Shade-Eyes, One elf's descent into Oblivion. Options

[kementari]

Hey, all.

So, long time lurker, first time poster. I've really enjoyed reading all the stories you guys have put up over the years.

I've been working on chronicling a group of vignettes on and off since 2006, and it's still a work-in-progress. Some disclaimers:

First, it's all quite long, so I sincerely apologize if anyone gets TLDR syndrome from reading it. Additionally, I tend to take a little free license with lore where Bethesda has been silent, so please don't crucify me for some of my inventions passed off as "world fact" in the story. Finally, I do draw some of my plots from game elements, but I change them where I think I can do better. Please don't let either of those admissions become the basis for hating me. Writing these stories is cathartic to me, and in some small way, I feel like fanfiction is the highest form of glorification I can give the story guys over at Bethesda.

I'd also really love feedback (CRITICISM! PLEASE!) on characterization, prose, pacing, or anything else, if any of you have the time or willingness to give it. While I of course appreciate even small affirmations, "hm, good work" doesn't really help me grow as a storyteller.

Anyway, here goes. Hope you enjoy it.

This post has been edited by kementari: May 27 2008, 12:31 AM

[kementari]

Bruma; Sun's Dusk 2, 3E412


Lily crouched in the snow behind the enormous Bruma mansion. Large enough to house a family, the house boasted the double-thick stonework and carved slabs of lumber so favored by the inhabitants of Skyrim. Even the baublewebs, bits of colored glass and beads woven into hemp latticework and hung at each rafter fascia, were as fine as any to be found in Riften, and seemed to laugh at the fierce eddies of snow that whipped around them. But no family of Nords lived here.

Lily glanced to her left, where her dark-haired companion sat pressed against the house's foundation, eking out a meager protection against the early Sun's Dusk blizzard. Despite being barely the end of autumn in other parts of Cyrodiil, in Bruma it was always winter. In truth, Vasha's golden scaled armor, despite its quilted padding beneath, was likely a good deal colder than Lily's sinuous black leather jumpsuit. Besides, the grey-eyed elf had had the sense to don a thick woolen robe before venturing into Bruma's frigid night.

"Are we about ready, then?" Vasha's voice was strained, and Lily caught a chatter of teeth. Murmuring a negative, she pointed to the cellar door beneath Vasha's feet.

"He's only come in the once," she replied. "Have to wait for the return."

Vasha nodded, easing her feet out from under herself. "Can't believe you'd sit out here for a week before the job." She added an expletive in their native language, and their eyes met. Then both girls snickered upon the realization that the literal translation of the common Valenwood epithet was "snow-season". Lily rubbed her forehead, still smiling, thinking to herself that Vasha's ten winters in Cyrodiil should outweigh Lily's two, but Lorkhan only knew wood elves came thin-skinned - and, for all Vasha's muttering, mostly impatient. Part of Lily - no doubt the part that had sent her leaping through Valenwood's tallest branches in order to take suthay-raht encampments "by surprise" - marveled, too, at the restraint she had developed in the past half-year.

The inhabitants of the house behind them were a sole Bosmer man and his Orcish servant. Vicente, who had taken interim control of the Sanctuary after Ocheeva's mysterious disappearance some weeks past, had given her the contract on this Baenlin's life almost a fortnight ago, and Lily had devoted an unusual amount of time to tracking the man's routine. She knew that he dined every night at seven sharp, and retired soon after. The servant was in the habit of visiting Baenlin's cellar once just before supper, to uncork a bottle of wine, and again afterward to lay out the ingredients for the next day's meals. After that, the orc returned to the kitchen to clean, a project that usually took him some hours, but Baenlin's nighttime activities were unknown to Lily.

Suddenly, four pointed Bosmer ears pricked up at a sound barely audible over the storm. Vasha's eyes met Lily's, and Lily nodded. The servant was back in the basement. Silently, both girls pressed an ear to the heavy wooden door. Minutes later, they were rewarded with the faint clang of the cellar's interior door scraping shut. Mentally, Lily counted to one hundred before slipping a lockpick from the wrappings at her forearm. Vasha watched with interest as Lily gently hassled the lock, and gave an admiring whistle when it clicked open.

