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Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,Such shaping fantasies that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poetAre of imagination all compact. William Shakespeare —A Midsummer Night’s Dream ~*~
4th Hearthfire 4E 204
    Memories were tricky things; elusive and untrustworthy. What can one trust if not one’s own memories? Their mother, perhaps, he thought, he could trust her. But there was little else he could stock faith in over that interminable number of years where silence and laughter battled for dominion in those hallowed halls.But eventually his system for remembering past events veered towards a small semblance of normality on a balmy evening in the year 201 of the 4th era. That day was like the resetting of a clock, in the morning a dark mass of confusion in his mind, and then, like stepping through a doorway, the after. This “after” also experienced change. He was emerging through a mist. Each day remembered the pleasures of clear night air, the sound of moving water, the feel of steel and leather, the scent of blood. In Frostfall of that first year he heard. Of course he was not deaf before, but the sounds had been meaningless, devoid of purpose, affront and annoyance. But then there were the words, the words, and it felt like some part of him came loose or perhaps fit back together and whether he was then more or less unhinged he could not say and did not care. It was beautiful.  Three years, many tears, many tears -rips and rends in the fabric they had been sewing- had passed. He continued to be beset by the very strange phenomenon of living. New faces and places, emotions even that deviated from what had prevailed in the before (which, to specify, had been single-minded determination with little room or reason for anything else). Hope, joy, betrayal, bitterness, anger. Hope seemed to be at the forefront. Which was silly to him because it seemed such a useless, sentimental emotion, but the more he was acquainted with it, the more it seemed to suit him.He could say, after these three years, that he liked his life now very much.It had started on a road, and continued on many more, crisscrossing the frigid continent until he knew not how many miles he had put behind him. Thankfully, and unlike the monotonous travail of the before, he had not travelled it alone.

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4th Hearthfire 4E 201
Cicero had always liked horses. There was something noble about them, even when he had ridden away from city guards after spilling fresh blood. He could close his eyes as the horse galloped on and envision that he was flying and all would be well. The horse never cared what he did. They just did their jobs and Cicero respected them terribly for it.But he had to admit he was disappointed when the ship docked in Dawnstar and the only beasts for purchase looked more like big hairy cattle than the slender-bred equines of Cyrodiil. Oh well, it would have to do.  Ghost, he called the big bay gelding. Because he had been purchased at the Sea of Ghosts and Cicero liked the macabre name. Ghost was rotten for conversation though. And Cicero had been chattering at him for hours now. The horse only blinked his big black eyes in return. Frustrating.It had been four hours since Cicero asked Loreius the second time to fix his broken wheel and six hours in total from the time the thing just popped off the wagon. What was a Keeper to do when his Mother needed Keeping but the damnable farmer wouldn’t help? Cicero checked the Keeping Tomes just in case there was a section about difficult farmers but there wasn’t one. Cicero could certainly kill him, this was a justifiable threat to Mother wasn’t it? But then who would fix the wheel?“ARGH.” He flung himself dramatically beside the wagon, leaning against one of the good wheels. At least this one could behave.Afternoon was turning to evening, making the shadows draw out long before him. Cicero missed this time of day. Too many days spent missing the long shadows and disappearing sun. He longed to become one of the shadows again in dark leather armor, a dagger between Loreius’s ribs and a soul to Sithis! Blasphemy! A Keeper should be happy to Keep and he was, Cicero is sorry Mother!The silhouette of Dragonsreach looms in the distance. Close enough to walk but too far to drag a coffin. He couldn’t steal the tools to fix it himself. Well the stealing he could do but the fixing was the problem. Cicero had never been a wheelwright. He had only been Keeper and before that assassin and before that an errand boy and before that, well, he had been a child. So no experience with wheels. Bother and befuddle! He was lamenting never having learned the trade when a waif of a woman passed by him on the road. She walked with her head down, intentionally avoiding him. “Wait!” He calls after her and she quickens her pace. “Does the stranger know anything about repairing wheels?”She halts her retreat and slowly turns to him. It looked like she was swaying with the warm Hearthfire wind as she shifted from side to side in indecision. A scrap of what might’ve once been a scarf around her head tied back a mass of curling blond hair. She regards him, her brow furrowed, glancing between him and the cart, the horse and the coffin, and finally from his hat to the dagger at his hip. He doesn’t understand what there is to be confused about.“Your wheel is broken.” She says plainly. Her voice sounds unused so she clears it. Cicero looks at her for another moment. He’d been forced out of necessity to converse with several people in his flight from Cheydinhal. All of them had been in a rush to get rid of him (especially Loreius!) but she doesn’t mutter an excuse and head back on her way. He wonders what it was that made her stop in the first place. Seeing another soul down on their luck?“Poor Cicero is stuck. Can't you see? I was transporting my dear, sweet mother. I'm taking mother to a new home. But... aggh! Wagon wheel! Damnedest wagon wheel! It broke! Don't you see?"She gathers her scarf tighter around her and steps closer to examine the cart. She is wearing a peasant's dress that hangs loosely from her frame. Cicero think she probably hasn’t had a decent meal in weeks. That puts an idea in his head. “Might the stranger offer poor Cicero a moment of her time?”Her lips purse and her eyes narrow. He quickly fishes in Ghost’s saddlebag for a purse. "Go to the farm, the Loreius farm, just over there, off the road. Talk to Loreius, he has tools, he can help me, but he won't. He refuses!"She looks, wide-eyed yet guarded, between him and the house. She is an unreadable mix of want and hesitation and Cicero knows that he has played his cards well. “Convince Loreius to fix my wheel. Do that, and poor Cicero will reward you. With coin! Gleamy, shiny coin!" Yes, that has the intended effect. Cicero watches as her reserve fades, where a moment ago she looked timid and unassuming, she now straightens her shoulders and a look of resolve settles over her face.“Very well.” She disappears up the hill and it is only minutes later that she returns with Lorieus, a bag of tools on his arm. How did she do it Mother? Oh, but he doesn’t care. Mother can go to her new home now! “Oh, Cicero thanks you kind stranger! And his poor Mother too!” He shakes her hands- tiny, cold little things with threadbare gloves- vigorously but she doesn’t seem put off by him. “You’re welcome.” She says with a hesitant smile. “Your mother, is she here?”He laughs, loudly. “Is she here? Oh, ha, that is a good one, kind stranger. Very funny. But yes, Mother is here but she’s quite dead.”“Oh.” “Cicero is taking her to a new crypt in Falkreath, to our family there! And you’ve helped us so!” With a flourish he holds out the coin purse, it’s knot held between thumb and forefinger. “As promised, honest coin for an honest deed.”She takes the coin without hesitation and ties the purse to her belt. Cicero does not miss the dagger hidden in the folds of her dress. He wonders again how she got Loreius down here so quickly. “Well I hope you have a safe journey. There are lots of bandits between here and Falkreath.”Oh good. Lots of bandits meant lots of fun. All in the name of defending Mother of course.“Does the kindly stranger have a name?”She is already walking up the road, the wind whipping around her. He might have imagined it but he thinks he hears her say it: “Silne”~*~

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8th Frostfall 4E 201
Sanctuary. A place of refuge, comfort, safety. Or it should have been. It was once, not this one, the one before and the one before that. Home . He missed them, the people that had been in them. He missed that they had felt normal even though there was nothing normal about those places.This home is too cold and not only from the climate. It is wrong. Too small, arrogant, independent. In a biting moment of clarity he realizes that maybe it is a bit too much like himself. But he is devoted and they are not.Well, all but one. The blond haired Nord, the second one, the smaller one, the one he actually liked. She was utterly dedicated and kind. He wishes, please Mother, hear poor Cicero’s plea, that the Night Mother would choose her, speak to her. There was none better. He would even relinquish his own desperate wish to be Listener if only Mother would choose her. The sanctuary is too quiet, the only sound is the waterfall in the main cavern, echoing off the stone. It’s a maddening, drowning sound. He needs to move to do something other than sit here and pine. He removes himself from the crypt, down the steep stairs to the dining room. It is empty, all of the Siblings having been in their beds as he passed through the common sleeping area. All of them there but the Pretender and her dog and her. He hopes to run into her so he goes to the alchemy lab. She isn’t there and neither is the un-child. Only the big spider that scuttles in her little pen. Cicero bids the pet a hello and she blinks at him in return.He carries on in his search, out into the cavern. There she is, by the infernal waterfall. She sits cross-legged on the pebbled shore of the small pond, serene. The glow of the stained glass above her bathes her in red light, turning her hair bright copper. He wishes bitterly for a return to some sanity that he might speak with her without frightening her or annoying her. Perhaps the madness couldn’t bear that blame though, he’d never been good for honest conversation. Honey-worded lies sure, and he’d always been able to charm women, but to speak to one such as this? He was at a loss. Better not to speak then and prove oneself a fool. Oh but that was a funny joke and he desperately wanted to laugh.She startles as he cannot suppress a chuckle. He expects her to turn on him in contempt as the others do but she only opens her eyes and regards him portentously. Her eyes, grey and hard as steel armor, are always haunting as though they are the sole guardians to some collection of secrets. To pluck them out, open them up, would they speak, speak the words of Mother perhaps? No but that was wrong, wrong, because then they wouldn’t look at him anymore and he couldn’t bear that. He sits beside her on the rocky ground and she doesn’t leave which heartens him greatly. Yes, she is kind and tolerant of him which is more than he could ask for.“Do you ever sleep, Cicero?” She asks with true concern. He laughs because it is so funny that she cares.“Difficult to sleep with wolves in your home, Silne.” She frowns and tosses a smooth round stone into the pool. The water ripples, red as blood. She picks at a fingernail, stares at the water again.He knows that her loyalties are a difficult subject. On one hand, she honors the Mother and Father, she respects the Tenets, even better she lives and breathes them. But there was a hurt in her past, or many, the Cicero didn’t know yet but he could tell that she desperately wanted a place in the family Astrid had promised her. Silne tried too hard to accommodate everyone, to be liked. She didn’t want to disrespect Astrid because she was her superior but she also wanted Astrid to like her. She wanted her to be proud of choosing her as an initiate. Cicero thought she looked much younger than she was. “Was there bad leadership in your last Sanctuary Cicero?” She asks so innocently, truly seeking his wisdom.“No.” He lies because he cannot tell her about what happened to the last Pretender that blasphemed against the Brotherhood. She would fear him or hate him, or worse, tell Astrid. Perhaps not though. Perhaps that was his own paranoia that he must diligently squash, stab, silence! if he wanted this dear sister to remain his ally. He watches her, her face upturned to the sigil of Sithis. She looks as though she is bathing in the light and he sends another silent prayer to the  Mother. Pick her!“I…” She falters, tosses another rock. “I studied the Brotherhood for so long. Is it… wrong that I’m disappointed?” The Nord sighs and drops her head. “Is it, I mean… is it irreverent, or something?”It is her turn to watch him as he presses his lips together and ponders the question “No. Maybe it would be if this were a… proper sanctuary, but in the state of things, I… Cicero is relieved to hear you say so. Indeed, he is disappointed as well.”“I liked Astrid, you know, before you showed up.” She chuckles. “Of course I knew she was running things wrong but there were fewer opportunities for her to show her true colors before you arrived.”“You know that is the job of the jester. To reveal the true self of those in power, to challenge authority. Of course he cannot be held accountable as no one takes him seriously.”She is unused to hearing him speak so slowly, in a deep tone that sounds so… so normal. A chill runs up her spine as she gets the distinct impression that the man sitting beside is quite sane. His eyes glint in the dim light, as dark as the ebony dagger he carries. Silne knows his ire would never be directed towards her and she wonders at the snaking feeling that tugs in her abdomen.Then the moment passes and he is humming and smiling, a fool. She shakes herself and picks up another pebble out of the water.“Yes, well, I see that Astrid isn’t right for this sanctuary but we can’t do anything about it yet now can we?” He enjoys how she says we. Yes, she is firmly on his side, on Mother’s side. “No. We need to wait, make a plan. Cicero isn’t sure what to do either, honestly.”She laughs lightly. “Well that’s reassuring! We’ll think of something that makes everyone happy and keeps the peace, surely.” He raises his eyebrows at her suggestion and she finds heat rising in her cheeks. “Well I don’t intend on killing anyone and breaking a Tenant!”“Sometimes Purification is necessary, Silne.”But he’s pushed too hard and she is agitated. The blond pushes herself up off the ground and fidgets with a buckle on her armor. “Anyway I need to get to bed. I’m leaving for a contract tomorrow, we can speak more on this later.” She hurries past him, up the stairs to her bed in the common area. Cicero sighs, kicks at the water’s edge. Stupid fool. Even if his new Dark Sister is a wonderful murderer, she is flighty and far too kind to hear words like purification without blinking. Maybe, maybe after a little more time. If Mother told her? But Mother hadn’t spoken yet, though there was still time. Would she choose? No, she waits, she picks her own time. Her own Listener... that is not Cicero. Never humble Cicero who only waits and worries and tries to listen! Worries that turn over and over in his head making him sick like the waves on the sea. If only such things were physical and visceral and could be made to retreat like enemies at the end of a blade! A much easier solution than sorting through a stupid broken brain. He is tired, so very tired, but even as he settles into the creaky wooden bed he can’t find sleep. Only quiet that stretches and echoes and tries to swallow him whole.

15th Frostfall 4E 201
“Oh, Mother it has been the most dreadful week! Cicero was not even so wretchedly bored under Cheydinhal! Everyone out on contracts expect poor Cicero. Of course, Cicero is happy being Keeper.But Astrid! Of course the Pretender stayed behind. Acting like the queen of her kingdom. Cicero has found many places here to hide from her Mother. Oh but this is not what you want! If only you would speak! Even if it is not to your Cicero!”He paces quite relentlessly across the room, one wall to the other, trying to regulate his breathing. It was maddening, this mess. Coming to Skyrim was supposed to be the answer to all of his troubles, not the means of multiplying them. Closing his eyes, he tries to calm the restless thoughts and stop humming as he paces. The humming though, well, there’s never been any real cure for that. The jester liked humming, loud and shrill, and at least it was noise. His curled boots on the worn floors, those provided a bit of noise too when he was conscious to make it. Now kicking at the dirt, he was able to slow his breathing and calm himself.“Mother,” He is able to speak again in a lower tone, “you should have seen the little thief before she left last week. Reading, Cicero found her reading about you and the Dread Father and the Void. She is the only one here who seems interested. And she listens to your foolish Keeper, Mother. She asks me questions about the Old Ways. Old ways and the old days…” In the old days Cicero would have liked to- well, he wasn’t sure if he would’ve liked to kill her or kiss her. Not that he would kill a Dark Sister, he just thought about it because he liked to think about killing anybody. Just pleasant daydreams. And he wouldn’t waste any time thinking about kissing her because he had a great many things to do, a Listener to find, a Mother to oil, and that horrible bitch Astrid to deal with. He begins to hum again as he uncorks the bottles of sweet smelling oil laid out before the Night Mother’s coffin. The song was one he’d picked up from various taverns across Skyrim as he travelled to Falkreath. “And the braggart named Ragnar was boastful no more! When his ugly red head rolled around on the floor!”  From the doorway comes the voice of an aged Breton. “Whose ugly red head, yours?”“Hello Brother.” Cicero grins to see Festus return from his contract unscatched. “Did you set some poor soul ablaze and come to seek our Matron’s praise?”“Ahh, I did indeed, poor bastard.” His ordinarily grumpy mouth turns up in a brief smile and then resumes it’s cantankerous set. The elderly man looks curiously at the supplies Cicero had carefully laid out, and then to the iron coffin. “But I have no wish to interrupt the care of the Night Mother.”“Oh Cicero does not mind! Not one bit! Of course Mother has needed more keeping lately. The air here is much warmer and more damp than Dawnstar or Cyrodiil but Cicero is nothing if not diligent! She will be alright for a few minutes more.”Festus crossed his arms and gazed at the imposing tomb. Was he listening for something?“Does Mother speak to the mage?”“No,” he said harshly. “And I wouldn’t want her to, creepy, hearing voices in your head.”Was that disappointment in his voice? The Imperial chuckles. “To each their own.”Festus, ever frowning, turns to leave. “I hope Astrid hasn’t given you too much trouble.”Cicero laughs again, not a chuckle, but the full-fledged manic laughter that the jester so enjoys.“Goodbye, Brother. Kill well and often.” That same night more of the Family returns. Two Sisters, just when Cicero has finished cleaning the chapel. The voice of the Pretender carries from the cavern."Ah, you're back. So, how went your first real contract? A bit more exciting than what Nazir's been offering, I'd wager."Such words could only be meant for one person and Cicero eagerly bounds down the stairs to greet the Sister. The little vampire is with her, absently picking dried blood from beneath her nails.“And what am I Astrid? Chopped horker? The man died screaming, if you care to know.”“Of that I had no doubt, but I want to hear about Silne’s contract.”“Oh yes, do share sweet Sister!” Astrid turns to level Cicero with a murderous glare. “And where have you been?”Cicero shrugs innocently. “With Mother. Greetings, Sisters.”Babette shoots him a toothy grin as Silne looks warily between Astrid and the Keeper. “I’m happy to share the tale but it’s no short distance from Markarth and I’m famished.” The five of them (of course Babette does not eat) sit around the table as Silne relates the tale of the demise of Alan Dufont. “Oh yes, yes, the tale of a spurned lover is very dramatic but how did you do it, girl? Did you melt his face off?”“Oh I- no,” Silne stammers, only for a moment, before collecting herself with a proud grin. “I took care of each of them with only a dagger.”“There was more than one target?” Babette asks, nearly sounding impressed.“Well, Alan was in with a group of bandits and I wasn’t about to let any witnesses live.”“Well done.” Astrid sips her mead, leaning back in the chair at the head of the table."Hmph. Just because you're now a professional assassin, don't think you have to skulk around in the dark like a skeever and stab people.”“Oh, Cicero disagrees. To stab and slice and sneak are perfect ways to complete a contact, perfect.”Festus rolls his eyes. “I don’t think you have any say here, Keeper.”“Just because Cicero is retired doesn’t mean he has forgotten . Surely, you’ve heard of the Grand Champion of the Arena?”“Yes, what of it?”“Of the one who was murdered?”“A great many of them are murdered, that’s how it works.”“No,” the little bloodsucker giggles. “I do remember this. In the eighties, well the one eighties of the fourth era, I’ve lived through a lot of eighties, you know. But there was a Champion killed by the Dark Brotherhood.”Cicero grins and wiggles his eyebrows at Festus, waiting for a response. “And you mean to tell us that was you?”Cicero shrugs. “If you chose not to believe me that’s fine. But Cicero slashed his throat and left him for the bears all the same.”Babette sighs dramatically. “How dull retirement must be.”Hmm, sometimes. But humble Cicero lives to serve.“But what of this Dwarven ruin? Any arcane secrets to discover?” Festus asks. Silne snorts. “Hardly. I’ve never understood your sorts' obsession with all things Dwemer.”“My sort?”“Yes, mages. Always looking for some new token of unprecedented power. I say if the Dwarves were so bloody powerful they’d still be alive.”Babette giggles. “I like you new Sister. Uncle Festus needs to be set down every so often.”The old man grumbles and a rare smile turns Astrid's lip, that is until she catches Cicero’s wide grin. What fun it was, to have family again!“Yes you’re all very entertaining but I’m exhausted. Silne, well done, we’ll speak further tomorrow.” Astrid breezes from the room, sending Cicero a cold glare as she goes.Conversation resumes, light and cheerful (though death featured prominently). Cicero listens idly, head in his hand, eyes slipping closed, enjoying the rhythm of voices and life. He drinks in their words, like heros sharing tales of valor they recount their kills. Memories clog his brain, stuck like honey, and he remembers the heart-pounding anticipation, crouched in shrouded corners, moonlight spilling through shutters, his ebony blade, the same one at his hip now, his old friend, cold and heavy in his hand. At some point the stories and his memories blend into dreams and he’s awoken by the soft weight of a hand on his arm. Instruct drives him to react, to reach for his blade and pounce but the face that comes into focus is not an enemy. “Relax.” She breathes softly and the tension leaves him, his hand falling from his hip. “Are you always so on guard?”A mirthless laugh bubbles from his lips. “Right. Well, it’s late and I thought you probably didn’t want to spend the night on the table.” Dumbly, he nods. “I’ve never heard you speak so little.” She teases.  With a wink he rises and heads for the stairs. “Goodnight Cicero.”He waves in answer and rejoices in the sound of her laughter that follows him down the corridor.~*~

