from his seat and placing his dish in the washbasin, from the sound of his steps. He probably returns to the table. “Now, I get to go deal with some more of her sh*t.”

“You’ll survive.” Veezara says, smile audible in his voice.

“Probably.” Cicero adds. “Thank you for breakfast, baby.”

Their voices drop lower, speaking in the hushed way that lovers do, and I smile as I give up listening. I decide that I can kill a little more time before I go to answer the Night Mother’s call, and I can torture Cicero a bit further.

I hoist myself up with the side table in the room, using the beam above me as leverage to pull myself up out of obvious sight. Just like the good old days, when I would sneak up on Cicero and he would squeeze me tightly and f*cking caress me like a psycho. I wait until his footsteps trail down the hall and enter the room I’ve hidden myself in, until his stringy red hair graces me with its presence once again.

Then, I let myself drop down behind him and project out a startling sound, jabbing his sides with my fingers. He jumps and shouts, pivoting to reach out and smack me upside the head a few times.

“You f*cking bitch!” he whines, slapping me still as I snicker to myself. “ Stop doing sh*t like that!”

I swat his hands away and move on, headed for the Night Mother’s chamber. “Oh, get over it, you puss*. Grow a set of balls and stop letting little girls get the jump on you.”

He grumbles to himself behind me. “Little f*cking worms , is more like it. Little pests .”

“Whatever happened to, ‘you’re not very hard to get the upper hand on, Listener’?” I ask, mocking his nasally voice.

“Shut the f*ck up.” Cicero says with a sigh. “Things were different back then. sh*t changes.”

“Changes, as in, you no longer know how to get the upper hand on me.” I offer sarcastically, happy to have thoroughly f*cked with Cicero today. I feel better than I did this morning. My life is funny now, and I like it.

Suddenly, his hand grips the back of my f*cked up hair, the longer pieces knotting in his fingers and serving as leverage to pull me backwards and slam me into the wall. We struggle for dominance for a moment, but he captures my arms tightly between our chests and grips my cheeks with his free hand.

Between the moosh of my lips, I maneuver some words out. “Alright, alright! f*ck, I get it!”

He lifts an eyebrow, his eyes dark. “I am perfectly capable of getting the upper hand on you. Any place, any time. Say it.”

My lip curls in the only way it can when he squishes my face like this. “Absolutely not.”

He squeezes tighter, his touch bruising. “Say it, you bitch.”

“ f*ck. You. ” I spit around his hand.

“God dammit.” he mutters, his fistful of my hair tightening. “Say the f*cking words, or I’ll be forced to really hurt you.”

Challengingly, I breathe a laugh. “Really hurt me, and I’ll be forced to tell your mommy .”

He falters, groaning loudly in exasperation before releasing me. He gives me a defeated middle finger. “You f*cking suck.”

I smile triumphantly. “Thank you. I try.”

“You’re driving me goddamn mad, today.” he adds, smoothing out where his grip on me has wrinkled my armor, then my hair. Fight as we do, we care for each other. We’re family now, after all this time. “You’re pissing me off.”

The Night Mother beckons me forth again, and I tap the side of my temple and point over my shoulder. “Can you stop f*cking around? I have work to do, you know.”

“f*cking…” he begins, then gives up, pinching the bridge of his nose. He points toward the chamber at the end of the hall. “Just go. Please, just f*cking go.”

The walk to the chamber is sort of long, and the silence is filled with Cicero’s eerie whistling. He knows I can’t stand it, so I guess this is my punishment for acting out this morning. I suppose of all things, I don’t mind it as much as I used to. It echoes off of the stone walls of our new home, an unsettling tune I’ll never be able to name.

When we’re in the Night Mother’s crypt, appointed and arranged by her dutiful Keeper, I fight hard to suppress a shiver, and I lose. It’s colder in here than in other rooms, which is why Cicero selected it for her. It is because of him, his duty to preserve her corpse, that I am able to serve my purpose in this realm, after all. Sighing exasperatedly, Cicero tugs the sweater we’ve fought over this morning over his head and offers it to me. I take it gratefully, and for just a brief moment, we exchange a genuine smile. We’re family now, the three of us. As much as it pains us to admit, there isn’t much Cicero and I wouldn’t do for each other.

When I have the sweater resting comfortably on my torso and we are standing in silent reverence before our deity, the iron doors creak open loudly, revealing the Unholy Matron in all her ghastly glory. Side by side, we await her awful voice in my temple to deliver what job is to be done.

Notes:

thank you so much for reading! i missed writing skyrim stuff. this work was kind of a stretch from the typical genre that i write. i’m really happy with how it turned out and im glad i spent time on it.
thank you for your comments and kudos, they fueled me to keep writing. you are appreciated more than you know.

When Silence Dies - haunter_ielle (2024)

Chapter 1: Darkness Rises

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Chapter 2: The Silence Has Been Broken

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Chapter 3: Bound Until Death

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Chapter 4: Breaching Security

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Chapter 5: The Cure For Madness

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Chapter 6: Death Incarnate

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Chapter 7: The Dark Brotherhood Forever

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