"You could join the Thieves with fingers like that," she teased. Lily shushed her.

"Don't even joke about that," Lily said quietly. "You know Vicente-"

"Yes, I know," Vasha dropped her voice to a whisper as Lily painstakingly lifted the heavy cellar door. "Good old Vicente would frown at you wholeheartedly if he thought you were taking things from the people you so graciously kill." She raised her hand to her mouth in a gesture of exaggerated shock. "Why, he might even waggle his finger angrily!"

Lily pursed her lips and dropped into the cellar after Vasha, carefully lowering the door so as to make no indication to the occupants of the house that anything was amiss. "I don't want to talk about this, especially right now," she hissed. "Don't make me sorry I brought you along."

Vasha raised a delicate black eyebrow. The girls, comprising the only Bosmer under Lucien's command in the Cheydinhal sanctuary - and indeed, two of only a few in the entire city, given its proximity to Morrowind - had grown together slowly. Of late, however, they were nearly inseparable. Nearly two months prior, Vasha had invited Lily along on a contract, and the girls had found it so much fun that they made it a tradition. Lily's threats to end that tradition occurred once or twice per contract, so Vasha just grinned. "All right," she conceded, "but you're going to have to talk to me about him sooner or later."

Lily rolled her eyes and crept to the wooden door that led to the interior of the house. "It opens onto the hallway," she said, testing the handle. It would be noisy to open the door, she knew. Vasha guessed Lily's intentions, and moved to help the other wood-elf, slipping her slender fingers under the bottom of the door and lifting with her shoulder. Lily guided the door open just far enough for the two of them to slip in, and Vasha relaxed, panting.

Behind her, Lily was stripping off her thick overcoat, which was just beginning to thaw. Vasha raised an eyebrow as Lily dropped her bow, arrows, and sword atop the pile, leaving only her ebony dagger clipped to her belt.

"You planning to kill him with your dashing good looks?" she whispered. Lily looked up at her, frowning.

"Didn't you read the note I gave you?" Vasha shook her head, and Lily looked dismayed. "It's supposed to look like an accident," she continued, her voice a murmur. "Just... follow me."

Vasha frowned, but slipped out the door behind Lily. The smaller elf made her way soundlessly down the corridor, stopping to peer around the wall before ducking around a corner and tiptoeing up a flight of stairs. Vasha followed her, in hot pursuit, but froze when the toe of her gold-scaled boot scraped across the first step. Lily whirled, dropping her chin to allow her sinuses and throat to open, increasing her hearing, and for a long moment the girls remained transfixed on the staircase, ready to flee at any indication that they had been discovered. When no sounds of alarm were forthcoming from the house's residents, they moved on, more carefully this time.

At the top of the stairs, Lily crept into an alcove that led to what appeared to be a bedroom. Beckoning Vasha over, Lily put her shoulder against a wood panel in the wall and gently shoved it backward to reveal a tiny crawlspace, just big enough for the two of them. The girls wedged themselves in, and Vasha helped Lily shove the panel back into place.

"So what's this about an accident?" Vasha queried in a barely audible voice. Their heads were nearly touching, and Lily hardly had to breathe to be heard.

"The kill has to look like a complete accident. Lu-" Lily broke off, thinking of the other coven members' animosity toward her because of the Speaker's obvious favoritism, and then sighed, rolling her eyes. "Lucien told me the contract was put out by the orc's wife. She wants him to come home, to tend to her and their children, but he's indebted to this Baenlin character - literally, and in his own estimation of his honor - and the terms of that debt are servitude until death."

Vasha nodded. "The orc's, or Baenlin's. And the orc would never forgive himself if he thought he'd let someone murder his master right under his nose." Lily mumured an assent, and then peered through a peephole in the paneling. "So how are you going to do this?" Vasha pressed.