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Sun’s Dawn 4E 202
There had been a time without words, interminable and yet somehow he didn’t remember being aware of its passing. Yet now that he thought back he could mark some of those years. He remembered that his hair had grown longer, the little girl across the street in Cheydinhal had grown up. Years could be ticked off on his fingers when he bothered to count them. And yet he could remember so clearly the boisterous laughter of Brothers and Sisters. The eagerly discussed contracts, new initiates ready to prove themselves, sage advice from the seasoned assassins. Such words carried up the stairs to him now but it was different. Or he was different. Or both. Pontious might have chided him for being anti-social. But he wasn’t such a fool not to know that they didn’t want him down there. Cicero knew when he was not welcome! And his new family had not been welcoming. Not to Cicero and not to Mother. Except Silne.Silne. Silne. Silnesilnesilnesilne. What right did she have to taken up such residence in his head? He had enough company there, thank you very much, but no matter what he did he could not seem to get her out. It may have something to do with the fact that she was the Listener. It may also have something to do with the fact that he hasn’t seen her in months.She wasn’t dead. Probably. She would come back. Probably. He had to trust that. He had to trust her, trust Mother’s judgement. And yet…Had he not pleaded? Had he not begged Mother to make it so? How many times had he sat before her coffin and lauded the young Nord’s ability, her devotion, her perfect aptitude to be Listener. Had Mother listened to him? Was it his fault that the Listener was unfit, disloyal, untempered?No, it could not be. Why should Mother have listened to humble Cicero? She knew what she was doing. She was the Night Mother after all. Cicero would trust her and her choice of Listener.That didn’t make the waiting any easier to bear.  He had not been able to rationalize things so at first. Cicero had always been in possession of a lousy temper. So maybe he had ranted a bit. And made some threats. And locked himself in his chambers. But what was it to the rest of them but exactly what they expected from the mad Keeper?Why? Why when she had the greatest gift in the world, would she leave? How could she, Mother? How could she forsake your gift? Such thoughts had kept him up for many long days until he had settled into a more subdued acceptance. It was like waiting beneath Cheydinhal. Time indeterminable (he knew that was an exaggeration but it was how he thought of it). The only problem was before had been quiet, just Cicero and Mother and the Jester but now there were words. Lots of them, loud and unkind.Arnbjorn, with a forkful of raw beef halfway to his mouth, spots Cicero sitting at the top of the stairs. “Well clown? Are you eating or not?”Cicero does not like his tone, not one bit. Disrespectful, and Sithis, did he stink.“Cicero has bread in his room.”The great dog narrows his eyes. “Then why don’t you go eat it? Or are you sitting there plotting how you’ll kill us all in our sleep?”Ha! If only! “Nooo.” He draws the word out, narrows his eyes at the big lumbering dog. “Cicero follows the Tenets.” Unlike some people. Arnbjorn rolls his eyes as Cicero stands and retreats to his room. Well, pretends to retreat to his room. He sits on a bed out of site. Her bed, once. But nevermind.“The clown needs to go.” The dog, predictably, says. Festus Krex is of a more calm disposition that the werewolf. “The boy’s having a hard time, but you would be too son if you’d just lost the thing you’d been searching your whole life for. He may be eccentric but he’s still the Keeper.” “Eccentric? Old man, you’re eccentric. He’s...he’s completely out of his mind. He destroyed half the furniture in that room when she left. Now that Silne’s gone I’m not sure anyone here can convince him to behave.”“And if we throw him out? I certainly don’t want to be responsible for taking care of the old lady.” The deep, grumpy voice of the Alik’r adds.“Really, I thought rotting corpses were just your type?” A girlish voice chimes in.“All of you shut it!” She seethes. “Or have you forgotten who’s in charge here?” Cicero knows without seeing that she is glaring each of them down. “I’m not going to do anything too rash now. We don’t know that Silne is gone for good.” A pause and Cicero hopes it’s because she’s choked on her steak, “and I’d hate for her to come back here and find her little play pal gone. And as much as I think it’s all nonsense, I’m not going to go throwing the Night Mother out with the trash. And I don’t want to oil her either. So for now, he stays.”Oh Mother, give Cicero patience! How he would love to cut out her traitorous tongue. Not going to throw the Unholy Matron out with the trash? What a saint, such kindness. A true Speaker of old.He needs out. He is suffocating here like he never suffocated in Cheydinhal. Flowers, he will get Mother some flowers. And maybe he will find a nice rotted tree to hit until his fists are bloody.~*~It wasn’t the raving, and weeping, and tantrums that bothered her, it was the damned nonsense about the Listener. The precious, long-sought after Listener who had magic powers to hear an old lady in her head. Who was apparently the true leader of the Brotherhood.
Over my dead body.
Astrid slips into the Night Mother’s chapel as soon as he leaves.She doesn’t dare open the tomb, but she does study it, tracing her fingers over the intricate patterns of iron. She knows the basics of the Brotherhood’s beliefs, even if she doesn’t subscribe to them. And why should she? They had functioned just fine before Cicero and his mommy showed up. This way of life made sense. Free from religious entanglements and a long and proud legacy, the Brotherhood of Falkreath was more it’s own faction than that of the Dark Brotherhood. They performed a service for Skyrim and they enjoyed doing it. And somewhere in there they found family with each other. Astrid would be damned to see that go. Unless, of course, the rotting corpse locked away before her was more than just a corpse. Then there was the fate of her eternal soul to contend with. But the old hag didn’t speak aloud, and her loudest proponent was mad as Sheagorath himself.  Astrid chews on her bottom lip as she circles the tomb. As tempting as it was, she couldn't dispose of the Night Mother and her Keeper. Even if she didn't subscribe to his religious ramblings, something within her knew it would be wrong. Or at least an invitation of bad omens, which the sanctuary certainly didn't need. There were rumors of those who believed the Night Mother was the incarnation of Mephala. That plots, deceit, lies, sex, murder were her domain. If it was true, what enjoyment she must get from Astrid’s current predicament. The thought made hatred burn within her.But would a daedra really deign to be confined to a corpse? Carted all over Tamriel and kept by that lunatic? Astrid doubted that very much.And what had the gods or the daedra ever done for her? When she had been hardly more than a child and prayed for any of them to do something about her licentious uncle? They had done nothing, heeded none of her prayers and she had taken matters into her own bloodied hands. And that had worked quite well. They didn't need the supposed words of a dead woman. They didn't need her conduit, who was the most changeable girl Astrid had possibly met. One moment determined and capable and then next scared out of her wits. They certainly didn't need a raving court jester grating on everyone's already frayed nevers. What they needed was the unity they had had before all this nonsense started. They needed strong leadership and a clear plan of action. Assassins had been dropping like flies lately. And what with the state of politics in Skyrim, the Brotherhood would need to be on it's guard. The thought occurred to her that Silne and Cicero were lying. After all, wouldn't it be more likely that they were in an elaborate scheme to infiltrate the Dark Brotherhood and cause distention? Weaken them from the inside? But then why in Sithis’ name had Silne run off like a startled deer?Astrid didn’t know. She had a pounding headache. Shutting the door of the chapel behind her, she went to her room, intending to get well and thoroughly drunk. Drunk enough to consider going to Volunruud.~*~There were a lot of things to be said about this frozen wasteland of a country but at least flowers were never in short supply in Falkreath. So many different types to gather for Mother. And some located next to bandit camps and near angry mages and dealing with those is such a cathartic way to work out his anger. It’s not coming out of retirement, of course. This is for Mother, and therefore very well within his job description.
Cicero never did understand thieves, really. Take someone’s things before you kill them?
He shakes his head, bells tinkling, as he cleans his dagger on the thief's tunic. Stupid, stupid man had tried to rob poor Cicero but more heinous, he had knocked the flower basket out of his hands . Ah well, he would serve Sithis in the Void now.Cicero regathers the flowers, a truly dazzling array; all manner of mountain flowers, Deathbell, Nightshade, Thistle, Lavender, Tundra Cotton. Such a pretty bouquet that Mother would forgive him for losing the Listener? But Mother didn’t blame him. Or did she? Maybe Mother would never forgive Cicero for what happened. Because it was his fault, wasn’t it? He was Keeper. His job to find the Listener and set right all of the wrongs. And he had found her and it all went horribly wrong.Perhaps if he hadn’t tried to kill her. Yes, that might’ve made things a bit better. But how was he supposed to know that she wasn’t desecrating Mother’s corpse? He was doing his job , dagger pressed against the soft, milky white flesh of her throat, anger and betrayal thrumming through his veins. How could she? How could she? She hadn’t even seemed terribly afraid. Relaxed and pliant underneath him, like she trusted him. When was the last time someone trusted poor Cicero?He grits his teeth, here he was again, his mind circling round and round her . “You’re being obsessive.” He says aloud to the empty forest.Endless self-recrimination was getting him nowhere. He wishes the jester would offer a tune. He needs to get the flowers home.He walks lightly through the forests of Falkreath. The paths have become familiar these past months. He can’t spend too much time in the Sanctuary, which is his home, which is where Mother is, which is where his place is. But he can’t.No, Sithis curse them all. And maybe him too, for losing the Listener. The last hope for the Dark Brotherhood, gone.

He awakes to a clunking sound coming from the chapel. She’s really doing it then, throwing Mother out with the trash! He removes the ebony blade from beneath his pillow and creeps quietly to the door.It is a blond Nord but it is not Astrid. It is a vision and a dream that picks the lock to the tomb and swings the ancient doors outward. Is it his mind playing tricks? Can he dare to hope?Her hair is pulled into a knot at her nape, her green travelling cloak tossed on the ground behind her. She kneels before the open coffin, on the bed of mountain flowers he placed that afternoon. He strains to hear her.“I’m sorry. Mother, I’m so sorry.” He inches closer. “I’ve failed you.”There are tears on her pale cheeks. Real, and not a trick of his mind. “I should not have… I do not…” Her voice is a broken whisper and then it stops and her eyes fall shut. She is sleeping but upright, she is dead but breathing. She is listening.What does your voice sound like Mother? Like bells and wind and laughter and forgiveness? It does not look like she has heard that last one. She dries her tears with a shaky hand wrapped in tattered gloves. Her mouth is set in an expression of grim resolve. She looks all at once lovely and lost.“Hi Cicero.” Her eyes watch him as they always have. Seeing more than he would like them to see. He is so caught up in looking at her, rejoicing in knowing that his mind could not conjure up such a searching gaze, that he forgets to answer her. Mutely, he enters the room, rubbing an eye to be sure he isn’t still sleeping. “I owe you an apology too.” He tries to deny it but she keeps on speaking. “I shouldn’t have run away. I knew that but still…” Her voice falters and her gaze wanders to the polished iron. “She said,” she laughs a little humorless chuckle. “well, she told me why she chose me. She wasn’t exactly happy.”Cicero’s heart sank inside his chest. My fault, my fault, my fault. “Why did she chose you?” He can hardly get the words out, they stick like taffy in his mouth.She shivers and retrieves her cloak. “She told me she knew since we met on the road that day.”“On the road?” He sounds stupid, repeating her words but the thrumming in his ears is abating. “She said she sensed something in me that day.” Silne takes a seat on one of the benches and motions for Cicero to sit beside her. “Something in my soul. I guess I was always meant to be Listener.” She hugs her knees up to her chest.Cicero can feel his fingers and toes again. He sits at her side. “Mother knows best.” He smiles a half smile at her, too consumed with relief and guilt (again) to put the proper energy into the joke. Of course Mother knew best. Not his fault, but her doubted her. He would not make the same mistake again.“Yes, I guess so.”“It upset you.”“Yes.” She sighs heavily and looks to the tomb again. She knows there were three and not two in this conversation. “I feel like people are always trying to push things on me. I don’t know why but it follows me wherever I go. I… I’m sorry, Mother, but I hate it. I want to exist in the shadows. I don’t want to lead anybody.” She drums her first against the bench and turns the full weight of her gaze on him. Grey, her eyes are, like steel and smoke and storms, like foggy mornings and restless waters. “I’ve never been responsible for anything in my life except myself, ever. This happened when I was with the Thieves Guild too. They wanted to make me Guildmaster so I left. Well that and I joined the Brotherhood. It suits me better. I like it here, I really do. I want to do right by them,” she gestures weakly to the coffin and the sigil of Sithis behind, “but I never asked to be put in charge.”Silence descends over them. Cicero does not know what to say to comfort her turmoil. But neither does he leave. When Cicero struggled in his head, there was no one. At least when Silne struggled he would sit beside her. “The flowers are a nice touch. She didn’t say anything but I think, I think she appreciates it.”    He nods.“Are the other’s up? I don’t really feel like facing an inquisition just yet.”“No, all asleep. Cicero has some food here, if you’re hungry.” Bread and apples and cheese but it looks like she needs something heartier. Where had she been?He doesn’t ask. She will tell if she wants him to know. He leads her into his poor excuse for a room where the walls tumble in like breadcrumbs. She sits at the table and picks at the meager meal. Cicero tries to sit at the table and then he paces and then sits back down, one foot over the other knee, bouncing. “What’s it been like, here?”His foot bounces faster. What had it been like? It had been like being lonely, lonelier than the last Brother underneath an Imperial city for years. Surrounded by people, family, but an island, like a pit wolf in a cage, gamblers peeking in with eager eyes to place a bet. Or maybe he was being dramatic. It was much the same as life ever was; eat, sleep, practice with his blade, oil Mother. Rinse and repeat. “Not much change.”“I half-hoped Astrid would see my absence as a peace offering. That I have no interest in stealing her Sanctuary away.”He bites his tongue, schools his features to hide the anger this reply produces. “She thinks we planned it.”“Of course she does.” Silne rolls her eyes and bites into the apple. She chews for a minute and then her eyes find him again and she looks thoughtful. “What about you?”“What about poor old Cicero?”“I was worried about you. I know I stole the thing you wanted, and rejected it, and abandoned you. And I kind of thought I would come back and you would be furious with me. And I’m sorry. I know that’s not good enough. But I- listen while I was gone I just wanted a break you know? To think. It’s stupid. It doesn’t take months to think. And there were so many times I started to head back and chickened out. I feel like the biggest asshole in Tamriel. I was just scared of failing and-“ her mouth twists up and she picks at the apple skin, “I was scared of failing you. And I really can’t bear this if you hate me.” “I don’t hate you.”“Cicero I’m just gonna say this, okay?”“Okay.”“Sometimes,” deep breath, “sometimes I feel like you say things because it’s expected of you. I respect that you’re Keeper and probably the best one the Brotherhoods ever had, but you’re you too. And if you’re saying something just because I’m Listener, I would rather have your honesty.”Oh Silne. So well-meaning but she does not understand, doesn’t understand at all. He jumps to his feet, pacing again. The jesters voice has lost its shrill, more fitting now for the man of kill. “Listen, Listener. Doubt Cicero’s sanity, doubt his intentions. But do not doubt my sincerity. You,” he jabs a gloved finger at her, “may divorce yourself from Mother’s chosen and that’s fine. You’ll get accustomed to it. One day you will understand but not today. You need time? Fine. I’ve had time. And there is no separating Cicero from Keeper. So don’t try.” She is offended, obviously. When he was trying to express that he wasn’t upset with her. “I don’t hate you. Cicero cannot lie and say he isn’t disappointed. It’s been a wretched few months. But you’re back, and that’s what matters. You need some time to run away? Run away. Leave a note next time, maybe. But this?” He gestures his arms wide, encapsulating the room, the crypt, the dead lady one room over, the red sigil, the armor in their trunks, the blades beneath their pillows, hundreds of years of history, his black leather gloves like bookends, twin handprints to tell the tale, “this is it. Mother made your choice for you.”“I get that.” She snaps back. He doesn’t regret putting her on the defensive. She needs to get it. He remembered her at the waterfall when he thought she got it and then she flew away from him. Eat, sleep, live and breathe the Brotherhood. Rinse and repeat. It’s all there is. She stands and brushes her crumbs to the floor. “You don’t have to lecture me. I literally just got done telling you that I understand the extent to which I fucked up. Sorry for pissing you off, another massive fuck up on my part because it was the one thing I was trying not to do.” Her hands clenched and her breathing hitched as she tries to push away frustrated tears. “I'm here now and I’m committing to this, okay? I've never committed to anything in my life mind you so I’m going to need a modicum of patience from you, but I’m staying. Until my dying breath I will be Listener. Happy?” Was he happy? He would’ve felt justified in his anger if she had just stormed off but that was why Mother picked her, wasn’t it? Beneath all that hesitancy and avoidance there was a spark. The spark needed time, needed kindling and air but it would burst to a flame under the right conditions. She came back. She apologized. Her anger hummed with determination. It was more than the Pretender had ever done. It was what Rasha could not comprehend. “Yes.” He steps toward her where she hovers between the table and the door. He keeps stepping into her personal space, Sithis, but he has always loved pushing boundaries. She backs up, only a few short steps and she is backed into the crumbling wall. They are in a mirror of the inciting event months ago, in the crypt. He would kill her. He would break a Tenant to defend a Tenant. Debaser and defiler, he had cried. And he was lying if he said he didn’t want to. A bloom of roses across her throat, it would have been a sight to see. To watch the rivulets chase across her collarbone, between her breasts. But what came next was better. A moment in time he would never, never forget.  Darkness rises when silence dies. It’s dark in the room now, the fire burning low and dancing across her face. She is still not afraid of him now, which is a little disappointing. He leans in closer, braces a hand against the stone beside her head. “Very happy.” His words touch her ear and he hears the faintest hitch in breath and he dances away, laughing. “Very happy, Silne. Now rest, we will face the pack of wolves tomorrow.”He falls asleep more easily that night than he has in a long time. Over and over he sees her face, notes of disbelief and something else in those watchful, watchful eyes. Oh yes, what fun they were going to have! He would trust her, and he would trust Mother and damn the rest of them. Silne was the Brotherhood and the future, his future. ~*~

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

~*~
3rd Rain’s Hand 4E 202
He was not afraid of death, for what was death but another object on a long list of biological processes all men and mer must go through? He had certainly always known that he would not go quietly. No, Cicero had long known that he would never live to see his hair go grey and his joints fail.The Dread Father had evidently chosen that blood loss would be his ultimate demise. Which was fine. It was fitting and truthfully he was not in much pain. Instead, his vision swam and his ears echoed and everything felt very far away. Which was a fine way to die if only it would hold off for a few minutes because she was here, he could, though it sounded very distant, hear her coming through the halls. He leaned against one of the ancient walls, dimly aware that he was leaving a bloody handprint there.Of course the Pretender would send Silne. Send the best to defeat the best. But would she kill him? Did this make Astrid or Cicero the fool?"Oh, but this isn't at all what Mother would want. You kill the Keeper or I kill the Listener? Now that's madness." It was madness and besides, he would not lift his blade against her. He does continue to shout through the Sanctuary at her, it helps keep him awake, helps propel him farther. He hears the spike trap go off."Ouch! Pointy pointy! My home is well defended. I always have been a stickler for details. Get it? "Stick-ler." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, I slay me!" He laughs, doubled over, and then coughs, wet and gurgling. The sharp tang of blood coats his teeth. The sound of her advancing echoes through the halls. Should he be relieved or dismayed that the guardians attack her? They were protecting him, a boon, as black spots swim in and out of his vision. But a bad omen as well. Should not the ancient guardians trust the Listener as they do the Keeper? Unless she was not in line with the Dread Father’s will? He had seen it in Falkreath, even after she came back, after she apologized. She wanted them to like her. Wanted Astrid to like her.She screams, well actually it sounds perhaps a bit more like a war cry, and Udefrykte roars followed by a resounding thud.  Surely, she is not going to kill him? She knew the tenants! I want to do right by them. That’s what she had said! She wanted to do right by the Night Mother and the Dread Father! But if she kills him she is as much a pet to the Pretender as the rest of them. She is a traitor, a liar, she is unworthy to have been Mother’s chosen.No. Mother choses well. 
She didn’t pick you though, did she? And here you are, ready to die for her. And then what? Do you think they’ll be happy to care for her back in Falkreath? Do you think for one second, they’ll keep her there?
This was madness. He would have to kill her. And what? Steal Mother back in the night? Hide out in some crypt for another ten, fifteen, twenty years?"All right, so Cicero attacked that harlot, Astrid! But what's a fool to do, when his mother is slandered and mocked? Surely the Listener understands!"He reaches a dead end, the torture room. Sithis help him. He has to remove his hand from the profusely bleeding wound to push the door open and the world narrows to a pinprick. The sound of her footsteps keep him tethered to consciousness. “Cicero admits, he thought the Listener would be dead by now. Heh. Maybe we could just forget all this? Hmm? Let bygones be bygones? What do you say?"He grits his teeth to amble forward. "If it's any comfort, I do feel slightly bad about Veezara. Stupid lizard got in the way! But please tell me that hulking sheepdog has bled to death."He collapses at the far end of the room. Though he cannot stand, he draws his ebony dagger. He would die with his old friend in his hand, at least."And now we come to the end of our play. The grand finale." He can barely cough the words out. He is not afraid of death. Leaving his Mother’s remains undefended on Nirn, knowing the last Listener of the last dwindling sanctuary was a sacreligious traitor, those were very real fears. His worst fears, actually. Death would like to take him so badly though, he can feel it. His limbs are heavy as though his very health were being leached from him. Which it was, in a way, red and angry, soaking the stones beneath him.  The heavy wooden doors at the far end of the room swing inward.Is this what her victims felt? As though they were looking at a spectre of death? Perhaps, with her pale skin, high nordic cheekbones, and hair the color of wheat, she looked more like the fine porcelain dolls sold in the Imperial City than a cut throat. But it was the expression in her eyes that brought death, lighting within storm clouds. She wears the dark armor that denotes their guild. Her blade-arm is splattered with dark, inky troll blood and she brings with her the crackling smell of ozone from the fallen guardians. He has never seen her so angry or so graceful as she stalks across the room to him, Dwarven dagger dripping at her side. "Do what you will. Cicero has no fight left. In the end, Sithis will judge us both."Still, he grips the dagger, gloves slippery. Standing is completely out of the question but he does slump, nearly sitting up, it really is a very good effort at sitting, and wonders if he can summon the energy to throw his dagger.She points at him with the end of her blade and this is it. No grand finale, just a dead jester left to rot. Her voice echoes through the chamber. “You have the temerity, after everything, to try to trap and kill me, to send a frost troll after me? Do you not know me at all?” He blinks wearily, tries to process what she’s saying. Suddenly there are two of her and they both still look angry. Why isn’t he dead yet?“We’re supposed to trust each other Cicero! How could you not trust me? Even the guardians attacked me!”Dimly, he’s aware that she is advancing on him but her words take a long time to make sense in his quickly extinguishing mind.“Cicero?”There is the clattering sound of his dagger falling out of his hand. The world spins and he is on his back, the ceiling and then Silne above him. His breaths are wet and difficult.“Fuck. I’m sorry, fuck.” Is she stabbing him? No, her blade slices away the tattered motley. “Shit, fuck, here.” More clattering sounds, clinking like bottles. The pop of a cork.Burning, sharp, acute burning that drags him brutally back to Nirn. She’s upturned some sort of potion onto his abdomen. The pain grounds him, gives him something to cling to as she rifles through her satchel. He tries to sit up and is entirely unsuccessful. While he’s not mere moments from the Void, whatever she had used on him hadn’t been a vigorous healing potion.“Silne,” he tries, bubbles in his voice and on his lips.She looks up at him from her bag and her eyes are filled with unshed tears.“I don’t have any more healing potions.” Her voice breaks and she wipes the back of her hand across her cheek as the tears spill. It leaves a smear of blood.“Silne,” he coughs weakly, “take care of Mother. Don’t let them hurt her.”She shakes her head, pushing the satchel aside. She grabs his hand. “Of course I will. But you are not going to die.”But it was alright now. His fears were laid to rest. The Brotherhood would carry on with her. He smiles to think that one day they would meet again in the Void. “Don’t you dare.” Her hand squeezes on his like a vice. “Don’t you dare fucking die on me Cicero.”“S’okay.”“No! No it’s not, please, hang on just a while longer. There’s an apothecary in town…”Why, dearest Mother, won’t she let him die? He wasn’t afraid of death, for what was death but a process all must go through? There were many, many worse ways to die than here in his refuge, dear sweet Silne by his side. Your Keeper is ready to come home Mother and he might finally hear your voice…One last time, he opens his eyes to look at her. But her crying has stopped and she lets go of his hand. She looks with pained concentration at her palm, as though she was trying to squeeze something there. Except her hand is empty, until it isn’t. A glowing amber orb shimmers and winks out of existence. Silne curses but tries again and this time the orb stays.“Okay, okay. Sithis, please let this work.”She places her palm flat on his abdomen and if the potion had burned earlier, this was an inferno lighting him from within. He cries out as he feels each fiber of his body regrowing at an alarming rate, magicka ripping through him until the world goes dark. It is too much for one day and one mortal body. Something tries to rouse him but he turns away from it. There is no pain in the dark line he walks between consciousness. No worry, no thoughts. Whatever is poking him is relentless though. Eventually his eyelids open and reality returns.Silne lets out a shaky sigh of relief. “How do you feel?”How did he feel? Like he had been skewered by an angry werewolf and set on fire. He felt like shit.“What?-”“I’ve never done that before. When you passed out I thought I’d killed you.”He can finally lift his head to see the extent of the damage. His motley is utterly ruined, parted straight down the middle and both it and him are covered in dried and congealed blood. Some of it, he reckons, must also be from Arnbjorn and Udefryke and he hopes they didn’t have anything catching.Beneath the layer of grime are three long marks, each about an inch wide and six long. They look several days old, pink and healing. The room is still heavy with an acrid, metallic tang.Cicero tries to speak but a coughing fit overtakes him and he’s surprised to see that his fist comes away from his mouth red.“You still need some healing potions. I’m going to run into town, I’ll be back in twenty minutes.” She hesitates before she stands and then quickly pressed the lightest kiss on his temple. He is asleep before she leaves the room.  At some point he is awoken and made to drink two red bottles. Healing and cure disease she tells him. He wakes again in need of water and is greeted by the site of a small camp set up in the center of the room. A fire blazes in the hearth and Silne somehow got a bedroll underneath of him. He drinks from the tankard she offers and is quickly out again. The next time he wakes it is to the smell of food, a pot bubbling over the fire. He stretches, feels the pull of his healing wounds and draws his eyebrows together to see that his midsection is wrapped tightly in linen bandages. He wraps a blanket around his shoulders and sits beside the fire, he takes the bread and cheese she offers him, he waits for her to say something. She doesn’t. “I did not know Astrid would send you.”She sits beside him, mending his shirt with a needle and thread. “Yes you did.”He did. Who else would Astrid have sent (other than the dog of a False Brother, who, hopefully, had died on his way back to Falkreath)? “I’m sorry. Cicero meant to trust you, I did-.” Wasn't that what he promised months ago? How does he explain the paranoia that tries to rend him in two?She sighs and rips off a bit of the thread with her teeth. “Yeah but I get it. I wanted them to like me. I thought we could change their minds. But you were right about Astrid and I should’ve seen it before. And so I gave you reasons to doubt me.”“Cicero should not have,” he sighs heavily, “I should not have lost my patience with Astrid .” He spits the name. “Now mother is alone. Mother is alone, Silne, she is there with them and Cicero can’t go back-” His voice climbs in pitch as the reality of the situation settles on him. He left her. He had defended her with his words, had defended her with his blade, but she was there and he was here and he could not go back to her. He had fled, not to her side, but to his sanctuary, to safety. Stupid, selfish Keeper!“I will go back. For Mother. Cicero, I will not let anything happen to her.”He nods but his gaze stays fixed onto the flames. What else could he have done? That harlot had said such wretched, terrible things! But what is a fool to do when his Mother is slandered and mocked?“Cicero.” Silne pulls on his hands, which he hadn’t realized were wringing the blanket like he’d like to wring Astrid’s throat. “We’ll figure this out, okay? I’ll go back and lie to Astrid, I’ll tell her I killed you and we’ll figure something out.”Of course, not all was lost. A mess maybe, but salvageable. Mother would see that all was well.“Tell her you strangled me with my own intestines.”“Oh, you don’t think I should say that Arnbjorn pretty much did the job for me?”“No!”She laughed. “Very well, I’ll tell them how bravely you fought and that I barely escaped with my own life.”“I could’ve taken you.”“Cicero, when I walked in here, you were barely conscious.”“Well has Silne ever faced a werewolf, alone, after running across Skyrim for days?”Her laugh continues to echo across the stone room. “No and I hope I never have to!”Comfortable silence settles over them. The fire is blissfully warm. Sithis, Cicero hadn’t even realized how cold he was before. He feels good, tired of course, but jittery with energy from the ordeal of not dying. He yawns loudly as his fingers drum restlessly against the stone floor. Silne mirrors his yawn and then glares at his accusatorially. “Rest, Listener. Cicero will keep watch.”She frowns. “Um.”Cicero, eyebrows raised, humming, waits for her to finish or continue or even start that thought. She just pokes at the fire with a stick. “Yes?”She chews the inside of her cheek and, because her hair is tied back, he can see her ears turn red. “Silne has something to say or no, hmm?”“Um.”“Fine. Cicero will listen when you’re ready.”She rolls her eyes and he grins, pleased. “Aren’t you wondering how I knew you’d be here?”Hm, actually no, he wasn’t. He’s been rather busy today. “No. Did Mother tell you? Oh, what did she say!”“No.” She mumbles almost inaudibly. “I… I’m sorry, I read your journals. Astrid told me to.”  Hmm. Not what he’s expected her to say. He supposed he ought to balk at the invasion of privacy. Yet they weren’t his own, were they? They were, of course. He remembers the man, brash and cocksure, young but aged beyond his years who had written the early entries. That man was, of course, dead but the remaining Cicero still held his memories. The fragmented and nearly incoherent scribblings from the earliest days of his madness weren’t him either, not now. So he wasn’t upset personally at Silne now knowing those deep and old parts of him that were not him. Rather, he was concerned with how it affected her standing in the Brotherhood.  Never steal the possessions of a Dark Brother or Dark Sister. To do so is to invoke the Wrath of Sithis. Under that strumpets orders, though. Never disobey or refuse to carry out an order from a Dark Brotherhood superior. To do so is to invoke the Wrath of Sithis.  He twists his mouth as he puzzles it out, scratching absently at the stubble sprouting on his chin. Perhaps breaking a tenant in order to avoid breaking another tenant was permissible. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have.”She looks so young, her eyes soft and wide, wisps of baby-thin curls escaping her tie to fall around her face. Cicero doesn’t know how old she is. Sometimes she is as old as the Mother herself in her wisdom and authority, like when she burst into this room as Death Incarnate. Then there were times like now, like beside the waterfall, where she looks like a wounded and unsteady child. He has a sudden impulse to ask her and then it passes. It didn’t matter, just as the scattered parts of himself in the journals didn’t matter. Like the pieces of a puzzle whose edges had been broken so the picture could no longer be whole. But why did it need to be? Had it ever mattered that it was? Cicero didn’t know but he thought that in ways she was like that too. Both of them, more than just the sum of themselves. “Cicero thinks we’ve had enough of apologies today. You’re forgiven of all charges concerning journals.” He grins cheekily at her. Her shoulders relax and she hugs her arms around her knees, still holding the stick she's been using as a poker. Her eyes flicker to him, inquisitive as ever, like they’re trying to crack him open. Why read my journals when she can read me better just like that? His mouth is still split in a smile and after a beat she mirrors it. The stick is cast aside and Cicero finds himself in a bone-crushing hug. “I’m really, really glad you’re not dead.”“So am I.” He says softly as she pulls back but stays sitting beside him. “Would have been alright to die but you’re not rid of Cicero yet.”“I know, beauty of the Void, the will of Sithis, etcetera, etcetera. But I’d like you to stick around for a little longer.”“Cicero will try to behave.”Her laugh is music. “I’d appreciate that though I don’t believe you for a second.” She lays her head on his shoulder and he closes his eyes. The blanket, a musty moth-eaten thing she’d found in a chest, separates her cheek from his skin. But he feels the warmth of her caring, the weight of her trust through the blanket. He wonders if she is aware of the bounding pulse at his throat. He can’t remember the last time he had received such a gesture and it is perhaps the most terrifying thing that had happened to him today.Silne shifts and he opens his eyes to see her scrunch up her nose. “You smell like you got into a fight with a werewolf and lost.”“Shut it!”She grins like a khajiit. “There’s a bath ready in the next room over.” Days blend together in the place that was once his solitary refuge. The pain lingers, sometimes sharp, sometimes dull. Fire dances in the room no matter the time of day. There is a constant something on the hearth, strong-brewed herbal tinctures, barely edible stew, Silne’s handiwork (thankfully supplemented by sweet rolls purchased in town). He has lived confined and unground and hidden before. This is not that. And while he has cause to worry about Mother, Silne reassures him all will be well. So when he wakes at an indiscernible hour to find her gone, there is no panic, no fear. She has gone to save their family just as surely as she had saved him. ~*~

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth,

Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth,

Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I

have not once had the least idea who or what I am,

But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet

untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd,
Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,
With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,

Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.
 Walt Whitman - Long Poem As I Ebb’d With the Ocean of Life ~*~
22 Second Seed 4E202
Her words hang in the stale, damp air. Falkreath has fallen.  He had hardly been able to contain his excitement at seeing them. For weeks now he had been loitering around Dawnstar. Not in the sanctuary, not when they all expected his corpse to be rotting there. There was an abandoned tent not far from the Black Door that he had claimed and it was from there that he caught sight of them.It had felt like an eternity since Silne left. And, while he trusted her to see to their Mother and their faith and family and every single thing that Cicero held dear, it was a long and painful wait. He had not spent so much time above ground in so long that he couldn’t recall. The sun was painful to his eyes, the waves lapping at the shore too loud for sleep. Not that he ever had much success in that area anyway. He woke often in the night, expecting Astrid at the tent flaps, armed and laughing. After forming a tenuous friendship with the old woman who ran the alchemy shop, he dreamed of Thalmor agents burning it to the ground. Worst of all, when the world was quiet but for the rhythmic clash of waves, the Jester conjured images of Silne, run back to Astrid to tell her where to find him, of her having Mother tossed into Lake Ilinalta. Dawnstar and its surrounding inhabitants were abuzz with rumors of a killer about. Cicero could not help it, there was nothing for it, he had not been this tense in ages. Cicero knows, Mother, that he is retired. But they are not contracts, just stress release.One was a drunken sailor that stank of his own bodily fluids and would have drowned in the bay anyway had Cicero not come along. The other was a Vigilant that hung around the museum, blathering on at all hours about Stendarr and daedra and Sithis knew what else. Cicero wanted him quiet and so quiet he now was. He thought he would feel a bit more grounded, or at least a bit less bored, disposing of them. He didn’t. And so when he saw them, relief as warm as Colovian brandy flooded through him. They looked like ordinary travellers, a man and a woman sharing the front bench of a wagon, a little girl and a large crate in the back. Two horses pulled the thing. But Cicero knew them in an instant and banked his campfire, slowly creeping towards them. They rode past the door and stopped just shy of his camp. Dusk was settling and with it miners emerged from their labors, fisherman and sailors made for their homes or, more commonly, the inn. Through this commotion they waited, seemingly to inspect their wagon and tend to their horses. Cicero watched Silne bend to inspect the wagon’s front axel and the corner of his mouth twitched.When the final rays of daylight dwindled out over the surface of the sea, the little party retraced their steps and unloaded their cargo. Silne and Nazir unloaded the wooden crate and Cicero could practically feel Silne roll her eyes as Nazir barked orders for where to hold it and how to step. At least he was being careful. Babette unloaded the rest, of which there was little. A few sacks of meager rations, and a couple of bedding furs. Surely there was more? Or perhaps the others had taken another wagon and were delayed for some reason. Cicero crouched beside the entrance, wondering how she had done it. In any event, he was immensely proud of her and relieved beyond measure. And Mother was home! Here. Home.Though it is late in Second Seed, the nights are still cold enough for ice to form on the shallows at the water’s edge. The chill seeps into him, huddled against the rock, and he wonders if he should just go inside. But he has no idea of Silne’s plans or if the others know that he yet lives. So he waits and shivers and wishes she would hurry up. Surely, she must wonder where he is? In the dark he can see the red, daedric eyes of Shadowmere watching him. The horses had been led into a relief in the rockface and tethered with ample hay from the wagon. Ghost does not take well to the other beast, his nostrils flared and gaze wary. Cicero thinks to go to them when the door lets out its eerie sigh. He must jest with her, just a little. Especially when she is so startled at his appearance. It was a very good joke, he thinks, because of course he would never kill her. Foolish Listener, to look so scared of harmless Cicero.  Oh but she does not look happy to see him. Hmm, and not afraid. Sad. His Listener looks sad. And she looks at him in that way that makes him feel as though she is dicing him to pieces with her eyes. He had thought once that her eyes held secrets and at this moment such a thing must be true. His manic grin falls in confusion and he frowns as he looks at her, her eyes sunken and dark, a jagged scab stretching from her temple to her cheekbone. “Oh, Cicero.” She steps forward and wraps her arms around his middle as he remains motionless. “Listener?”She sighs wearily and tugs on his arm. “You’re freezing, let’s go inside.”Not that it is warmer inside, but there is no wind to contend with and it is easy for him to hear her when the words fall from her lips.“We have much to discuss but first you must know, Falkreath has fallen.”He doesn’t respond, doesn’t know how to. Perhaps Cicero should have expected this. Hadn’t he wanted to bring it about himself anyway? Kill the lot of them, take Mother and run. Now everything dear to him was in this very sanctuary. The addition of Nazir and Babette were just a bonus.Vague indifference is what he might have expected himself to feel. But it is not. His chest aches, sudden and unbidden as though he’s been kicked by one of the beasts outside. His mind swims with raucous laughter. It bubbles up out of him until he is clutching at his sides, gasping for breath. He hadn’t even liked them. Insolent, and unkind to him, he should be happy that they are receiving their due in the Void now. Well, no, Festus and Veezara had been alright. But he was no stranger to Siblings dying. It was the way the Brotherhood worked.  And, if their hearts were true, were they not with Sithis in the Void now? And he truly was glad to hear that Astrid and her dog were dead. So why does he feel as though he is drowning? Falkreath has fallen. He sucks in a breath of the damp, foul smelling air, and the laughter is gone as quickly as it had come. He looks around the little room they stand in, the ancient walls covered in thick moss and the torn banners of his home, his religion, his life. This tiny little room that held only four people, the last remaining children. His Listener is watching him, her face is grave, haunted, watching him in that way. It makes him want to hide, it makes him want to lash out at her.“Stop looking at me!” Her eyes go wide. His do too. It is not his voice, anymore, that comes out of him. It belongs to a dead man and has no place among the living. His next sentence is forced higher and cheerful. “I- I’m going to see Mother.” He brushes past the three of them, keeping his eyes down. He tries to chuckle, for certainly he’s shocked them with that little outburst, but the laughter doesn’t come.  Down the worn steps and to the right, that’s where they have put her. The iron tomb is locked but it seems someone has polished it recently. Little votive candles encircle her feet. Only here for a few hours and they have taken the time to light them. He should be effusing with joy.
Falkreath has fallen.
“Mother?” When he closes his eyes, he does not see the corpse he has dedicated his life to. He sees the mousy woman who gave him eyes the color of honey. Even in his memory she looks stern and worn, those eyes holding no love for her bastard son. He braces a hand against the sarcophagus to hold himself upright. He shakes his head from side to side as if by doing so he could dislodge the unbidden memory. It only conjures another; a bedroom above a tavern in Bruma, the air heavy and metallic, his hands sticky with drying blood. Lilian hadn’t even screamed when he did it, opened that man’s throat like a fountain. He needn’t have killed him, he was drunk enough to have been incapacitated far more easily. But Cicero had wanted to. He wouldn’t see Lilian sell herself away like their mother and sisters and he had wanted to kill that man anyway. He killed his mother after that too, knowing that he could.He blinks furiously, grips the iron etchings beneath his hands until they ache but Silne’s words have dislodged something inside of him and the torrent of memories cannot seem to stop . The first time he entered the sanctuary in Bruma. The envelope he had enclosed his first contract’s earnings in, sent to Lilian. Fire, oil and smoke, consuming the Bruma Sanctuary and everyone and everything within. Had it truly been twenty years? Twenty years of service, unwavering dedication, servitude? He opens his eyes, regards the intricate designs of the coffin that he had long committed to memory by now. She, seeing all of it; Alisanne burned alive, Rasha, throat slit in his sleep, Cicero, splintering to pieces with every day that went by beneath Cheydinal.   He was desperate for this to stop. For the Jester to save him, to carry this ghost of his former self off to some secluded area of his mind where he didn’t have to think or feel. This is Mother’s gift for her humble servant? Cicero is honored, Mother, honored for all you’ve given me. Three. Three sanctuaries he had seen fall. She had seen fall. Had sat in there and let it happen. Three bitter defeats and for what? His youth and sanity, for what ? For a crumbling old sanctuary and a mother who had never spoken to him, never showed that she loved him anymore than the tavern whore from Bruma?  His eyes are hot as he stumbles back from the sarcophagus. He regrets his bitter thoughts as soon as they cross his mind but are they not true? What did it matter that he had found the Listener if the Dark Brotherhood was dead?And what of the four of them? Any moment the Penitus Oculatus, or the Thalmor might break down the Black Door. Or guards of the hold, or bandits like Garnag, or any other bloody thing. What then? Did it matter?His breath comes in quick gasps as he flails for something to anchor himself to. He stumbles in the direction of one of the benches when he feels pressure against his arm, assisting him. The back of his legs collide hard with the wooden bench and he lands gracelessly, hands coming up to hold his head, his fingers digging into his hair and sending his cap careening to the floor. Balmy summer evenings in Cyrodiil, a lifetime ago. He stands in a field, an iron dagger held inexpertly in his hand. Breathe. You’ll find yourself in times of duress more often than not in this line of work. You must remain calm, focus on your breath. One, two, three, four… The words of a long-dead mentor rattle in his head. Breathe. He is not in Bruma. Not Cheydinhal. Not Falkreath. Here, now, Dawnstar. Silne.   “Cicero?” Her voice is so soft and low like she is speaking to a startled animal. She is sitting beside him on the bench but he doesn’t, can’t, raise his head to look at her.Her presence, again, pushes him through a myriad of emotions he doesn’t know how to face. But at least there is not emptiness and he clings to that.He’s angry with her, for one. Not that he can exactly say why. Perhaps because she has that habit of seeing too much of him. But why rally against that? She had read his personal journals, and did she not know him better than any other living soul? Jealously. That she’s Listener. That’s she’s calm, open and patient in this moment, when he cannot be any of those things. That she has had even some small validation from Mother. That she hasn’t thrown her life away on a meaningless venture, not yet. But stronger than the rest is the enormous sense of relief at her presence. If his life had been wasted on the Brotherhood, at least it had brought him to her.Her hand reaches out to rest on his shoulder, her thumb tracing along the broad stripe of his tunic.“Cicero?” Concern has crept into her voice.How to make her understand? Can she?“I’m sorry.” He doesn’t know who he’s apologizing to. Her? Mother for the wicked things he had thought? The dead siblings under the rubble in Falkreath? He is so very weary all of a sudden. “I-I’m sorry to have upset you.” He nods stiffly, looking up straight ahead at a tattered banner adorning the wall. The red is faded to a dull pink, the hand grey with moth-eaten holes through the palm.“Silne?” He says hoarsely. He sits up and turns to look at her for the first time. She leans back to meet his eyes but her hand remains on his collar. Her eyes are wide, artless in that moment. His brows draw together and his words are hardly above a whisper. “Go home.”“What?” She is incredulous, her hand tightens on his shoulder, the other grips his forearm, nails biting into his skin. “Cicero, what are you talking about?”He lets out a burst of laughter. It is the first time she has ever looked at him like he was mad. His next words he says slowly, as though he is speaking to a child.“The Brotherhood has fallen, and they will find us here, and it has all been for nothing . Go home.” In an instant her expression changes from angelic concern, seeking to understand, to blazing anger. Her hand grips his arm so hard he is sure it will bruise. “This is my home.”He shakes his head violently, laughing again. “No, no Silne, this is nothing. It’s nothing. Don’t you see? It’s over, we’ve failed! We’ve done everything we could and still failed!” He leans his elbows on his knees, wheezing in breaths between giggles. “The Dark Brotherhood… ahaha… has been, oh ahaha… assassinated!” He drops his head back into his hands, laughing until his sides hurt.“No, no!” She drops to the floor in front of him, trying to pull his hands away from his face. She’s scowling, why isn’t she laughing? They should be laughing together because it’s just so funny . “No, it hasn’t.” Harsh, full of fury, this small woman before him.“Don’t…” He gasps for breath. “Don’t make my, haha, mistakes.”So long he had prayed for the devotion burning in her eyes, the determined set of her mouth. What a fool he was. He tips his head back to lean against the iron bars, the fits of mirth finally subsiding. He still grins, there was still such irony to be had. Lilian, only a year older than he, dead before her twentieth year and her child along with her. “Cicero, listen to me, it’s not over.” She hastens through her words before he can interrupt her. “I killed the Emperor.”“You killed the Emperor?” He raises an eyebrow skeptically.“Yes, if you would just listen to me! Every hold in Skyrim is in a panic right now. Every inn is packed with people eager for the news and we saw more couriers on the roads here than I have ever seen before. Do you know what they’re delivering? News articles, everywhere, that the Emperor was found dead on his ship with a bloody handprint and a message.”“A message?”She squeezes his hands and nods, eyes burning into him with intensity. “Fear us.”“Very dramatic, your idea I presume?”“Obviously.” Slowly, she smiles. “The Brotherhood still stands. Small, yes, but we are here, and we have Mother, and half the Empire knows by now that we just murdered the damn emperor of Tamriel.”He lets out a long and shaky breath. In the tumult of information and emotion coursing through him, all he can picture is the sea as he had looked on it that afternoon, of the drift and debris that had wrecked on the shore.A small and calloused hand brushes the hair away from his face and lingers there. He feels the corners of his own mouth turn up. He leans into the warmth. They stay frozen like that for a long while, but frozen is a bad word, he thinks, because although the sanctuary is chilled, he is suffused by warmth and blessed relief, more like languishing in the bask of the sun than held immovable by frigid bones.And then she stiffens and the hand drops and the warmth and relief is pulled away for one terrifying second. But before he can question it, her eyes glass over, her whole body still. He has seen her do this before and his hope steadily builds with each moment that she listens. When it is over she breathes deeply, her gaze on the floor, her face obscured in shadow. But when she meets his eyes she is smiling.“What did she say?” He croaks around the lump in his throat.“That she cries for her castaways. That all has gone according to plan. That we have hope.”~*~Nazir and Babette have disappeared: Cicero doesn’t care where they are. Perhaps, one day, he and Nazir will tolerate one another but today is not the day to strive towards such things. Babette he likes a great deal and he delights in vexing her. But she is not the kind of friend he needs at the moment. It was so much, today. A vacillating of emotions that left him drained but without conclusions or relief. At least in his weariness the panic had subsided to a low throb in the back of his skull that allowed him to breathe though not without pain. Will it always be like this? He lays atop one of the furs they have brought from Falkreath. The smell of it threatens to bring the panic back, stirring frighteningly similar memories to the event that drove his family here. Fire and smoke, tortured cries. The bedding smells like it has sat too close to a campfire though he knows that is not the case. He sleeps poorly on a good day and knows that this exercise is futile. Normally under such circumstances he would tend to Mother to occupy himself but he can’t tonight, not after the wretched things he had thought about her earlier. Shame floods him to think on it. No, he won’t go to her now, not for a while longer. The little room, filled with a rotting wooden dresser, half a dozen ancient and empty baskets, and enough cobwebs to invite a frostbite spider, is perhaps not the most welcoming either. So if he cannot Keep, and he cannot pace the floor of the cramped and dirty space, what was a fool to do?Of course what he wanted to do was glaringly apparent. It was what he wanted to do over the other two options in the first place. But he wanted to give her space, let her get settled. The very last thing he could handle at that moment would be that she didn’t want to be around him. So he stares up and the ceiling and tries to hold on to one shimmering shred of sanity.  There’s a knock on the door. Before he can answer it it creaks open and the object of his thoughts glides in, bringing the soft glow of candlelight with her. “Listener should rest.”She levels a glare at him. “You’ve spoken to me like I’m a child all day.”“Sorry.”“You don’t sound it.”He can’t help grinning at her, it is warm and familiar, their banter, unhaunted.“I am though, Silne, truly.”She sets the candle stick on the nightstand and motions for him to scoot over. He does, sitting with his right side pressed up against the stone wall to leave enough room for her to fit on the twin sized bed. “I remember once I told you not to doubt my sincerity.”She lets out a little chuckle and looks at him incredulously. “Cicero you are the most incorrigible man I’ve ever met.”“Oh?”“Yes.”“Care to elaborate?”“No.”Well alright then. He stretches his legs out, leaning back against the headboard. His curled boots sit discarded on the floor, his stockings warm but in need of mending. Silne sighs dramatically and leans her head against his shoulder. It’s become a common thing between them, he supposes, this simple affection, but each time he is caught off guard by it. Outside of these moments he has not connected with another person in a lifetime, not in this trusting, caring sort of way. Unless you count killing someone which was almost the same but not quite. The stress of the day, the powerlessness he felt, the confusion and hurt, they drove him to do something rash and reckless and so he reaches out and touches her hand. Just sets his left atop her right, at first. And then, when she doesn’t pull away, he fits her hand inside his larger one and they sit like that for a long few moments. It feels as though with each breath he draws and releases some of the tension leaves him. As it abates it occurs to him that he has another sin to heap upon the errors of the day. Silne, Sithis, he hasn’t considered her for a moment. In passing he noted the cut on her forehead and then had been consumed by his demons. But what of her?He withdraws his hand, guilt settling on him like fetters. Gingerly, he places two fingers beneath her chin to draw her head up. He brings his middle finger to trace the outline of the scab that shows she is healing well. “Were you hurt anywhere else?”“No. I arrived after the ambush. I caught most of the agents unaware but one of them turned and caught me with the edge of their shield. It’s not bad though. Bled a lot but all head wounds do.”“Tell me what happened.”She shakes her head. “I don’t want to distress you.”“Cicero is prepared to hear it now, truly.”She sighs. “It’s a long story.”He listens intently as she recounts Astrid’s betrayal and eventual repentance. How Falkreath burned, Veezara cut down and Festus pierced like an archery target. Gabriella and Arnbjorn and even the spider Liz, killed inside of their own home. They buried them beside the pool, Silne tells him, where Nightshade is sure to grow. Her whole bearing is haunted, her grief palpable. Cicero remembers feeling so. Stumbling along the road towards Cheydinhal, the ghosts of his dead siblings looming over every thought. He envies her compassion for he has none. Her tone turns into pride as she tells him how she climbed the anchor to get aboard the Katariah, sneaking around agents and sailors until she stood before Titus Mede himself. “He was completely unsurprised. Acted like he’d long been expecting us. I have to wonder who had Motierre perform the Black Sacrament. The whole business was so strange.”“You weren’t followed, were you?” An image comes unbidden of agents at the black door.“No, and even if I was, I took a pretty circuitous route to meet back up with Nazir and Babette outside of Labyrinthian. And I’d like to see a Penutian Oculatus agent go up against one of the Frost Trolls.”“How did you handle them?”She rolls her eyes. “I have some experience with Frost Trolls.”“Sorry.”She chuckles and leans into him, her hair brushing his cheek. Fresh air and salt and the fading scent of lavender. He cannot savor the moment, must sabotage everything he touches and he blurts out, “what now?”She sighs and he knows he’s just dropped a weight onto her shoulders. “I don’t know.” A long pause and then a wry smile turns her lips. “Don’t tell Nazir I said that.”He laughs, a real laugh, and leans against her. “Would you like some advice?”She snorts. “From you? Hardly.”He pinches her arm. “Rest. Worry on it tomorrow.”She nods and fittingly, lets out another yawn. “Yes, tomorrow. And every day after that.”~*~