"I'm not sure yet, honestly," Lily admitted. "Strangling him will leave a mark, and if we try to pad the neck, we risk him making noise. And if they look closely, they'll still see it. Weapons are obviously out, and poison..." She trailed off.

"Poison could work, but we'd have to get the food," Vasha supplied. "And I guess the servant dying as well is out of the question."

"More or less," Lily replied. They crouched in silence, each thinking hard about a way to set up an accidental death. Minutes passed, and the girls were aware of voices coming from downstairs. Lily couldn't make out what they were saying, but Vasha pressed her ear to the wall.

"The servant - Grom? - is going to bed." Vasha looked worried. "That means Baenlin can't be too far behind..."

"No, his light goes out after midnight," Lily reassured her. "We've a couple of hours."

As Lily lowered her chin to rest on her knees, Vasha shifted uncomfortably, creating some distance between herself and Lily. Crouching in such a small space after being out in the cold so long didn't agree with the elf, and she was rather starting to wish she hadn't come along. Idly, she picked at what looked like a bit of hempen rope, hoping to distract herself from her physical discomfort so that she could think properly.

The rope didn't give. After a few minutes of picking at it, Vasha frowned, and then glanced at Lily. The blonde Bosmer seemed lost in thought, and simply sat motionless in the cramped crawlspace. But for the slight rise and fall of her chest, and the sound of her breath - barely audible even a foot away - the grey-eyed assassin could have been carved of ice.

That's Lily for you, she thought to herself. Cold as stone, that one. Minutes passed, and Vasha continued to fidget with the rope. She, like most of the Sanctuary, had been surprised when Lucien had started showing unnatural favoritism toward Lily. Slowly, though, it had dawned on them why he found her so captivating. She was silent most of the time - never questioning orders, never boasting about her kills - and those haunted grey eyes seemed to see everything and judge nothing. And as the weeks passed, Vasha realized that Lily's own infatuation with the Speaker had nothing to do with his chiseled features and everything to do with his dedication to the cause of the Brotherhood. Silent, perceptive, talented, and worshipful - exactly the sort of servant Lucien required. Vasha had heard Ocheeva, the recent nest-mother of the Sanctuary, wondering whether Lucien meant to leapfrog the girl into his position on the Black Hand when his time came - a position Ocheeva had begun to think of as her own.

Vasha exhaled. Not that it mattered. Ocheeva had disappeared weeks ago, and though nobody spoke of it openly, the members of the coven were all fairly certain Lucien had set his pet on her. Vasha would have put good gold on the guess that Lily's black dagger sported a new Argonian-shaped growth.

Vasha pulled out her own ebony knife, pausing a moment to look at the gold filigree on its handle. Wild spirals chased each other up and down the hilt, so intertwined with each other that they looked as though they were moving. Vasha had seen Lily's dagger, and knew that its geometrically perfect tracings belied Lily's precise, methodical approach to killing. She almost felt embarrassed of her own knife, sometimes, with its haphazard, disorganized leafing. She knew it spoke volumes about her own style of hunting - she flew by the seat of her pants so often that the leader of the Anvil coven had once asked her cruelly whether it was Sithis she followed, or Sheogorath.

Suddenly angry with Lucien, herself, all black and gold daggers, and the only two Bosmer alive who didn't seem to mind the cold, the dark wood-elf savagely pushed the blade of her knife into the rope, hoping to wedge off a piece of it to fidget with. Lily's eyes came alive, and she opened her mouth to berate Vasha for the noise.


Later, looking back on that moment, Vasha would reflect that her intent was certainly not to sever the old rope completely, and she never anticipated the loud crash from the sitting-room below, nor the grunt that ended abruptly, wafting through the newly created hole in the wall. Least of all did she expect the orcish howl of anguish as the servant, awakened by the clamor, discovered his master in a heap before his favorite chair. Baenlin had been killed instantly by a blow to the head from an enormous hunting trophy... lately held in its place over the sitting-room by a length of old hempen rope.