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

~*~
7th Sun’s Height 4E 202 
A year and a half ago he had sat in this very chair. He could recreate it. Prop his boots up on the hearth and close his eyes and there were Astrid’s letters. Come to Falkreath and see the abomination I’ve turned your organization into. You’re welcome to join us but I will hate you and betray your Listener and insult your Mother. At least he thinks that’s what the letters said.So much has changed in this place since it was his. No more trolls. He’d removed the traps. And it was clean- Sithis, that Cicero knew all too well. He twists to crack his neck, feeling the soreness all the way down his shoulders and spine.Cicero likes the big orc that stands in front of Silne’s desk in the study off of the training room. Silne does not drape herself over it like the harlot used to. She sits with her legs crossed, arms propped on the table top.“What’s your name?”“Kharrn.”“My Speaker seems to think you’ll be a good addition to our organization, Kharrn.”“Hmm.”“You completed the Winterhold contract admirably.”“Yes I did.” She grunted.Silne is not put off by the gruff attitude. This was still very much uncharted territory for her, accepting initiates, but she is the picture of poise. The orc isn’t very forthcoming with information though. She wants to be an assassin (with a warhammer, really?), end of story. It’s good enough for Silne.She levels her eyes at the woman before she hands over a set of armor. “Well, I hope you continue to do so. We’re happy to have you here.” Silne levels with the orc’s narrowed eyes. Kharrn, it seems, does not appreciate pleasantries. “But the Brotherhood is about more than the kill. You stray from the Tenants and your life is forfeit. Am I clear?”She grunts and holds out her hand impatiently. Cicero likes this new Sister. Even if her choice of weapon goes against all reason. Kharrn takes her dark armor though Cicero doubts she will favor the lightweight leather over the bulky metal the Orismer preferred.  Babette glides into the room, looking expectantly between the two women. “Well, Listener? Shall we keep her?” She bounces on her toes, looking very much the expectant child. “Yes, Babette. Do you mind showing Kharrn to the living quarters?”“Certainly Listener.”Babette has loved the hubbub of activity the Dawnstar sanctuary had been wrapped up in, of late. Somehow though, Cicero suspected, the orc wouldn’t fall prey to the unchild’s usual tricks. The renovation of the Dawnstar Sanctuary had been an arduous process but not one that Cicero disliked. There were walls to be torn down and rebuilt, ceilings to mend, old furniture to burn. Not to mention the troll carcass that needed disposing of. It was comical, in a way, the assassins doing such manual labor. Not exactly the best way to capture the imagination of recruits. Welcome to our ancient and honored organization. We move rocks and argue about who has to sweep. But there was something to it, something Cicero could not put his finger on. It happened in the strangest moments. Like when he purposely tries to get under Nazir’s skin by singing while they worked. Nazir’s huffs of annoyance and Babette and Silne’s easy laughter seemed to knit something back together inside of him. Or when they sit together on the floor around the hearth (not enough sturdy chairs to place around the rickety table) to share bread and bowls of whatever Nazir has managed to scrape together. There is a shared understanding, an unspoken acknowledgement. They are not only family, but family who has, quite literally, been tested by fire and come out the otherside. He is thankful that the past few days the other initiates were out on contracts. Nords both of them, a man and a woman. Cicero would bother to remember their names if they survived.  Silne reclines in her chair once Kharrn leaves the room, mimicking the Keeper’s position. She plucks an already-opened envelope from the pile. “And why does the great and powerful Listener get to put her feet up when Cicero has been clearing rubble all day, hmm?”Silne laughs and removes her feet from the top of her desk while holding a letter out to him.“Arrived this morning. For once it looks like things are going according to plan.”He plucked up the letter with gold-trimmed gloves. Yes, it looked like they would arrive tomorrow at first light. Tomorrow was the day Delvin had marked for when a few sets of hands from the Guild would be arriving. They would be necessary to seal off the “forced addition” and put in place the upgrades Silne had in mind. And, they were carrying some rather expensive items to furnish the place as the last remaining Sanctuary in Tamriel had ought to be furnished.It had not been very hard to track down the same Imperial merchant who had supplied the Brotherhood years ago. Cicero was not one to forget names or details. And Babette had been eager to sneak south across the border. Cicero had to admit he had been a little jealous but he couldn’t leave Mother, or Silne. Anyway, Babette had tracked the textile merchant down and now a crate filled with banners of the Black Hand was on it’s way from Riften. They also expected a delivery any day from Solitude of a stained glass door that would serve as a secret entrance. Yes, everything was coming together.Cicero passed the letter back to Silne, unable to stop from bounding up to his feet in excitement. We are back! Back on our feet and ready to send souls for Sithis to meet! She stood and stretched and even through his jubilant mood, Cicero could see the familiar look of worry that crept over her face. “Is sweet Silne going to hide the whole time they’re here?”“In plain sight, I hope. Do you think a shrouded hood will do the trick?”“It worked in Riften.”And it had. Cicero figures the thieves were just very dumb. Or they believed their little star thief was dead and had no reason to suspect the masked stranger from the Brotherhood was her. Either way. “Thank you, again, for going with me.”“Anytime, Listener.”“Hopefully not anytime. I don’t care to ever see the inside of the Ragged Flagon again.”It was strange the way she was totally averse to the Guild that was once her home. Silne, clearly considering the matter settled, began the long ascent upstairs. Cicero quickly followed at her heels, curiosity overruling common sense. “And why so eager to cut ties with the thieves?”He had a hunch. She talked about it once, when she came back. Was that truly only a few months ago? That they wanted to make her the leader of the guild and Silne responded how she had always responded when responsibility was presented to her: she ran away with her tail between her legs. Cicero was glad she was not like that now. And so much had changed. Well, it was the same hesitant expression as she decided how much she wanted to tell poor Cicero, Cicero would never mock her or share her secrets. He tamped down a sudden flare of annoyance at that. Cicero certainly kept nothing from her, not that it would matter if he did, he was convinced she could read his mind. If she wanted to open up his brain and pick through it he would let her (metaphorically speaking; Cicero rather enjoyed living at the moment). He couldn’t promise it would be pleasant but he would let her. Anyway, though she was green at the prospect of revealing any part of herself, even to her dearest friend and Keeper, she was a different woman than the one he had met, bedraggled and hopeless, on the road north of Whiterun. Different from the little girl beneath the sigil of Sithis. More steadfast than the Listener that ran away. And better nourished, for another thing. More adept with a dagger thanks to Cicero’s help. And a confident leader, making swift and decisive arrangements to bring Mother north, to contact the guild, to approve of Male Initiate and Female Initiate. Oh, and she murdered the emperor. 
Have we made you proud Mother?
Cicero was certainly proud of her. He would like to run into Dawnstar and happily proclaim that the Dark Brotherhood was thriving and none were safe. Of course whoever heard, he would have to kill. Actually, this was sounding like a rather good plan and… oh, and Silne hasn’t answered his question. “You know, for being Listener, you never do listen to anything the poor Keeper says.”He does not need to see her expression to know that she’s rolled her eyes. He can see it in the way her footsteps falter for a beat and a huff escapes her. He grins.“I, me, Silne, was never part of the guild. Kit the thief was never me, it was a, a-”“Persona?” Cicero offers helpfully.“Yes.”“Why?” “It’s a long story, Cicero, and we have a lot of shit to get done today, alright?”He lets it drop, though it rankles him how she shuts herself off. There is work to be done though, and work they do. ~*~

8th Sun’s Height 4E 202 
Cicero is up early the following morning. There are many reasons he avoids sleep but today it is for excitement. This day, the eighth of Sun’s Height of the two-hundred and second year of the fourth era, was a turning point, a day to remember in the history of the Brotherhood. He writes it as so in his journal. However, while there is excitement, there is also trepidation. There would be strangers in their home. Strangers who would be allowed to live and leave. That he didn’t like. Cicero finishes his writing, stowing the leather bound volume at Mother’s feet in the coffin which he promptly locked, tucking the key into his pocket. He seeks out breakfast in the main chamber and is shortly joined by a stranger in dark robes. Not that she looks terribly changed, but there is a stiffness, formality in her bearing. She normally reserves her armor for contracts only, preferring to wear pilfered dresses when in the Sanctuary, and never robes. She has somehow confined her hair so that none of it is visible beneath her hood, which sits low on her forehead, obscuring her in shadow, a red cowl covering her mouth and nose barely visible. “Good morning, kind stranger!” He says brightly. He knows by her persistent silence that she’s rolled her eyes.“And what about you? Cicero, they could be here any moment!” Well, yes, perhaps wearing jester’s motley did not make him the soul of discretion. He waves her off flippantly. “Yes, yes, Cicero will change before they get here. Relax, Listener, or they will sense something is amiss.”She grumbles and takes a piece of bread from the sideboard, more picking it into pieces that will need to be swept up rather than eating it. Cicero narrows his eyes at her. “Silne.”“Listener.” She corrects him sharply. “Listener. Cicero thinks you should-““None of that either.”“What?”“Cicero. I don’t want them knowing your name.”“Cicero understands that Listener. Cicero kept his mouth shut in Riften. But if it makes you happy Cicero won’t say a word while they’re here.”Irritated, he stalks off to change out of his motley. He should go to Solitude, he thinks, as he tucks it away in his trunk. They would likely have the vibrant fabrics needed to sew a new set. As it was, the costume was getting to be more patches than original. He pulls on an ancient set of armor, seldom worn but well maintained. He is thinner now than the young man who wore it so long ago and spent hours training each day, but it still fits well enough. He contains his hair in a leather strip at the nape of his neck and dons his shrouded cowl. Once, perhaps, putting on a jester's motley may have felt silly, abnormal but now it is this familiar garment that makes him feel ill at ease in his own skin. But it is for Mother and Silne and the Brotherhood so he will play his part.  In the main room, all have gathered to break their fast. Even the two initiates whose names he should apparently now listen for. Babette takes one look at him and turns to Silne. “Do we have a new initiate, Listener?” She giggles. “Very funny, little monster.” He says without any real anger. She grins wide enough to scrunch her eyes shut and Nazir clears his throat. “Are we all prepared? Mirgelf spotted a wagon with several men entering Dawnstar not half an hour ago.” Who on Nirn was Mirgelf? Cicero wondered and then the big blond Nord shook his head in assent. “Sure did. Wagon was full a crates too.” Ah, well there was one name. “They should be here any moment then.” Silne said. Cicero wished he could see her eyes beneath her hood. Three sharp knocks echo through the cavern. Silne lets out a weary sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”Outside the door there is only Delvin. He leads them farther up shore to where the rest of the thieves are. Silne, Cicero, and Nazir blindfold them, as agreed upon in Silne and Delvin’s letters, and bring them inside. Mirgelf, Kharrn, and the female Nord unload the cart and tend to the horses. Babette watches from her perch atop one of the ricketty tables in the entryway, her feet swinging. They march the guild members down the stairs as though they are prisoners to be brought to the torture chamber. But they are not and their blindfolds are removed and Delvin waits impatiently for the first of many coin bags to be in his possession before he puts his band to work. There are no introductions of course and the two guilds try to interact as little as possible. Silne speaks as little as the rest of them. It is a terse and awkward affair. He stays in the main hall in the center of the activity, not as Keeper but as a nameless assassin. The thieves do not give him a second glance which allows him to watch them. Delvin and Silne spend a long while in quiet discussion. Cicero wonders what they speak of. There are five in total that have come, Delvin included and he the only one named. He gives orders in the way of a man who is used to doing so though in no great capacity. There is a way in which he speaks that makes Cicero think he considers the other thieves as more friends than subordinates. He then concludes that this is not the guild’s leader. And yet neither are the thieves behaving as mindless lackeys. They attend to their tasks with a care for how it’s done as well as how they move, how their faces are obscured by their hoods. But of course they do. Cicero knows those moves all too well. Hiding in plain sight. He will perhaps ask Silne later, who they are, for surely she knows. And what an advantage that is too, for she’ll know if they can be trusted. Cicero does not offer to help. Now with all needed materials inside, none of the Brotherhood do, and the thieves are being paid enough that they’d better not grumble about it.  It is a tedious day. Cicero does not dare sneak off to the relative comfort and quiet of his room. He can’t. He needs to watch them, to stay vigilant. He and Nazir spend most of the day in quiet observation. Cicero thinks it is the best they have ever gotten along. “How on Nirn did a frost troll end up in here anyway?” The Speaker speaks. Actually starting a conversation with Cicero. What a day!“Tunnel network connects to the opening of an old mine shaft to the north. Mostly caved in but big enough for the beast to get through. It wasn’t hard to cause enough of a rock fall to block it completely.”“Hmm.”Nazir likes jokes, well lousy puns anyway, but never cared for merrymen. It didn’t bother Cicero that he and Nazir weren’t great friends. Nazir could be trusted and if he did not respect Cicero, he did respect his position as Keeper and that was just as well.  Cicero climbs the stairs to where Babette is bent intently over a newly placed table. She sorts paper packets out of a crate, visibly excited. “Keeper come see! I haven’t had access to this root in decades, can you not imagine the poisons I can make? Look!”She thrusts a parcel into his hands. Jarrin root . He digs in the crate along with her. Deathbell. Dragon’s Tongue. Canis root. Beneath the seed packets, vials of fine ground powder. Blue dart wing. Powdered River Betty. Essence of human flesh.  “You will have the best collection in Skyrim, little Sister.”“Yes and I should for the price. Your things are here too.”More flower seeds for Mother’s tinctures. A bottle of rare oil from Cyrodiil, what he had been trained to use, made from plants too delicate to grow even in the most well-tended of Skyrim’s gardens. “Thank you.” He says thickly. “For tracking them down.”“Of course. Not that I had any selfish motives. Do you not think this alcove would make a fine garden with the light that comes through the rock? There are already some mushrooms growing here…”He assists Babette. He sits beside Silne on the stairs to eat a lunch of bread and cheese where she does not speak. He even helps when the thieves begin to break up some of the rotten wooden furniture to be used for firewood. Now without exposure to tunnels of ice and waterlogged mines, the Sanctuary should be less damp. A three-legged table goes in and warms them as all sit around the great hearth.  The thieves will stay overnight in order to avoid the suspicion of staying in town before they set off in the morning. Members of both parties will sleep in shifts, an unspoken agreement. No one needed a knife through their ribs tonight.  “Pleased?” Cicero asks of the quiet stranger in dark mage robes who sits beside him. “Ask me again tomorrow.” She grumbles. “Will you sleep tonight?”“Not a chance.”“Have you eaten.”“I will do so tomorrow.”“Listener.”“Let me worry in peace.” She snaps. “Never lets me worry in peace.” He grumbles low enough for her not to hear. “You do not think they will try anything?”“Not any of this lot, no. At least, I don’t think so. But I made the mistake of trusting them once.”“Will you tell Cicero about it one day?”Her eyes find his even beneath the hood and full of fury. Her nails bite into his arm. “Don’t. Use. Your. Name.”He smirks at her. “You’re drawing attention.” Several thieves' hoods angled towards them. “You’re being overbearing.”“I would define it as caring about your welfare.”She turns her head and he catches the angry set of her jaw. “The Sanctuary is nearly habitable.” He is more than right. The banners are resplendent in deep red and black silk. A long oak table sits behind them, ready to acquire family around it’s seats. The room is warm, the candlesticks full, life suffusing every nook and corner. “It’s certainly a beginning.” She replies with little energy.   Cicero sleeps during the first shift, on a bedroll near the hearth. He hopes that by the time the next shift is up Silne will be tired enough to sleep. And, despite her grumbles and protests, she does. She’s curled like a cat to his left, facing him, her back to all the others in the room. He would adjust her hood to better cover her face if it weren’t for the two thieves on watch, watching him. One of them says something snarky to his comrade in a voice that is faintly tinted with the growling, clumsy notes of a Nord accent. The other is an Imperial, that Cicero can tell clearly from his slight build (in comparison to the towering Nord) and the careful, measured way he had spoken earlier. Cicero wonders how he came to Skyrim.He leans forward to catch more of their conversation. “Pomp ‘n nonsense… ‘is false grandeur for some dead lady… ‘magine what those candlesticks would go for t’a fence in da ‘mperial Cidy…”Cicero leans back on his hands, not offended by their words. How could they understand what they’d never been instructed to learn?He speaks softly but clearly to them. “You do not take pride in your own organization, then?”The smaller man stays quiet. The Nord leans forward in interest. “Pride?" He snorts. “T’isn’t for me ta do. Some of our lot, may be. All I take is coin. Leave da ceremony to da daedra-worshipin rest of ‘em.”“But surely the success of the guild impacts your work? It wasn’t so long ago a thief couldn't make a decent living in Skyrim.”His hand reaches beneath the hood to scratch at a beard. “Dunno. Wasn’t wid da guild den.” The other seems to grasp what Cicero’s saying. “It’s worlds different now. We started shaping up, acknowledging our lady and our fortunes turned. Don’t worry friend, we’ll not pinch any goods on our way out.”“Your lady?”“Nocturnal. You have your Night Mother, we have our Night Mistress.”“Aye, you can keep both of ‘em. Prefer whores I can see.”Cicero struggles not to roll his eyes. “And you just watch, friend. Lady Luck isn’t kind to those who don’t appreciate her.”The Nord keeps to his grumbling and Cicero’s mind flashes back to a statue, a lucky old lady, a crypt and a desperate wish to defend. “I reckon it’s the same with your matron. Blesses your efforts.”“Of course.”“Still dodn’t make sense ta me. Kill da bastards and collect da gold. Why anybody needs all this bleedin’ religion… I thought, once, I could be a cutthroat, glad I didn’t.”“Do you think that the upper echelons of society would contact us if we didn’t have some code, some honor?”  “Ah who cares wha’ they think!-” The Imperial quickly quiets the other. “Would you shut your gob! You’ll wake half the place. And he’s right. Look at the Blackbreirs. Maven respects the Brotherhood and blatantly uses the guild. Or she used to. If we had less half-wit ruffians in our numbers the guild might have some respect.”“You talk big but you pick pockets just da same as I.”“And you’ll not pick another pocket under my orders if you don’t shut yer bloody mouths.” Delvin growls from a lumpy bedroll. The Imperial moves to the opposite side of their impromptu campsite and the Nord spends the next few hours presumably glaring at Cicero from beneath his hood. Or perhaps he’d fallen asleep. The little band from the Thieves Guild leave at day break and take with them all of the tension from the Sanctuary. In its wake is the smell of a lavender candle Silne burns at Mother’s feet and her swift change in attitude. She wears a new dress that Cicero has never seen before. Lifted from the Katariah, she says. Her hair is pulled back away from her face, revealing her ears and cheekbones and dusting of freckles. When he hums as they put away his new things for Mother, she sings the words of the tunes he has made her familiar with.  Changeable as shadows, your Listener. He thinks as he opens the tomb doors and regards the leathery face. But it isn’t a thought that he doesn’t understand. Because he does. More than ever, he does. As he sweeps the base of the tomb he pictures a young girl in a thief’s garb in the dripping Cistern they had visited not so long ago and he understands. She presses a bottle of sweet-smelling oil into his hand and smiles wide, a smile he returns. ~*~

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

~*~
13th Sun’s Height 4E 202
Silne tips her head back and grins. The sun is especially bright today. The world is ablaze with it, the water, the rocky coast, the thatched roofs of the village swathed in gold. The heat will only increase with the day and none are sorry for it.Without the oft-present snow cover to dull the senses, from the Black Door they can hear the lively sounds of Dawnstar. A bell rings, merchants hawk their wares, children squeal, and below everything is the constant, steady sound of the blacksmith’s grindstone.“Hot again today.”He supposes that it’s true, at least to her. The long lazy summers of Cyrodiil were hotter.Her other companion murmurs an assent. Hella, it is the name of the other Nord initiate. Cicero does not like that she has been invited along.But Silne does what she wants these days and she wants to bring the other woman with her. They are of an age, which is to say, younger than him, Cicero doesn’t know. But Silne has accepted her into her confidence and now he supposes they are friends.He waves them a farewell from where he sits along the shore. They are destined for town, for fish and salt and flour. It is foolishness but it is also Dawnstar. Two Nord women in tattered clothes are hardly worth anybody's notice.His attention drifts back to the book open on his knee. The pages proceeding this one are full of tight, neat letters, intricate diagrams, recipes. The unmarked page before him is a whim, the fancy of a moment that has struck him that he cannot shake.The former Keeping Tombs were lost in Falkreath. A shame, but it has not been a hardship to rewrite them. This is different though, more than instructions for a future Keeper to have passed down. He wants a token of remembrance of this place, of this present happiness. He wishes now that he had bothered to do so for his other homes.He sketches. The rippling line where the sky meets the water, almost straight, for the sea too acts as though it is languishing in the swelter of the day. The absence of white caps in the water is present above in the swaths of fluffy white that do nothing to temper the sun. On the horizon, half a dozen fishing boats bob like pond skaters.He sets the book and pen aside, leans back on the large flat rock, a cold-blooded, underground creature absorbing the light and heat. This is how she finds him later, alone, her rucksack hanging off a shoulder.Her smile rivals even the midday blaze.“It's a day to be light and happy, is it not?”“Mmm.” He lets his eyes slide closed again. She picks up the book. He hears her thumbing through the pages but she doesn’t comment.“Well?” He asks after a time.“What?”“The drawing, what do you think?”“I think it a good likeness.”“And that’s all?”“Well no, it’s well, it’s sort of dreary.”“Yes.”“And today is so bright and full of life. You’ve made the clouds too dark.”“Because they usually are. Today isn’t a fair representation of this place.”“Then why draw it today instead of any other day?”He shrugs. She sits beside him, close because the rock is really not very large, her knee jabbing him in the ribs. He doesn’t move away. “I don’t think I ever remember a Skyrim summer so warm, even further south.”It might make him laugh, when he thinks about it later, how he waits, like a dog begging scraps, for her to dish out little morsels of her past.“Did you like the southern holds?”“Riften is like an eternal autumn. I like the market and the bustle and even the smell of fish. The rift always felt so alive. And Falkreath had its own beauty, it’s ancient trees and ruins. It used to be part of Cyrodiil, wasn’t it?”“One of the Colovian estates under King Cuhlecain.”“And who was that?”“He was the emperor before Talos. It was under his rule that Tiber Septim conquered into Skyrim.”“I thought Talos was the first emperor.”“He was. Cuhlecain came before him.”This time she pokes him in the ribs intentionally. “And why have I never heard of him?”“I don’t know, you didn’t listen to your history masters?”She laughs good-naturedly. Whatever her upbringing, he knows she had had no masters. Neither had he.Cicero sends her a sly smile. “He was assassinated.”Her laugh rings out across the water. “Imagine that.”“Silne was talking about the places she has lived.”“I believe I was talking about the pleasant ones and I’ve exhausted that topic.”“And the unpleasant ones?”“Well, there’s here. Which isn’t completely terrible, I suppose. It could snow less.”Cicero heartily agrees.“And then there’s the Reach. It's rainier there. Windy.”“And naturally it was only the weather Silne objected to.”She sighs, squinting across the harbor. “Do you know the motto of Markarth?”“No.”“They say the streets run with blood and silver.”“Well do they?”“In a way.”“And that’s all you’ll say on it?”“For now, I have good news for you.” Inside, he, Nazir, Babette, and Silne gather around the Listener’s desk off the training room. Silne is buoyed on the same wave of excitement that she dragged him into the Sanctuary with.“I have an old associate in Solitude who I asked to look in on some things for me. Track our shipments, keep us apprised of guard postings. Well, I received another letter in town this morning.”“And?” Nazir asks, bushy eyebrows creeping up into his head wrap.“And I asked them to pass along all information concerning the Penitus Oculatus. Particularly one of its former members.” She smiles wide. “Commander Maro returned from Cyrodiil last week.”A collective ripple of excitement passed through them all, like a cat before it pounces.“You will want to make a statement.” Babette says. “With his death. Send a clear message.”“Yes.”Nazir: “As much as I would like to dice him to pieces, the honor is yours, Listener.”“And I relish it. Keeper, you will accompany me?”Of course he will. As though she needed to ask. How long she has been planning this, he doesn’t know. She has notes, maps. She has tracked his schedule the same way she did with his son.They set out for Solitude at once, riding west into the setting haze and shadow. The road is, for the first of Cicero’s traveling it, free of snow and ice, Ghost’s hooves sucking deep into the mire while Shadowmere glides weightless.Cicero has seen many facets of his Listener, but this one he likes the very best. She is giddy, she wears a crown of flame as the sun picks out the copper in her hair. She bids a pleasant good evening to a pair of traveling farmers. Do they know? Do they know the small girl on the black horse is a queen of vengeance, in the midst of her coronation?Finally, under the full darkness of night, they reach Katla’s farm. A boy sleeping in the haymow quickly stables the horses and takes their coin.To the Winking Skeever, twenty coins and a false story of traveling delay (heavy mud, thrown shoe), in exchange for rooms, no heed paid to weary travelers. 
14th Sun’s Height 4E 202
They lay on their bellies against the worn planks of the deck. Clouds roll past the three-quarter moon above. The wind is up, the water restless, a constant, steady beat against the docks.A new beat, practiced footfalls, draw near to them, coming down the dock.“Well?”“She’ll be ready to sail come morning, sir.”“She’ll be ready to sail now or you’ll have no pay.”“But sir, them coasts’s dangerous enough in broad daylight, it’d be madness to set off now.”“Have I hired you for advice or for work?”“Work, sir.”“You’ll have this ship ready to sail within the hour.”“Yessir.”The mechanical footfalls fade back towards the city. The other man sets to the rigging.The ship is a rather small vessel and they expect another dozen men to board before it sets off. From behind their stack of crates and barrels, yards of rope, and heaps of canvas, the assassins have a rather good vantage of the deck.The sailor, a disreputable fellow by the look of him, works with his back turned.The ship rocks with the incoming waves, an undercurrent of energy, and Cicero feels a similar swell; memories and instinct and training rising to the surface, but not painful. No, there is no part of this that he does not enjoy.There is no farce here. No roles. No regret in the fit of the dark armor. No compulsions, no tapping, no humming. He closes his eyes in the crystal stillness of the night and the stillness does not leave him. He wonders if he could’ve done so a year ago, if his mind would have permitted it.Silne wriggles closer to him, though they are already cramped on the floor. She is pressed entirely along his right side, from his shoulder to his calf and for a moment his clarity is broken.“Knife in his boot.”Her words brush against his ear but no farther, lost in the wind and waves. The sailor keeps working.Her gaze stays fixed ahead on the man and the docks and he takes a moment to observe her. Here she is too, in her truest self, still radiating the infectious energy she hadn’t yet shed since leaving the sanctuary. She is entirely shrouded in the black armor, cowl over her face and mouth but her eyes glitter, Masser and Secunda in each socket.His attention is ripped back to their task at the sound of footsteps once again. Maro leads the charge down the wooden planks, flanked by a dozen hired men. Mercenaries. Cutthroats. Assassins under a different name. Ironic.Oh ironic it was and how he had laughed when Silne appraised him of the situation in their room at the inn yesterday. The Commander, disgraced. Abject failure of his singular objective; protect the Emperor. He had run back to Cyrodiil, tail between his legs, stood trial and been stripped of his position.Oh, but he wore the shining steel and red cape now as though he were anticipating reinstatement. Cicero forcibly bites back a laugh.The small band boards the ship. Maro begins barking out orders. Sails unfurl, anchor heaved onto the deck. They glide out to sea, beneath the great stone arch, civilians asleep in their beds up above. Cicero looks to Silne as the shadow of it passes over them and their eyes meet.It is altogether too perfect. For what disgraced commander would share his plans of revenge? Who would he tell? Who would trust him? Only those he could pay and those would perish tonight. How he would come to know of a sanctuary in Dawnstar, Silne didn’t know, but tonight they would send any antagonists a message.It takes hardly any time to reach the spot. Not quite yet out to sea, in view of the city, but not so much that anyone could see onto the ship. Silne elbows him, one sharp nudge, and then they are up and upon them.It should be harder, he thinks, as his ebony blade sinks into the soft, exposed skin of the mercenary’s throat, tearing from windpipe to trapezius muscle. They are a trained group of soldiers for Sithis’ sake. And yet Silne and Cicero cut through them like butter. Three are dead before the others even know what’s going on.
Ooh. This shall be fun, fun, fun.
A great hulk of a Nord goes down in trying to remove his oversized sword from off his back. Cicero’s ebony dagger slips between plates of the man's armor and lodges in his ribs. Stuck stuck stuck so he must resort to the one in his boot. In his periphery Silne dances with a man in fur armor. The sailor lets out a terrified shriek and runs to the starboard side, evidently you throw himself over. Before he can scale the railing, he collapses to the deck with Cicero’s blade between his shoulders. Cicero retrieves another from the other boot. There are obscenities shouted into the night. The planks are slick with crimson. Laughter, someone’s (his, probably), rings out. No stillness in the world around him but inside, oh this is where he is most grounded, where memories cannot claim him. Instinct and muscle memory guide and guard him. Pary, evade, get in close. He is faster than them. He always has been. Right down to when he was a boy, playing with other children in the streets. He was always the smallest but so too he was always the quickest. Stupid mercenaries with their heavy armor and big cumbersome swords, do they really think that is any way to fight? A waste of death, too easy. It becomes a bit of a challenge, with some of them, to ensure that they are killed before they attempt to jump overboard. Cicero pushes the body of the last one into the depths below after sending his soul to the Void. That is the last of them excepting their true target. Maro stands in the middle of the, well, carnage. It really is a ghastly sight. The carrion birds will eat well tomorrow. Maro lunges for the blur of black that waltzes around him. He attempts to block with his shield but a dagger catches him behind the knee. He howls, face twisted into a sneer.“You bitch!” He spits. “You’ve been more trouble than you're worth.” He swings hard in a downward arc, Silne steps in close, brings the butt of her dagger against his chin and spins away, knocking his sword away in the process. Silne steps in again, blade finding home in the space beneath his sword arm. Maro’s face contorts in rage and before Silne can move he lunges with the shield and bashes squarely into her shoulder. She staggers.“That’s enough.” A dagger, steel this time, finds a home in Maro’s shield arm. Cicero walks calmly across the deck.Maro is on his knees, both arms useless at this point, hanging by his sides. He spits blood on Cicero’s boots.“Ooh. That had to hurt.”   There are a hundred things he would like to do now. Perhaps carve a permanent smile into that snarling face. String him up to the mast, write an effigy in his blood. But it is not his kill.“Listener, have you any final words for our guest of honor?”Silne straightens and stands beside him. He cannot ask her now how she is, there can be no weakness until the job is done. She swallows and holds her head high. “Of course there are things I could say.” She circles round the man, pauses to contemplate him. “I could read you a list of all the griefs you’ve caused us, all the reasons why we will enjoy your death immensely.” She bends next to him, draws a gloves index finger across his throat. “But, have we not caused an equal amount of grief to you? I killed your son, I watched the light drain from his eyes. He died well. He did not beg. I hope you would do me the same honor.”Maro watches her with hatred in his gaze. He doesn’t get it. A shame, Mother, he doesn’t get it.“The truth is that we’re on opposite sides of the same coin. We are both killers, Commander Maro. We both live to serve our organization. We both want revenge. And yet, we’re enemies. It’s a tragic business.”“You’re a lawless miscreant, don’t compare us.”She presses the edge of a blade against his jugular. “It is not my fault you don’t understand my laws. I hope, in the Void, you will understand.”And just like that, it’s over.   Cicero produces a folded sheet of paper from the breast of his leather cuirass. They pin it to Maro’s body with yet another dagger. Silne had the idea of writing Titus Mede’s words.
You cannot stop the Dark Brotherhood.
The deck is a mess. They drop the anchor overboard so that the vessel will be found when the bay becomes active in the morning. Cicero retrieves the ebony blade from a dead Nord, the other daggers are easily replaced (especially with that initiate who seems to have some aptitude for forging).Silne cleans the Blade of Woe on Maro’s red cape. She holds her left arm at a strange angle.“Can you swim?” If he wasn’t watching closely he might have missed the slight grimace that crosses her features. But then it is gone and she nods.He strips out of his cuirass and kicks off the simple, cheap leather boots. The cuirass he hangs onto, the boots he leaves behind. Silne kicks off her boots as well and follows him into the icy waters, even this time of year. They set out for the eastern shore where yesterday they buried a sack of clothes beneath a tree. Yet it doesn’t take long for Cicero to realize Silne is lagging behind. She swims in awkward, slow strokes, only reaching out with her right arm.“Silne?” “I’m fine.”They are in deep water and the wind is picking up. The shore is about a hundred yards off.“Silne.”A horn blares on the opposite shore.“Silne.”“I can swim dammit, go!”Torch lights flicker across the channel.“Turn on your back.”“I said I can swim Cicero!”“We’re not dying because you’re so bloody stubborn. Turn on your back.”She begrudgingly obliges. He hooks his arms under hers, pulling her onto his chest as he kicks his legs, propelling them backwards.“Was that so hard, hm?” He thinks that she may elbow him in the face but she is stoic and silent and they eventually reach shore. Bedraggled, they hurry into the trees and marsh as a row boat sets out for the anchored vessel. Their quick strides turn into a sprint when they see the eerie glow of Shadowmere’s eyes. Silne drops beside the twisted bracken and digs with her good arm, producing hide leggings and a tunic that she tosses in his direction. He scans the dark as he pulls them on, looking for the heavy bay gelding.“Cicero?”He turns in a full circle, squints. It’s a foolish thing to do but he does it anyway, sending a short whistle out into the night. Distantly, a dog barks.“Ghost…”“Cicero, we don’t have time.” She is already in the saddle. Her right hand reaches down for him. He spins around one more time, hoping, and then reluctantly swings into the saddle behind her.  She holds the reins in one hand, the other cradled against her chest. She says nothing and urges Shadowmere into a gallop. She has claimed the use of the stirrups so he wraps one arm around her waist, the other holding the saddle. “Is your arm broken?” He has to shout above the air rushing around them.“I think so.”They could go to the apothecary in Morthal, or seek a shrine somewhere out in the wilds. Though Cicero doubts she will allow it.They have to bend to avoid a low branch. Silne tries to disguise her groan of pain as a cough. “Can you heal it?”“It’s a different spell, to heal yourself. I don’t know it.”Shadowmere eats up the uneven ground. Ghost could not have kept up.“We should stop to bandage it at least.”“No.”“It’ll take a moment to make a sling.”She holds her lip between her teeth. He reaches around her and pulls on the reins. He drops from the horse and removes a bundle of fabric from the saddle bag, tearing it in half. “Come here.”She dismounts, sliding out of the saddle facing away from Shadowmere in order to protect her arm. She staggers a bit when her feet hit the ground.It will not do. She is the Listener! The Listener! The one he had searched for and never hoped to find. He’d like to kill Maro all over again for hurting her. And if it had been more than just a broken arm…He steadies her with a hand on her waist. Where was the queen of last evening? Silne looks sallow and tired, her lip is split and bruising. But wasn’t this always the nature of his Listener? To be both human and queen, vulnerable and impervious. Nothing mortal could touch her, not that which was truly her, though the body suffered. Her eyes, luminous, otherworldly, watch him. They’re standing very close, aren’t they? He slips the scrap of linen beneath her arm and ties it behind her neck. “There.” He doesn’t move his hands away, settling them onto her shoulders. A magpie cries in the distance. A moment later it’s mate answers the call. Hoof beats. Men shouting and dogs barking, the madness is broken and they are scrambling back into the saddle (she is really only half on it but using the stirrups, it’s uncomfortable for both of them). Shadowmere needs no directing, they fly eastward again. They are safe. Or safe as they can be. One of the many benefits of a daedric horse is it’s scentlessness, unable to be tracked. The guards will scour the area and return home empty handed, Cicero has no doubt of that. But as they ride he doubts other things. Himself, mostly. They slow to a walk, now deep in the marsh and stillness. Though Cicero’s clothes are dry, his hair is still wet, as is Silne’s, and the night is far cooler than the day. Silne shivers. Fool, you damned fool. He thinks as he wraps his arms more securely around her. It’s not right, the traitorous things his addled mind keeps coming up with. And it didn’t start tonight. No, he’s been thinking such horrible things for a while, to be honest. But there was something about tonight, perhaps the fact that she is plastered against him, that he can feel her heartbeat below her sternum, against his wrist. And if he allowed himself to cease worrying about her, and Ghost, and his own misplaced longing, he would be deliriously happy. He hopes the news is already in Solitude. He hopes all of Tamriel will be struck with a new wave of terror. He thinks of the souls they have sent to Sithis, of how very much fun all of the stabbing and slicing had been. He must relent that the terms of his ‘retirement’ have changed to be whatever suits Silne at a given moment. He’s fine with it. Unconsciously, he grins into the skin of Silne’s neck. No. He jerks back.“Cicero?” Her voice has a strange quality to it, a question within a question. He clears his throat, intentionally pitching his voice higher. It’s been getting to be more effort to do so lately, more naturally tending towards the cadence of the man who died beneath Cheydinhal. “Your speech to Maro was very good, very profound. Did Listener rehearse?”There is a long pause before she answers. You’ve unsettled her, Fool. “No, I just told him the truth.”“Hmm, it was a good show anyway.”“Well I’m happy to have entertained.”He chuckles, now determined to put things back to normal between them.“Cicero very nearly ran out of blades. It would’ve been a bad job to have to beg one off of you during the fight.”“Well don’t throw your weapons away then.”“Silne is jealous because she is bad at throwing knives.”“I had a lousy teacher.”“Lies, Listener, lies! A bad student blames their teacher.”She laughs and there, that settles it, everything is right and untrained again. Then she speaks. “Jokes aside Cicero, I’m thankful for all you teach me. Not just fighting. About the Brotherhood, random bits of history, how to lead. Sometimes I think-”She’s cut off by the shriek of a fox somewhere in the brush. It pierces through the black and quiet like a scream. She leans into him. “What?”A dry laugh. “I think you would’ve made a better Listener.”“No.”“Why? It’s true. Without you, I wouldn’t know how to lead any better than Astrid.”“But you do. No self-rebukes or Cicero will push you off this horse.”She laughs. “I’m trying to compliment you.”“Well don’t do it at the expense of yourself.”“Fine.” After a pause, “do you accept it?”“The compliment?”“And my thanks.”“Cicero needs no thanks.”“Well I offer it anyway.” She smirks. “Just like your constant, unsolicited advice.” Dawnstar, aptly named, the distant glitter of those celestial objects just visible in the yellow and red of the early morning sky. “Cicero!”Her voice snaps him out of his exhausted stupor and he follows her finger to the Black Door where a saddled and muddy bay grazes. He stumbles to the ground and collects the beast’s bridle. Ghost noses his shoulder and blows a hot breath in his ear. “Nice of you to join us.”Ghost bobs his head in assent. Cicero chuckles. To think he had once called Ghost a poor conversationalist. The reins are broken but that’s all right. The initiate should be able to fix them. Gulls cry overhead. What a contrast it is, the sun and sea, everything blue and yellow and pink where hours ago darkness hung. They put the horses away as the sun climbs. ~*~

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

~*~
17th Sun’s Height 4E202
He cannot make sense of any of it, why he is here now. He tried, briefly, during the long trek from Dawnstar yesterday, but arriving at more questions than conclusions, he stopped trying. He accepts, as ever, that he is rarely in control of his own fate. And that’s just fine, in this instance anyway, because he has been sent out on a seemingly meaningless quest by the person he trusts the most on all of Nirn. So it’s fine and maybe, so long as the wind keeps up and the stillness is filled with the steady hum of torch bugs and the distant call of elk, he can try to relax. Cicero lays in the long dry grasses of a summer prairie, small beneath a canopy of stars. If Silne was here now, he would not feel unsettled and he would not worry, there would be no fear of silence. So he closes his eyes and pretends she is sitting somewhere outside of his periphery, perhaps reading with a lantern, or fletching arrows. He tucks his arms beneath his head and hums lightly, smiling to think that doing so would irritate her. His campfire pops, an insect buzzes at his nose. There is an aching familiarity in the warmth of the breeze, the rich smell of grass, in the constellations, the same as they had been when he was a boy, the same in Skyrim as in Cyrodiil. With the security of pretending Silne sits on the opposite side of the fire, he lets his mind wander. But the remembering is always sweeter than the reality isn’t it? His mind conjures images of Cheydinhal in summer, of lamplight spilling from houses on warm evenings, yellow blossoms on the island in the river, how much he had loved the city in its own right, even moreso with the excitement of a kept secret, prowling the streets with the knowledge of what sat below the day to day. But had it ever really been so? More often he had slunk through back alleys in the dark and narrow hours of the morning, stealing what was quickest, easiest, and slinking back to Mother’s side, the entrance at the well like a portal to Oblivion. He rolls to his stomach, wondering why every train of thought has to take him back there. He might think of more recent, pleasant things, but then he would just end up wondering why Silne has sent him out here, alone, rather than reclining in the grass and swearing at him for telling terrible jokes. “Well, Ghost, do you have anything interesting to say?”Ghost rips up a mouthful of grass and flicks his tail. “No, you never do.”He flips to his back again and accepts that he will fret, rather than sleep, beneath the stars for tonight and sighs. It won’t be the first time. Cicero was eight years of age when he came to know that the world around him was not as it seemed. Sure, there were hazy recollects of warmth, of fields not unlike this one, being chased by his sisters at dusk. His mother and a hearth and warm baked bread. But they were all false, manufactured by innocence. The eldest two sisters were crude and ignorant, the bread stolen, and his mother…well. He knew that the small apartment of the tavern they inhabited was more than shabby, that it was poverty. But that more existed was a dream and fantasy, a storybook idea. Of course he hadn’t had storybooks read to him as a child. Well not by his mother. His mother couldn’t read. Nor his older sisters and he didn’t know what became of the younger and the two brothers not yet out of their cradles when he left. The exception was Lilian. It was Lilian who taught him, huddle over a single tallow candle in the quiet hours of the night. Their mother would take a switch to them if she knew. Getting ideas, thinking they’re fit for better.  Lilian wasn’t taught by anybody, genius that she was. She soaked up knowledge like a sponge. She followed the barkeep like a pestersome fly. He could read ( and write). She gleaned from him, from patrons, from children around who had been taught. And she taught Cicero and they spoke of how one day they would go to the Imperial City and have a better life. He was happy enough for a child. He played in the street with other children. He didn’t mind being dirty. He didn’t like being hungry but he didn’t know any different either. He bullied the street urchins along with the other children because he had a home (barely) and they didn’t. He learned how to avoid being beaten and obeyed his mother accordingly. His father (who was not his father) was always away from home, a sailor. When he did spend short stints with the family, he was loud and demanding and pretended that Cicero, the glaring shock of red hair in a family of brown, did not exist. His mother liked him though, she always laughed at everything he said. And when he left it was generally expected that a new brat to feed was to come several months later. It was the story of a thousand other children but surely not all of them grew up and felt the need to flee reality? The Silne across the fire, the one in his head, says, “Isn’t it?”“I don’t know, is it?” He answers aloud. “In some way, I think so. We don’t all take it so far though.” She smirks. He rolls his eyes, tilts his head to the sky. “And how do you flee reality, Silne?”She just smiles, keeping secrets, but he does know the answer (would anyway, Fool, she’s a figment of your mind). She would pick up her feet and flee . Always. Startled deer . What made a person do that? Made them so accustomed to instability that it was better to run away than to deal with whatever calamity lay before them? She grew up in Markarth. She was a thief, and a damned good one. She never spoke of parents, of family. She could not adeptly cook a piece of food if her life depended on it, like she had never had the opportunity. He pictures a scrawny little girl, not unlike the woman he met by Lorieus’s farm, a few miles from here, begging and stealing in a city that ran on silver and blood. He wondered if he was right. “You could ask me.”“You could tell me! You could trust Cicero with one measly piece of information.”“Do you really think I would send you out here by yourself if I didn’t trust you?”He says nothing. “When I know how much you hate the solitude? Don’t you think I’d have a very good reason for doing so?”“Sometimes Cicero thinks you don’t even know why you do things.”“I’m doing my best!” Her tone is defensive and wounded and even though none of it is real, he feels guilty for having an imaginary argument. “Silne?”“Just go to sleep Cicero.” Clouds pass in front of the stars overhead. The night is exceptionally bright, farther north there would be a borealis. He doesn’t sleep.   Silne. He was exhausted by it, the circles his mind spun. In one moment he is picturing the warmth of her smile on his return, in the next his mind has wandered to a book, not stolen itself, though the moments of reading it were, crouched in the back of an Imperial shop before the proprietor chased him off (again); Magnus, the fine ink print read, was at the heart of the universe, the Aedra in the orbit of that nucleus, that ephemeral source of light and heat and life. And if the divines themselves were pulled by Magnus, was it any surprise that he was trapped by her gravity? Cursed and tormented to chase her continually in his thoughts. This, surely, was madness. He tried to right himself, focus, but his mind was not easily persuaded away from fixation. And why should she not be the window into Etherius? She is the Listener , he had been waiting for her for years. Naturally, he would revere her. But that doesn’t seem quite right either. Respect her certainly, trust her implicitly. But had he tried to conjure a perfect Listener before that fateful day on the road to Whiterun? Well, they wouldn’t look like Silne, honestly. Not so foolish (initially), not so doubtful or stilted. But he didn’t begrudge her these things, he wouldn’t want her different because they were all part of her Silne-ness. Flawed. Human. Would he care so if she wasn’t the Listener? He didn’t like to consider the possibility but it bore thinking of because his mind would not go elsewhere. Very well then, Silne as a simple assassin. He remembers how girlish she had been, all luminous eyes and eager expectations.There is a different Cicero, an overconfident dead man, immature in his own way, who would’ve taken one look at untried initiate Silne and given her a week to live, tops. Instead he smiles with fondness, remembering a winter evening in the forest of Falkreath, trying to turn a thief into an assassin. She hadn’t gotten the gist of stabbing at all . She wanted to give her opponent the chance to fight back, silly girl that she had been. But she came to understand, as Cicero did, that there was no escape from death, not for anyone, and certainly not for those of whom the Mother spoke. Best to make it quick, tear them to ribbons, set them ablaze, poison their stew, let it come upon them before they have a chance, before they think there is any alternative.  She went to her next contract with her head high and dagger ready.  The breeze shifts, picks up, tufts of white tundra cotton caught in its caper. It is strange, to be here, alone, beneath the sky. He tries to remember the last time he was so exposed, no walls, no cavern, without her. Can’t. Quietly, he means. Of course there was running for his life from Arnbjorn and the journey to Falkreath, but those don’t count. He means like this, the sounds of night and the time to pause and consider the sky. He tries not to startle at every hiss of the wind in the grasses, or let his mind turn the rocks on the horizon into the shape of soldiers. All it would take is a well placed arrow from one of those rocks and he would join his family in the Void. It doesn’t hold the same appeal that it used to. The jester would pace. He would dance up to the rocks and try to cajole the boogeymen out of them. Cicero remains in the grasses, tucks his arms behind his head and picks shapes out of the stars. “Silne?”“I’m here, so long as you keep pretending I am.”He feels vaguely detached from himself, watching on, wondering why he feels no panic, why he is content with the quiet and solitude. It is incongruous with who he has become is it not? Isn’t it? ~*~ 
18th Sun’s Height 4E202
Many hours later and dark has fallen again. Not nearly so warm, in this wretched city, though it is at least free of snow drifts this time of year. Cicero moves across what has to be the most rickety floor in Skyrim, rotted and splinted all over but it groans with the wind as much as it groans with footsteps, so it makes no difference.  The house creaks, a door opens and shuts. A shadow crosses the floorboards, bends, strikes a flint, and materializes as a silhouette against flame. Cicero has wondered how he will do this. Has kept himself awake and high strung all day just considering the possibilities. The shape turns to the bed, gaining a face, limbs. A Dunmer man, a silver necklace at his throat. This was him then. Cicero waits. There is no rush. Nazir had called Cicero impatient the other day, idiot Speaker. The Dunmer goes to bed which, blessedly, is more than just a pile of rags on the floor. Real bedposts, that will help. A little slice to the elf’s shoulder, the blade imbued with Silne’s favorite paralysis poison, a few ropes, and voila, a prisoner ready for interrogation. Cicero blinks at the Dunmer who stares back with level eyes. Unsurprised. It starts to answer some of Cicero’s questions. He hadn’t been instructed to interrogate him. Just kill him. That’s what Silne said and that’s what didn't make sense. He wasn’t a contract. Cicero didn’t do contracts. So this was something else, something she wouldn’t tell him but wouldn’t trust an initiate with. So, answers. The poison begins to wear away and the dark elf’s muscles start to twitch. “Now, elf, if you scream, know that Cicero can make this very, very painful for you. But Cicero is not without mercy. If you behave and tell Cicero the truth, and keep your mouth shut otherwise, Cicero will send you to the Void quick as he can. A fair bargain, no?”The man’s jaw clicks open. He laughs (not a jester-laugh, just a regular one). “I have struck bargains with your lot before and you can see where it has gotten me.”“Oh you can trust me though, Cicero is always true to his word, always.”“But if I do scream, and alert the guards, how are you going to torture me from a dungeon?”Oh, Cicero likes this one. It is always better when you can respect them. A worthy candidate to send to his Father. He grins, manic, “you think that the guards will run to the aid of a Dunmer in the Grey Quarter?”His eyes flicker for a moment, accepting his defeat? but his demeanor stays steady and unimpressed. “Very well, what do you want? And why are you dressed like that?”“Never mind that! It’s a far longer story that either of us have time for. Far, far longer. So the first question, I want to know who you are.”“An inconsequential Dunmer in the Grey Quarter, as you said.”“Very well. Why have I been sent to kill you?”“I’m a contract?”“Wrong.” Cicero flips his dagger into his other hand. “And here’s how Cicero knows why. Cicero doesn’t do contracts. But more than that, you weren’t surprised to see me. You were expecting the Dark Brotherhood! But here is this jester, not in Dark Armor, but you guessed right anyway! So you are either very lucky, or you knew the Brotherhood would come for you.”“Who else kills a man in his bed?”“That isn’t fair! It’s a stereotype, the Dark Brotherhood kills people in lots of places. And people die in their beds for all kinds of reasons. Cicero didn’t have to be Dark Brotherhood, I might’ve just been a madman off the street.”The Dunmer-without-a-name rolls his eyes. “So you have dealt with us before and it went poorly. And Cicero can guess why, judging by this squalor. You've stopped getting paid, because your employer stopped holding up her end of the bargain.”“And you’re here to kill me because I’ve stopped holding up mine, despite not seeing an ounce of gold in months.”“Wrong.” Cicero grinned. “I’m here because leadership has changed hands and you’re a liability. Cicero respects your judge of character though, I hated Astrid too.”“Well wait then! I could perform the same service for you!”“See now you’re pleading and that’s not any good. The Brotherhood has their Mother back and we don’t have any use for you.”The Dunmer’s red eyes go wide and he seems to realize the very real danger he is in. “So.” Cicero taps his nose lightly with the tip of his blade, not cutting the skin. “The easy way or the hard way?”The man clenches his jaw, swallows hard. “What do you want to know?”“How long did you work for Astrid?”“Twelve years.”“Did she have other contacts in Windhelm?”“Not that I know of.”“In other cities?”“One. A guard, in Markarth.”“One guard in a city on the other side of the country? If you are laying a trap, elf, you will have to do better than that.”“I’m not lying!” His voice climbs several octaves, making Cicero chuckle. He rests the ebony blade lightly over the man’s trachea. “Not lying! I don’t know her name. Astrid mentioned it once. It’s not as though we have monthly meetings.”“Fine, very good, you’ve answered Cicero’s questions anyway, though more detail would’ve been better. You’ll get your earned death, elf, but one more thing.”The dagger eats into the skin of his throat, a thin red line blossoming.“What?”“Your name, elf. A man cannot die unnamed, even Cicero isn’t that cruel. He always remembers them, the names, if that’s a small comfort to you.”The Dunmer closes his eyes, swallows again, and says, calmly, “Telvanis Telvethri”. “Well, Telvanis Telvethri, say hello to Father and Mother for me.” A pleasant way to spend an evening, Cicero thinks, as he washes his hands in the basin on the nightstand. Above the body, on the wall, in a handprint in blood. He dries his hands on his trousers, no clean towels in this slum, and turns to leave but is stopped by the little round face, eyes wide, standing in the door.“Dammit.” It was, necessarily, an inherent risk of the job, the need to kill children. But Cicero would really rather not. Very much would rather not, as he looked at the pale face, arms and legs like spindles, dark eyes now displaying more curiosity than shock. Killing Telvanis was supposed to happen, as sure and inevitable as water flowed in the Karth. He wasn’t committing any act of malice against him, or depriving him of anything, as some might think, merely transitioning the elf to the place he’d been destined for. But the child? It was outside the order of things and for the first time since Cicero entered the house, he felt afraid.But the curiosity had only been rising in the boy during Cicero’s silence and finally he blurted. “You’re Dark Brotherhood?”“How much did you hear?”“Everything! Oh, everything! I’ve wondered how to look for you but Telvanis wouldn’t help me. I thought about performing the Black Sacrament again but there wasn’t anyone I wanted to kill but now you’re here!”“I- what?”“The nice lady, from the Brotherhood, she killed Gerlod the Kind when I did the Black Sacrament. But then she took me back to Riften, and it was pretty nice of her, but it was so boring living there! And I knew what I really wanted to do was join the Dark Brotherhood! But I didn’t know how to find the lady so I came back here and sometimes I would go to the Corner Club because the Nords don’t like me because I’m an Imperial, and one day I heard Telvanis talking about the Dark Brotherhood and he let me live here. Why did you have to kill him?”“Uh-” What on Nirn was he talking about?“We weren’t really friends, he wasn’t very nice, but I hoped that eventually the Brotherhood would show up! Will you take me with you?”Cicero’s head spun. But what other option did he have?“Come on.” ~*~ Cicero got a much clearer picture of the full story on the way back to Dawnstar and decided he was rather glad to have taken Aventus along after all. He was better for conversation than Ghost. “Tell me what the Tenants are again?” The boy asked as they crossed the fields on the eastern side of the village.“You’ll learn them soon enough and you’re not joining, not officially.”“How old do I need to be to join?”“Old enough.”“Do kids ever join?” Cicero’s lips quirk to think of how the boy will react to Babette.“Sometimes.” Aventus marvels at the Black Door, all wonder and no fear. He turns to Cicero.“What does it mean? Just dead people or does it mean something?” Perceptive, too.“The large skull with the handprint is Sithis. That,” He points to the full skeleton on the left, “is the Night Mother. And the five skulls are their children.”“Cool.” 
What is life’s greatest illusion?
 “It can talk?”“No, well, not really. It just asks the passphrase.”“Can I say it?”Cicero tries to keep the smile off of his face. “You don’t know what it is.”“Tell me, please?”Cicero grins. “Innocence, my brother.”Aventus sucks in a breath, prepared to say the words when the door groans and opens.“Oh.” He says, disappointed. Cicero laughs.“You had better stay behind Cicero.”“Will,” For the first time Aventus looks unsure of himself, “will anyone make me leave?”“The Listener is the one in charge. Whether or not you stay will be her decision.”Aventus nods and follows Cicero down the worn stone steps. They make it to the main chamber unnoticed. “Oh!” Cicero spins around, nearly knocking the boy over. “And you must never call Cicero by his name, it’s against the rules. Cicero is only the Keeper, understand?”Aventus nods.They proceed to the top of the stairs. “Keeper!” Mirgelf notices them first and waves excitedly. Nazir and Kharrn also sit at the main table. Nazir’s dark eyes narrow to slits as the pair descend the steps. “And what is this?” Nazir crosses his arms and glares down at Aventus who stands partially behind Cicero.“None of your business, Speaker.”Kharrn, who tolerates Cicero as well as the Redguard does, rolls her eyes. Mirgelf rounds the end of the table and crouches to the height of the boy.“Hello, my name is Mirgelf, and you might be?”Aventus smiles shyly. “Aventus Aretino.”  “Aventus Aretino?” It is the voice that haunts him, waking and dreaming, the slightest nordic lilt, attached to the form of the Listener who enters the room. One arm is still bandaged up in a sling. “It’s you!” Aventus barrels around Cicero and runs up to Silne before skidding to a halt, suddenly self-conscious. “Do you… do you remember me?” He folds his hands behind his back and looks at the worn stone floor.“Remember you?” Silne bends to meet his eye. “Aventus I have much to thank you for. It’s because of you that I joined the Dark Brotherhood. I’m very happy to see you.”“Really?” He asks, voice filled with awe.“Really.” Silne smiles bemusedly and sends a quizzical look at Cicero over the boy’s head. “So how did you come to be here?”“Well, I was staying with Telvanis and then Ci- uh, the uh, Keeper killed him and I asked if I could come back with him!”“Is that so?” Silne arches a brow at the Keeper, he grins.“Yeah, but, um, the Keeper said that I need to talk to the Listener and only she can decide if I get to stay.”“Ah, well, the Listener says you can stay.”“Oh, did she tell you?”Silne chuckles and whispers conspiratorially. “I am her.”Aventus’s eyes go wide and he looks back at Cicero excitedly. Cicero throws his head back and laughs.Nazir’s brow furrows further as he turns his disapproval to Silne. “This isn’t a home for random strays.”Her eyes soft, smilingly slightly, she looks around the room at each of them. “Isn't it?” They have dinner, all of them but Hella who is out of a contract, around the big table. Babette enters halfway through the meal and tries to convince Aventus that she is a prisoner and the Brotherhood sacrifices children. Aventus looks to Silne first for any hint of confirmation before smartly telling Babette that he doesn’t believe her. The table erupts in laughter. Even Nazir manages to crack a smile. Kharrn, Cicero is convinced, never smiles. They stay at the table long past the normal hour while the boy regales them with the tale of how he met the Listener. Eventually, his eyes begin to droop and his head begins to nod and Mirgelf offers to show him to the dormitory.  Silne approaches Cicero as they collect the dishes (it is Kharrn’s turn), balancing as many as she can in one hand. “Thank you”. She says as he takes the precarious stack. “For bringing him back I mean.”“Of course, Listener.”“The bridge?”He nods.  Kharrn begins the washing without complaint, accepting this duty with as much gravity as she did everything else.  The Keeper and the Listener sit on the bridge overhanging the training room, feet dangling off the edge. “So… the Dunmer?”“Very much dead.”“Aaaaand?”“And there is another of Astrid’s birds to take care of in Markarth, apparently.”She smiles wide. “See wasn’t it more fun to figure out on your own why I sent you?”“Whatever. The next one is a woman, a guard.”“That’s it?”“All he knew.”“Well to Markarth it is.”Cicero raises an eyebrow and gestures to her arm. Silne shrugs quickly followed by a wince. “I’ll be fine in another week.”Cicero rolls his eyes. “Listener could see a healer.”She could leave the guild and settle down as an ordinary peasant too with the same likeliness. “A few days and then we’ll leave.”He smiles. He likes the unspoken assumption that they go together. It is not, perhaps, the most logical or practical thing, two in the ranks, less disposable than the initiates, to be out together, but he will not question it. Selfish. “Aventus will be sad to see you leave so soon.”She chuckles. “I think he will be just fine here. He was already asking Mirgelf about smithing. And Babette will be happy to keep him entertained.”It’s true. Over the next few days Cicero watches as the family adopts the boy unequivocally. Mirgelf, like a puppy with a new toy, tries to teach the eleven year old to forge steel in an afternoon, nearly resulting in a loss of fingers. He follows Babette around, equal parts inquisitive and bashful and Babette finds his crush to be a rather good source of amusement. Nazir, for all his grousing, sits with Aventus after lunch one day to discuss armor styles. And Cicero?Well, Cicero wonders if he has done the right thing, even though Silne is happy. It doesn’t give Aventus much choice does it? To embark on this path at such a young age? Though he thinks he wants it now, he is so young…But neither could he have remained as he was. No, his fate, as it were, was decided when his mother died and the blissful ignorance of childhood ended. As with all of them. Somewhere, someway, the normalcy broke and the path ahead was clear. For him, a life of toil, an endless cycle of hunger and work and firewood, it never could have been. So the same must be for the boy. “Ci- Keeper!” Aventus calls as the depart, Silne on the stairs in front of him, already the recipient of enthusiastic goodbyes, “Good luck!”
And good luck to you, brother.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

~*~

12th of Rain's Hand, 4E 187. Cheydinhal suits me. With the destruction or abandonment of the other Sanctuaries, our contracts are plentiful, as are our bonuses. Still, we seem to be losing our footholds throughout Tamriel at an alarming rate. There are rumors that the Black Hand is split on our continued direction. Some favor expansion, the others consolidation. My personal feeling is that the Dark Brotherhood needs to, at the very least, maintain the illusion of being everywhere at once. It has become exceedingly difficult to fulfill (or even establish) contracts in provinces where we no longer have a physical presence, like Hammerfell. The more we ignore Tamriel, the more people lose faith in the Dark Brotherhood - our power, our services, our dedication to the Void.

~*~

27th of Frostfall, 4E 202. The Listener paces tonight. This isn’t surprising, though I wonder what troubles her. She’s caused the others to take notice as well, the Speaker will soon insist that she comes out with it.

Ah! Cicero should not be surprised- she is evasive in her response. Some nonsense about expenses for the Sanctuary. Between the abundance of recent contracts and the Emperor’s assassination, we needn't worry about money.

The Sanctuary is thriving and indeed, by saying so it is synonymous with saying that the Brotherhood itself is thriving. Contracts have been numerous and profitable. The Listener has been quite occupied, these past weeks especially, in harkening to our Matron’s voice. When I awoke this evening, she was still sitting before the coffin, never having gone to bed. She then sequestered herself with the Speaker for hours relaying contracts. Our vision is coming to life and yet it threatens to overwhelm us. As we expand, as we reassert the illusion that the Brotherhood is everywhere at once (in Skyrim anyway), we are taxed with the effort of maintaining this illusion through very limited resources. There are only nine of us who claim the privilege of a place in this hall and guild, and only five of those being assassins, the others being the Black Hand and a child. This, Cicero suspects, is what weighs on the Listener’s mind.

But it is a welcome weight, isn’t it Mother? It is strange in a pleasant way, in a way the last Sanctuary was not, to have all of Mother’s children around a table again. To share stories of kills.

The initiates look to me for advice. It is another odd thing, to have some measure of respect in my position. It is the Listener’s doing, of course.

The position of Keeper isn’t strictly necessary with the presence of a Listener and yet Silne has demanded I maintain the title. I still do for Mother as I always have (and will), though her body is sustained by her connection with Silne. It is also the consensus of the Black Hand that under these new circumstances Cicero might also resume taking contracts. It is more than Cicero deserves.

The Speaker does not appreciate the pacing of the Listener any more than he does that of the jester. Let us see if she unburdens her thoughts, hmm?

Cicero sits at the main table, his curled boots kicked up on top of it, writing. Always writing something now. It feels good, putting ink to paper, creating an account less ephemeral than his thoughts. There is a catharsis in it, always has been. He half listens to the chattering around him.

“By the sands! Pacing won’t accomplish anything, Listener.” The Redguard says in his low timbre. “Give it a few days for us to collect on these contracts and we’ll be rolling in gold.”

Silne acts as though she has not heard him. Nazir crosses his arms and grumbles.

“I could take a contract!” Aventus offers excitedly.

“No!” Silne and Nazir answer at the same time.

“Ah but my last contract paid handsomely.” Hella says from across the table.

“Yeah, yeah, your contact went perfectly, we

know

.” Mirgelf grouses. The big Nord pushes back from the table and scowls into the fire.

Cicero’s mouth pulls up as he scratches away at the parchment. Initiates squabbling, a welcome sound.

“Everyone botches contracts from time to time.” Babette rejoins, gesturing at the Nord with the butterfly wing she held in a pair of tweezers. “It’s nothing to get worked up over.”

Mirgelf is about to reply when Hella cuts in. “Yes, but not all of us have rich parents to bail us out of jail when we get caught. You need to be more careful.”

“I was! I’m telling you, it’s like someone knew I was going to be in that house! Guards in Solitude don’t stop in people’s houses for friendly chats! I was set up!”

“Or you were stomping around and looking suspicious.”

“Whatever.”

“So you concede that I’m right?”

“I don’t concede anything! You’re clearly not going to listen to me!”

“Maybe the contact wanted to renege on the kill?” Is the eager suggestion of Aventus.

“Yes because a Stormcloak commander who puts a hit out on an Imperial official would naturally develop a conscience at the last minute.” The Nord woman scoffs.
 
“Enough.” Nazir is done listening to the bickering. “We are lucky to have Mirgelf back alive. You’re more fortunate than most. And lucky that the guards only believed you to be trespassing. Don’t let it happen again.” With that the Speakers stalks out of the hall.

Babette rolls her eyes muttering something that sounds like “children” under her breath, and plucks another wing, adding it to the basket in front of her.

Cicero suppresses a chuckle.

“Something amusing you, Keeper?” The unchild asks with a benign smile.

“How’s this, little monster? What do you call a dog that has no legs? A drag! Oh, that’s a good one.”

She shakes her head. “You’re all impossible,” She gathers the basket. “and I’m tired. Good morning.” With that she heads off to bed.

Mirgelf and Hella are involved in the very determined activity of pointedly not looking at the other. Kharrn and the newest member, a Breton mage named Auriele both seem not to be interested in the goings-on at all. Kharrn, because she never is, sitting by the fire and cleaning dried blood from her hammer. The new one though, Cicero thinks is outrageously arrogant. She looks disdainfully at the warring Nords locked in their stand off and leaves.

Poor little Aventus seems to be the only one in the room who feels any of the awkwardness. He scrambles out of his chair to sit beside the Keeper.

“What are you writing?”

“Nothing of importance.” Cicero says, closing the journal.

“What were you writing earlier?” The boy gestures at the other book in front of him on the table. It’s bound in black leather, the silver embossment of a skull set into the cover, with a Nightshade poking through an eye socket.

“It’s a Keeping Tome. Like a guidebook for the Keeper.”

“But you’re the one writing it?”

“Well, yes. There were others but they got burned up. But this Keeper has them memorized so I’m writing them down. That way when I die, and if the Brotherhood ever lacks a Listener again, the new Keeper will know what to do.”

“Could I be Keeper?”

“If the Black Hand chose you.” Cicero grins but his eyes slip to Silne. “But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Aventus nods seriously and begins flipping through the many pages. Cicero taps the table with the quill he had been using.

“Listener?” He calls to her retreating form as she is on her pass to the fire and back again. She gives no indication that she’s heard him, other than briefly meeting his eyes as she walks past again. Cicero feels a stirring of alarm.

“Listener.” He tries again, rising from the table.

She meets his eyes once more, lower lip held between her teeth, hands drawn up into her sleeves and fidgeting.

He glances at the family still present and then back to her. “I’ll see to Mother before retiring.”

“Can I come?” Follows the eager little voice.

“Go to bed Aventus.” Silne says quietly. Deflated, the boy sets the tome back on the table. Cicero hurries up the stairs. He hears her speaking softly again and then she rounds the iron bars at the top of the steps. He thinks she is just going to brush right past him but, eye trained on the coffin, she grabs his arm and hauls him along. It is not until they are seated in front of their Mother that she releases him. Her head is bowed, eyes closed.

Cicero has not seen her so unwell in a very long time. Her cheeks are wan, dark crescents forming beneath her sockets, hair that looks like loose straw messily tied behind her head.

Finally, she looks at him. “I’m… worried.”

He expels something between a scoff and a snort. “Cicero gathered that, Listener.”

She plucks a Nightshade from the flagstones in front of the edifice, twirling it in her fingers.

“It’s… it’s like…” a sigh, “remember, in Falkreath, when I found out that I was the Listener?”

Cold dread fills him. His voice comes out darker than he intends. “You’re not thinking of running away again? Silne, you promised, you

promised

-”

“I know.” She snaps. “I’m not going anywhere, I just-” She crushes the flower between her fingers, staining them pink. “I need to get out of here. Just for a day or two. Just to think.”

His eyes narrow. “Where will you go?”

“I hoped you’d come with me.”

“Oh. Well,” He pauses. They have been so busy of late, but haven’t travelled together, haven’t gone out on a contract, an alchemy expedition, doing random missions, not together, not since they killed the guard (her name was Hamma), in Markarth. He begins to hum quietly. “Humble Cicero lives to serve.”
 
She wants to leave immediately and Cicero understands that; the claustrophobia and the need to get out, out, out quickly.

They emerge into a dawning cold day, frost-encrusted lichen and sedges crunching underfoot as they head east and south.

The sun arcs up over the horizon, pulling wisps of fog up from the earth like glimmering smoke. They stay clear of the town where the night shift miners will soon be swarming up out of the ground. Farmers will be awake and tending their livestock, fisherman making their way to the docks. Life always starts early for poor, ordinary souls.

Silne walks abreast of him. He hasn’t asked why they didn’t take the horses. He assumes that she wants the exercise.

“Do you have a specific destination in mind?”

She shrugs.

“It’s been a while since I’ve picked a fight with a Hagraven. And you can never find their feathers or talons in alchemy shops. Auriele requested Babette make her some fortification potions, so she’ll be grateful for them, effective against mages too.”

“And ever so much fun to kill.”

Some of the tension releases from her shoulders as she cracks a smile. “That too.”

“What do you think of our newest initiate?”

Her smile twists. “Honestly? I think she’s an ass, but she has a right to feel the way she does. Auriele’s taken double the contracts this month of Mirgelf and Hella put together and she always makes her bonuses. I can take her attitude gladly if she keeps it up.”

“And Mirgelf? Do you think it could’ve been a set up?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. How would they have gotten the tip? No one knew but myself, Nazir, and Mirgelf, and the contact. No, I think he must have just been sloppy and someone got suspicious.”

“What Cicero thought too.”

“Do you mind completing it, when we get back?”

“Oh, ho. Does Cicero mind completing a contract? Listener, sometimes you do ask stupid questions.”

The conversation lapses for a while as they trudge on.

They pass Morthal. “And do you know where to find any of the nasty old hags?”

“You don’t have to look very hard in the Reach. I’ve had this camp marker on my map for a while though. I hope you’re up for a long walk.”

“Whatever you wish, Listener.”
 
Despite her evident exhaustion, Silne demands that they don’t rest until nightfall. The sun disappears behind the looming mountains before them just as they come across an abandoned hunting cabin. If one could call it that.

The hut has only three walls, but it is better for blocking the wind than nothing at all. It contains only a single bed, a shelf, and a barrel of salt. Outside, a hunter has left a number of pelts to dry in the sun.

They start a fire beside the western door, falling into the practiced routine of making camp.

He’s stocked his knapsack with provisions; potions, bread, dried meats, a handful of fruits and vegetables, a collection of junk that needs to be sold should they come across any vendors. Everything rustles and clatters as he attempts to get out a loaf of bread and some meat, stored in an enchanted wrapper to keep it cold.

Silne is going through her own knapsack filled with various junk, most of it worthless. Cicero doesn’t understand why she carries so much of it around. And anything of value she has usually stolen. So they either need to travel to a different hold to sell it or go through a fence, which she is never eager to do, considering the way she avoids any association with the Thieves Guild.

She finally recovers a tattered little book with a yellow cover and a winged creature on the front. A bird? Or maybe a dragon? In any case, she cracks it open, lays on the ground with her sack as a pillow, yawns, and begins to read.

The meat is another mystery, though fresh, and already seasoned as Cicero nabbed it from the pantry that Nazir kept stocked. On a spit over the flames, the spices release an exotic and, well, spicy aroma as it sizzles.

After they eat, Silne picks a clean dagger from her knapsack and returns with it to the fire. She places it against her palm, drawing a shallow cut.

“What are you doing?”

She holds up a finger, on the cut hand, blood trickling down her wrist, indicating for him to wait. With her other hand she finds her page in the yellow book.

“Hold this open, would you?” She passes it to him.

Brow furrowed, eyes bright, she reads for a moment, mouthing the words as she goes and then leans back, closes her eyes, and holds her hand over the bleeding one. Slowly, a yellow light envelopes her palm, accompanied by a sound like softly tinkling bells. The wound closes as though it had never been.

She grins at him in triumph. “Well?”

“Impressive, very impressive.”

“It’s not, I know, but I’ve been practicing. There hasn’t been anything else to do holed up in the Sanctuary. I do it while Mother talks, sometimes. I wish I had practiced more before… well, anyway I’ve gotten a lot better. I had to ask Babette for a lot of salves at first, I just couldn’t make anything happen. Except for,” she vaguely gestures at him. “When I healed you. I don’t know what that was.”

They’re still there; three scars that traverse his abdomen and arch up over his ribs.

“You have skill, perhaps, that you don’t realize.”

She shrugs. “Well, I haven’t been able to replicate it, although it’s a different spell to heal other people than yourself.”

She presses the blade again.

“What had you so upset earlier?”

The cut is deeper from her last and she hurriedly casts the knife aside to heal it.

“It’s not as big of a deal as I’m making it out to be, I promise.” The magic swirls. “Something Mother said. It has me nervous.”

“What did she say?” He picks up the discarded dagger, offers the pommel to her. She takes it and fiddles with it between her fingers.

“It’s a contract, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Fun first and then back to business. Deal?”

He doesn’t like it and he doesn’t agree with her. Business first, always. But then again maybe there was something to the way she made blowing off steam a priority. That in a way it was her taking care of herself, keeping herself better fit for work. Better for one’s mentality.

“Deal.”

She smiles gratefully and it makes his lips pull into a smile too.

“Then home and work and duty and all those lovely things.”

"Is it the same as when you ran from Falkreath?”

She switches hands and makes another slash. “Not to such an extreme, no.”

“But the same motives?”

“I guess. You have to understand that I have never been responsible for anything other than myself, ever. I didn’t exactly put much thought into joining the Brotherhood. I accidentally took Aventus’s contract and then Astrid kidnapped me. I didn’t really have a choice. Will you flip the page for me?” He does. “But then I joined and it was so… so… compelling. Having a family. More tight-knit than the Guild. And before you came I was starting to read everything I could get my hands on about Sithis and the Void and… everything just made sense.”

“Then Cicero arrived-”

“Then Cicero arrived and mucked everything up.” She says with a good natured chuckle. “But really, I was blinded by how much I wanted the acceptance. If you hadn’t shown up I might have sworn fealty to Astrid for all of my days.”

Cicero makes a retching sound and she laughs again.

“And then I was made Listener and it just threw everything off balance. I liked things before. I didn’t want to be in charge. Especially when I was so new. I mean Babette has literally been in the Brotherhood longer than any of us have been alive, but I get chosen after a couple months? I couldn’t fathom it.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Your purpose never wavers Cicero. Your loyalty to the Brotherhood is as sure as the sun coming up tomorrow. I don’t know how you do it.”

He shrugs. “Cicero has been in the Brotherhood a lot longer than you. I wasn’t so different as an initiate.”

“No?”

Well, in truth he

had

been a lot different. Cicero had never struggled with hesitancy. If anything, he was more than a little reckless and excessively sure of himself. A lot of the scars his body wore were from that time.

“Not in essentials. Everyone wants a family and acceptance, Silne. And if not then they’re lying.”

“Yes, I think you’re right.” She heals her hand one last time and wipes the drying blood off on her skirts.

“In Markarth,” He starts. Her eyebrows raise, waiting. “That woman in the marketplace recognized you.”

She nods slowly. “Her name is Kerah. We grew up together. Kind of.”

Hands needing an occupation, she pulls up blades of grass and breaks them between her fingers. “She’s older than me, and she grew up in a house, anyway. I stole food from her parents a lot. I think she knew but she never told them.”

“A friend, then.”

“I suppose. I guess she felt sorry for me. Her family used to be a lot wealthier than they are now.”

“And what of Silne’s family? She never talks about them.”

“Don’t need to. They’re not my family now.” A wry smile as she meets his eyes. “But fine, fine, I’ll indulge your curiosity. My mother died a few days after I was born, father died in a mining accident when I was seven. Is it a sufficiently tragic backstory, do you think?”

It’s neither unique, nor lacking in tragedy. Most Siblings could say something similar. “Perfectly sufficient.”

She smiles again. Clearly, it’s something that’s ceased to bother her.

“Thank you.” He nearly whispers. “For indulging a poor old Fool.”

So there are his answers then, satiation to the near-desperate curiosity to know more of her. There’s a little pride there too; that his assumptions about her were correct.

“Well,” she shuffles closet until their knees are nearly touching and offers him the book. “do you think you could indulge me? This spell is specifically to be used on others.” She points to the paragraph explaining the energy pathways of the magicka. “You don’t have to.”

“If it will help, Cicero is happy to oblige.”

He pulls the glove off of his left hand, the leather worn to the point where it is soft and malleable and fits him, like, well, a glove. She takes his bare hand in both of her own and Cicero balances the open book on his knee.

He doesn’t have the hands of a bard or the merryman of a stage. They’re gnarled like tree roots and building up forgotten callouses again. The middle and ring finger of the one he’s offered her have both been broken before and no longer straighten fully.

She presses the sharp metal against the life line of his palm and drags it only enough to split the skin. There is a small delay before blood wells up in the shallow slit. She sets the blade aside and briefly flicks her eyes to him before closing them and pressing her palm to his. He watches as a warm light erupts into existence, encircling their hands. Unlike the last time she healed him, it doesn’t burn but itches.

Silne moves to gauge her success, bending over his hand so that he can’t see her face. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.” She mumbles.

“Well? Have you cut it off by accident?”

She huffs and relinquishes the appendage. There is a raised pink line where she cut him and it still itches horribly.

“Listener, I don’t see the problem.”

She grabs his hand back, inspecting, and then looking at her own hand that she had been abusing earlier. “I don’t understand why it’s so much harder. On myself I could do it and heal the cut completely. I’m sorry.”

“You healed the wound. This will be gone within a week.”

She traces the raised line and gooseflesh spreads up his arm. “I know but-“

“You want to do it perfectly.”

She sends him a guilty look followed by a wide yawn.

“You may practice on Cicero whenever you like. But for now you should rest.”

She tries to deny it but only yawns again.

“I’m just going to read for a little longer.”

He leaves her to it, though he can see her lids drooping. The wind picks up, bringing with it the smell of rain. Quickly, Cicero kicks ashes over the fire and picks up the odds and ends from supper. A sound coming from the west, a branch snapping, and a low growl, causes his head to snap up. He peers into the clear night but there is nothing but the wind. A wolf, likely. Best they get inside then. He turns to tell Silne so, only to see her head hanging low, book held loosely in her grasp.

He pries it from her fingers, feeling the skin of his palm twinge. “Silne, wake up.”

“Hmm?”

“Silne.” He tries again, shaking her shoulder. She stirs briefly and mumbles something unintelligible before reaching forward. He has to wrap his arms around her to keep her from launching herself just to his left. But she doesn’t seem to mind this arrangement, her head nestling into the crook of his neck.

He wavers for a second, kneeling on the ground and holding her. He could carry her to her bedroll atop the rickety frame, but the idea of doing so toes the proverbial line they’ve established, not with words, an understanding of the way they interact, the way the ribbons of their lives interweave. There is an intimacy in the thought of it that he cannot indulge, carrying her to bed.

Because where will that lead other than tormenting himself (it already does, though Cicero will not acknowledge this)? There is a Brotherhood to rebuild, dangerous contracts ahead of them. He needs to focus on these important things.

But those things feel very far away in times like this now, when the night air is both crisp and sweet and he can see her face in sleep, half-lit by the dying embers, and those other things don't feel like enough to gratify this great and terrible want inside of him.

He lifts her easily, one arm around her back, the other beneath her knees and carries across the hut.

“Oh Mother, so many prayers, but they leave our poor Listener quite tired, quite tired! Too bad you cannot speak to her in her sleep or can you? Cicero will ask her in the morning.” He chatters inanely, it puts distance between reality and his thoughts, and lays her on the soft furs, disentangling her arms from around his neck. She remains steadfastly asleep, though she nuzzles into the pillow and sighs softly.

In the dim light, the darkness below her eyes is more pronounced. Without thinking, he brushes the back of his hand across her cheek. The wind kicks up again and it begins to rain.

Cicero stretches out his bedroll, thankful that the floors are wooden and will stay dry. The rain beats against the sheltered side of the hut.

He lays out on his back on the fur, cap held lightly in his hands, the bells tinkling softly.

And tomorrow would come, ordinary and practiced, and they would travel with easy conversation; she, strengthened by his continued confidence in her, and him being gradually knit together, part the man he once was and part something new entirely and he

likes

all of that. It is the beat of life they walk to now. But somehow he dreads it too. Some things, wounding and healing, got easier with time. This did not.
 
~*~

They hide beneath a rocky overhang, listening to the activity at the camp above them. The bluff they intend to infiltrate sits atop a rocky outcrop on a vast plain, a huddle of tents and cookfires, and a single old ruin. There’s no way to get a good vantage on the place, and there will be few places to hide once they end up being detected. The odds were against them and Cicero feels his very veins thrum with excitement.

“...saw them when we were scouting Sunguard. They’ll make an ambush that much harder.” One of the Forsworn pillagers says. He can’t quite catch the reply murmured by their companion.

Silne sends him a quizzical look and shrugs.

The footsteps move south and the assassin pair scale up over the rocks. Silne branches east, Cicero creeps westward around the animal skin tent. Behind them stretches the wide expanse of prairie.

Cicero can see five Forsworn from his perspective and signals this to Silne who crouches behind a tanning rack across the camp. She inclines her head to the tent in front of him and holds up six fingers.

Quietly, excruciatingly slow to avoid detection, he lifts up the flap in the back of the tent. Inside, a warrior stands at an alchemy table, covered in furs and antlers and all manner of ‘armor’ that Cicero thinks must be worthless in combat. More for a costume than practicality. The irony is not lost on him.

The rustling of the tent flap is covered by the man pounding away at a mortar and pestle. Cicero slips through the gap, blade drawn. The man he realizes, is not really that, not living anyway. In his chest beats the spiny working of hag’s magic, a Briarheart.

He weighs the metal in his hand: he could throw the blade through the briar heart, a clean swift kill. He raises his arm, the camp outside erupts into chaos.

The shattering crash of frost bolts smashing into stone has the Forsworn warrior whirling in surprise. Cicero takes the narrow opportunity while it’s available, leaping from a crouch to throw himself at the man, burying the ebony blade in his jugular.

The Briarheart goes down with a wet gurgle. Careful that he not be able to heal himself, Cicero neatly slits his wrists before plunging out into the fray.

Two Forsworn stand on the opposite side of the fire, a woman covered in feathers who rapidly fires a bolt of ice at his head, and a man with twin blades who lunges for Cicero when he ducks the bolt. Silne is nowhere to be seen, though two Reachman lay bleeding on the ground, ebony arrows sticking out of them.

He throws himself to the side, rolling in the crisp dead grass and slices in the general direction of his foe. By luck he catches the man’s heel, nicking the tendon but not severing it.

A mosquito may as well have bitten him for all the Forsworn reacts. Cicero rolls to his feet only to lunge backwards again as the man bears down on him with both blades flying.

The Imperial backpedals to where the stakes perimeter the camp. He slows, let’s the Forsworn come in close, very close, sweat dripping off his hooked nose, the jagged edge of one weapon stirring the air in front of Cicero’s face.

Forsworn, think they’re so scary. Cicero will show you who’s scary!

He pitches his body to the left, grabbing one of the stakes and using his momentum to swing around it. His feet collide with the Forsworn’s ribs and send him staggering and Cicero sprawling on the ground. In the moment that the man takes to struggle upright, Cicero goes for his ankle again, this time cutting home and severing the tendon.

The warrior lets out an enraged howl. Cicero laughs and rolls easily to his feet. He circles the limping man, intent on making this fun now that the fight is too easy.

“No time, Keeper!” Silne calls from beside the body of the dead mage woman.

There’s a smell of sulfur on the air, and a sound coming from the ruin that seems like a cross between a bird screeching and iron scraping on class. Silne jerks her chin in that direction impatiently.

But the Forsworn has no intention of accepting his defeat but Cicero makes quick work of him, dancing behind the man’s back as he struggles on one foot, and drawing his dagger across his windpipe.

A hagraven does indeed dwell within the ruin. After getting his right eyebrow singed off, Silne grins at him triumphantly over the hacked-apart body, her face smeared with blood and ash, stuffing feathers in a drawstring sack.

“That’s the end of that.”

They meander south until they come across as small pool where they rinse faces and hands, blood and dirt swirling in the clear water.

“Better?” He asks.

She understands he’s not asking about cleanliness. She inhales deeply, the air crisp with nearing winter. “Better.”

Cicero bends and rinses his hands, the cut on his left palm now open and bleeding slightly. He stands to ask her to heal it when something metal and heavy connects with his temple and the world goes black.

He will realize what a fool he’s been when he comes to later in a carriage with barred windows and ropes cutting into his wrists. But for now, he floats, aimless in the void.

~*~

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

~*~

27th of Frostfall 4E202

Cobblestones,

clip clop

of horses’ feet. Shod horses. And cobblestone? A main road. Heading south because the sun is in his eyes. And it’s a setting sun because the temperature is too warm to be morning.

His head hurts something awful, like an axe driving a wedge through the base of his skull. It throbs behind his eyes, made worse by the piercing light. The vehicle, which he has yet to survey, sways on the uneven road and his stomach churns.

He tries to roll over, to view the interior of what must be a carriage, but finds he cannot. And more than just pain and fatigue, his limbs will not move. Like lead, he tries to tell his legs to bend and there’s no response, nothing. He does feel the hot wave of panic that floods him, though. The blow, to the head. Was he paralyzed? He tries to turn his head, merely to avoid the glare, he cannot.

He breathes deep and slow. Though immobile, he can feel the stiffness of his muscles in his cramped position, on his side, hands bound behind his back. Tightly tied ropes dig into his wrists. He realizes too, after a while, that his ankles are tied similarly. The wooden planks of the flooring are rough beneath his cheek.

Without being able to turn over, he has no idea if he is alone in the carriage. Perhaps Silne got away? Neither of them had seen the assailant(s?), apparently. And how could he have let his guard down? He remembers the pool, the cool splash of water (Mother, what he would not give for some water right now), the loud humming of the wind, chuckling to himself in anticipation of asking Silne to use a healing spell on his hand. They were not good excuses to be distracted. Any yet here he was, bound (ha! bound, indeed) for Sithis knows where.

The sun falls to dusk, the world outside a hazy purple. The window is barred with iron. Cicero thinks of the prison carriages he sometimes saw in Cyrodiil.

Surely they hadn’t been caught by Skyrim’s authorities? Hold guards were incompetent at best, indolent and negligent at worst. And they were at least ten miles from the nearest village. Or they had been.

The cart hits a bump in the road, and, unable to move his body to soften the impact, his head hits hard across the floor. The world goes dark again.

Cicero comes to awareness again when he is slung over the shoulder of an armoured person. Cicero never saw the man’s face but the armor is steel and a red sash crosses his shoulder and tries to suffocate the poor Keeper. Apparently he had been out for less time than he thought as it is still not entirely dark. His head hits his carrier’s backplate as he walks, increasing the dull throbbing, but he tries to see where he is between

clunks

.

With the setting of the sun, the unnaturally warm Frostfall day turns foggy and frigid. His entire body aches from being in the same position so long and now it begins to ache with cold.

The sky above is caught somewhere between the color of lavender and slate, walls and pillars of stone cutting up through the patchwork of stars. Torches glow at intervals, boots crunch on gravel, voices murmur indistinctly, a flute somewhere sings high and clear.

A camp? A castle? A village?

His bearer ascends several sets of steps, turning too many times for Cicero to keep track of. Eventually they halt, a stone floor cobwebbed by moss swimming in Cicero’s vision. Pain throbs behind his eyes. Nausea rises in his belly. Ha! Wouldn’t it be nice to be sick all over his captor’s fancy armor?

The air changes as they cross a threshold, met with the warmth of an active fire and he can now distinguish a set of footsteps ahead of the man carrying him. The pair descend two flights of steps and turn left. The man shuts the door and Cicero hears the thump of a body falling to the ground before he is also dumped without ceremony to the flagstones below.
 
He can only stare, screaming internally, to see Silne, lying in a heap beside him. There’s dried blood on her nose and swelling beneath her eyes, deep bruises forming large crescent moons there. Her eyes open sluggishly to find him staring at her. Neither can she move, so it seems, but her pupils adjust to the light and hold his for another beat.

Goat horn sconces flicker in the corner of the room, but otherwise it is dark and damp, for which he is thankful, as the cool stone on his skin helps soothe the ache in his head.

There is a smell too, almost homey, he realizes, invoking memory. Like iron with a faint odor of perfume. Blood and nightshade.

He begins to worry that they have been forgotten there. That they will be left to rot, them here, rotting beneath the earth, and Mother rotting at home along with them.

The heavy wooden door swings open and a pair of boots stride into the room. The boot’s owner takes their time circling them, and then sighs. Swirling green smoke that smells like acrid sulfur blurs his vision and then he finds himself sprawling on the floor, limbs heavy and tingling. It feels like a monumental task to roll over, much less

crouch

and ready his dagger, which, curiously, sits in its scabbard.

Silne groans as the green mist surrounds her. Now Cicero can see who this assailant is, their hand outstretched towards the Listener. A woman, of middle height and age in fitted armor, polished to gleaming, the tunic beneath a rich vermillion. On her breast, the insignia of a diamond inlaid with an eye.

He need only get behind her, slice the bare throat...

A loud crack and another puff of green sends him collapsing like a stone while his sluggish mind finally registers…

paralysis spell

.

“Ah, ah. No. You do not ignore me for weeks and then try to attack me. You have no provocation. We have not harmed you, or taken you weapons. Well,” She frowns at Silne’s battered face and waves a healing spell. “Not harmed

much

. You are my guests here and a little courtesy for your host would be appreciated. So.” She steps towards Cicero, hauls him up by the front of his motley. “Don’t try that again.”

He slumps to the floor, even after she’s removed the spell. The burn of restoration magic steals through him. He looks up to see Silne crouched over him, eyes darting over his person, assessing, and satisfied, standing tall to face their captor.

“What do you want?” An edge to her voice, barely perceptible, but Cicero knows her, knows that if she didn’t have some inkling of what was going on, she would have no fear at all. But there is a tremor there that makes him think that Silne does, actually, know what this woman wants.

Their captor’s eye twitches. “You dare to ask me that?” A clipped laugh and she shakes her head, pushing at her teeth with her tongue. She glares at each of them, waiting, it seems for an answer. Getting none, she stalks to a bookshelf on the back wall, yanking a volume from its home. She plucks several other items from the floor and thrusts them into Silne’s hands.

“Or do you not actually know what these are?”

Silne’s face has gone totally white, her eyes closed. Her fingers close tight around the book, an array of objects piled atop it. He takes half a step closer, which evokes no reaction in their mysterious host, so he moves directly to Silne’s side. And as he does, horror steals over him.
 
A bloodied skull, a handful of half-used tallow candles, a bundle of crushed violet petals. And the book. The title is obscured but the rich leather cover and binding is unmistakable.

A Kiss, Sweet Mother

.
 
He gapes at Silne. The other woman seems to be smirking.

“A contract…” He wonders aloud.

“A contract indeed! I have been waiting for months!

Months

. In dire times such as these.” Her voice is like steel. “I have been patient. Understanding. You’ve been busy, I understand that. The Emperor, that business with Maro, taking out liabilities. But to ignore me altogether! My father was a loyal customer of yours back in Cyrodiil so I knew I couldn’t possibly be performing the Sacrament incorrectly. And the Brotherhood has been causing such a stir across the rest of the Continent that I knew prayers were certainly getting through. What remained is that you were simply

ignoring me

. But you wasted no time in sending that bumbling Nord to Windhelm!”

“You-” Silne stutters.

“Yes, I know all about your little Stormcloak getting caught and it is entirely thanks to

me

that he is still alive. One aspect of the benefits I can offer.” She spits the words out at a bewildered Silne. Cicero is equally dumbfounded at her side, feeling as though the floor has opened up beneath him. “But let’s start at the beginning.”
 
~*~
 
Cicero had well and truly lost it. He had hit his head and everything in it had fallen right out into Sheogorath’s hands. Or he was sleeping in his bed in the Sanctuary and this was the work of Varmira, poisoning his dreams. Because certainly he and Silne were not drinking tea (tea?) with a Penitus Oculatus agent right now.

A scrawny Bosmer in ill-fitting armor pours the drink into cups in front of them on a lavishly set table. The officer pours a generous amount of milk in hers and leans forward on the table.

“See, this is much better, without any paralyzing or kidnapping, don’t you agree?”

Silne sits across from him, perched on the edge of her chair. Candelabras and platter of cheese, bottles of wine and heavy goblets sit between them. The agent, for she has confirmed that, presides over them, some strange mockery of a gracious host.

“Now, introductions are in order. Of course I know who you two are. You may refer to me as Miin.”

Cicero eyes her suspiciously but this is no trick of a daedra or an addled mind. The woman that sits before them seems to be real, and sane, and restraining her anger admirably, if what she says is true. Cicero doesn’t want to trace that thought though. Because if it is true… his eyes flick to Silne who stares resolutely at the table.

“You won’t ask why an Imperial has such an odd name? I’ll tell you, it means ‘eye’ in the Dovah language.” She says, tapping the insignia on her breastplate. “You have your titles to protect your identity and I must have mine,

Listener

.” She takes a sip from the steaming cup. “Are you mute? Are you not

burning

with questions?”

“Questions?” Silne’s voice is barely above a whisper, her fingers clutched white around a cup she has no intention of drinking from. “Questions?” Her voice rises in volume. “Is this a game to you? To toy with us before getting your revenge? Because you had best just get it over with! But I warn you, kill us now, but you cannot stop the Dark Brotherhood-” Silne is on her feet as the cup in her hand shatters, sending scalding liquid over her gloves. “Oh for the love of Sithis-” She pulls them off hurriedly, shaking her hands.

The officer,

Miin

, watches with a steady gaze.

“Please, Riadriel, a towel for the Listener.” The Bosmer retrieves a towel from the buffet and holds it out to Silne who just stares at him incredulously.

Miin folds her hands on the table. “I believe you misinterpret my motives for bringing you here.”

“You

kidnapped

us!”

“For good reason!” She shakes her head, rearranging a snear into a more passive expression. “You wouldn’t respond to my summons so I had to get creative.”

“So we’re supposed to believe that it’s a real contract.” Silne says flatly.

Miin sips her tea. “I need someone killed. Is that such a shock?”

“You’re a member of the Penitus Oculatus. We don’t exactly have a good rapport. Or do you not know that your organization killed my family?”

The woman barks out a laugh. “Yes, that idiot Maro. I believe we can find a common enemy there. I had worked for years with the sole objective of becoming Commander. And then Maro sauntered in, bought Tullis, and here we are.”

“You wanted to be Commander?”

“Yes, and if I had, this business would’ve all gone much smoother. In fact we would both be much better off for it.” She smiles over her cup.

Silne, warily, retakes her seat. “And what does that mean?”

Miin gestures to the spread in front of them. “Make yourselves comfortable, nothing is poisoned, I assure you. This story will take a while.”
 
Cicero reclines in his chair, picking apart a sweet roll and listening intently. The Imperial’s story is surprising to say the least, but he doesn’t interject. Silne does not relax for the entirety of the tale.

Miin wanted to be Commander of the Oculatus for more than just the position. She, and those backing her, had wanted the proximity to the Emperor. An Emperor they wanted to see eliminated. There was, apparently, some contention for the throne with Titus Mede II out of the way. As there always are with rulers and kings, extensive tales of illegitimate children, unfortunate impotence, a distant cousin with a bone to pick. Cicero yawns and finishes off the treat, savoring the icing. Made like in the Imperial City, sweeter than the Nords made them.

“...so, had I had my way, the Falkreath Sanctuary would still be standing. A reliable assassin’s guild is always useful to those in power. Although,” A glare at the both of them. “you have made me question your reliability. But like I said, I would hate to resort to using the Morag Tong, who are so little in Skyrim, when my family has such a history of success with the Brotherhood.”

Silne had been mostly silent, pushing the same pad of butter around a slice of bread for a quarter of an hour. They had heard about Miin’s cousin’s bastard’s mistress’s whomever, who needed to be made Emperor for reasons of money and power and greed and blah blah blah. (Cicero had, of course, listened to every detail, but it was all so

boring

. Dear old Titus died childless, his cousin Vittoria died under mysterious circumstances, so that leaves a very elderly cousin to claim the throne. But this cousin is as senile as they come. But! He has a natural daughter living somewhere in Hammerfell. But alas! Another idiot claims to be the dead Emperor's bastard son. But where is the proof? Who does the Elder Council put on the throne?) Cicero reaches for another sweet roll.

“Enough. I have little patience for politics.” Silne leans forward in her seat. “Who needs to die?”

Miin gestures the Bosmer over to the sideboard. He takes a satchel out of a drawer and hands it to the woman.

She draws out a stack of papers and begins neatly arranging them on the table. They seem to be an assortment of letters, maps, blueprints. “There will be multiple targets. First, we’ll need to send the Elder Council a little warning. So they know to take this matter seriously. Next, there’s an Imperial noble who is trying to claim that he is the boy, Vitus’s, father. He needs to be silenced. Unsuspicious and seemingly natural. And anything that lessens his credibility would work in our favor…” The list went on, detailed on a sheet of crisp parchment.

“All of them?” Silne asks incredulously. “This will cost-”

The woman’s look is positively gleeful. She goes to the nightstand and retrieves a bag of gold that

thunks

heavily on the table. “You must see that this arrangement is positively

symbiotic

.” Cicero sees Silne’s brow crease. He will explain the word to her later. “That-” Miin points at the bag. “Is a down payment. But I think you’ll appreciate the other compensations even more.” She sits again, folds her hands in front of her. “Obviously, I haven’t been blind to the perils your organization has faced in recent years. It’s not right. The Brotherhood deserves better, and I mean that. Tamriel deserves a decent organization to look to for dark services. Cyrodiil has certainly suffered the loss. Many have turned to private contractors that are notably less reliable, they botch jobs, abandon contracts-” A hard look at the Listener, “and are known to charge exorbitant rates simply because they lack competition. In short, we need the Brotherhood. An organization that, while not, ah, salubrious, has some

honor

. So, in addition to filling your coffers I also offer you what you so desperately need- security.”

Silne cocks her head. “How so?”

“Remember your little Nord? Things like that, simple favors. Favors that keep you alive and functioning.”

“How did you know? About him?”

Miin smiles, slow and smug. “Am I not able to keep little birds of my own? Ah, and speaking of, very smart of you to eliminate your former leader’s informants. A change in leadership always, hmmm, tests loyalties. Best not to take risks.”

Cicero and Silne lock eyes over the table.

“Yes, well, let me only say that there is a courier in Skyrim who works for me and I would be a fool to tell you who it is.”

“You just spoke of honor,” the Listener glares holes in the table. “And now you blackmail us?” Her eyes raise to bore into the officer who smiles as passively as ever.

“Now that I have you here, do you think I would make it easy for you to walk away? You brought this on yourself, Listener. Perhaps, this may serve as a lesson, hmm?”

Cicero worries that Silne may spontaneously combust as legends say Dunmer can, with the anger that burns in her gaze.

“If that's all,” Cicero intercedes, speaking for the first time since this interview began, “may we go?”

Miin regards him quizzically, like one might examine a piece of furniture that, moved slightly, draws your attention to it, though you might have forgotten its existence before.

“And you. Her pet. I understand you’re supposed to be mad.”

Silne’s hands slam on the table, she leans over the agent. “We’ll complete your contracts,” she snarls in her face. “And we’re leaving.” She clutches the papers carelessly, crumpling them in one hand, and taking the sack of gold in the other. “Thank you,” She bows, exaggeratedly, arms sweeping wide. “for your

hospitality

.”

“Riadriel? See them out.”

Cicero stands somewhat awkwardly and follows after Silne as the Bosmer holds the door for them. They turn up the first flight of stairs where a set of cells sit back in the wall.

“Ah, before you go, I need your clothes.”

“

What?

” Silne whips to face the elf, the sack of coins nearly catching him in the nose. He raises his hands in a placating gesture.

“Look nobody here other than Miin and I know

why

you’re here. The goons that brought you in think that you were being brought here for

execution

. I can’t very well let you walk out the front gate.” He raises his eyebrows and shrugs.

“So?”

“Yes, so. Miin’s thugs picked up a few bodies along with you two. We’ll dress them in your clothes and dump them off the East cliff as we usually do with prisoner’s bodies. You’ll escape down the cliff in standard issue armor and nobody the wiser.”

“Perfect. We’ll burn and pillage our way across Skyrim in Penitus Oculatus armor and teach that bitch a lesson.”

The elf laughs, startling the assassins. “You know, I almost wish you would.” He drops his voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper. “And if you ever do exact revenge, let your old friend Riadriel in on it, would you? Anyway, time for a costume change, damnably heavy, this steel armor. Hope you’re decent climbers.”
 
~*~
 
Gods, it is cold. And, even after Silne’s healing spell, he feels like hell. His head hurts, and his fingers ache on the slippery stone, and Sithis is he hungry!

They scale down the craggy cliff like metal spiders, landing at the bottom near a pair of dead Forsworn, one in Dark Armor and one in a jester’s motley. Cicero stops for a moment, limbs shaking, staring at the dead man that wears his clothes.

“Cicero?” Silne voice is a whisper, wind in the trees. “We need to keep going.”

He stays rooted to the stop for a beat longer.

Silne’s fingers are warm against his. Nord blood, she doesn’t feel the cold as he does. “I know Cicero,” she said she, tugging on his hand, “I know but we have to leave.”

He knows. He meets her eyes and nods and off they go, leaving the bodies behind. 
 
And what is there to say? A lot, there’s a lot to say. A list of names, marked for death, at the bottom of Silne’s satchel. More coin than they can wrap their heads around in his. And something far heavier than all that gold on their consciouses. 
 
Every cracking twig, every shadow, makes him jump. He connects the moments in his mind, the time he thought he heard something, saw something, all make sense now. A sickening, horrible sense. How long had they been followed? How much did they know? Part of him wants to turn around, slink back into the fort and pluck out that Imperial —— fingernails until she tells them all she knows.

Torture though, bad for business.

Nothing to do but plod after Silne who looks like she’s swallowed an underripe snowberry.

He’s hardly aware of himself as they trek to the nearest village- Rorikstead. Despite Silne’s jest, they really can’t go traipsing around in this armor; Silne breaks into a nearby farmhouse and emerges with some ill-fitting clothes. The wool tunic is too big, and scratchy, but blessedly warm. Presentable, or nearly, they enter the Frostfruit inn, earn a thorough once-over from the proprietor who skeptically hands over a key. Cicero gives no thought to the single bed in the room. Exhausted, hungry, and refusing to face the emotions of their encounter, he doesn’t exactly feel like being deferential to the Listener right now. He’s asleep by the time his head hits the pillow.