Title: Curiosities
By: CypressArtemis
Summary: Lucien was an assassin from Cyrodiil, his Listener, the fabled Dovahkiin from Skyrim. Surely they must overcome a majority of contrariety to work well together.

Protector

Lucien never was good at protecting life.

He was undeniably talented at taking it, but being a protector was something that alluded him. It was like trying to pluck a bird from the sky or catch woodsmoke in his hands. His mother's sickness wasn't his fault, but Lucien blamed himself as he watched her gasp her final breath, the sunlight illuminating her face through the windowpane. He should have known, should have sought a healer long before he did. He should have protected her he thought as he covered her grave in plumes of wildflowers.

His uncle, he was convinced, was completely his fault. He should have been stronger. He should have learned to fight or at the very least learned more about magic from his mother when he had the chance. He never considered danger would come so close to the Imperial City. Never thought he would need to know about swordsmanship or magic.

He spent all his time learning the trade from his uncle. The correct seasons, locations, to plant crops so they might have food on the table that he never concerned himself with weaponry. Thinking back, he should have tried to learn something because at least then he might have had a chance to save his uncle when bandits overran the small farmhouse, burning all he knew to cinder before dawn.

He couldn't protect the only woman he ever truly loved. Even if he had been there, he wasn't near skilled enough to fight off a Nord and in retrospect he most likely would have gotten them both killed anyways. He was lucky to avenge her. That man was large and surely stronger than he was, no question, but the man had been intoxicated enough that Lucien managed. Even if it wasn't the most honorable way to win, he won, and it was enough for him that burly Nord lie dead in the Niben.

He couldn't protect Shadowmere and though he was grateful for what Sithis had done to his beloved mare, he still managed to get her killed. He wouldn't ever forget that arrow that pierced her powerful neck and sent them both toppling into the riverbed from the cliff. The sickening sound of her distresses whinny and the clattering of loose stones as they slid down the cliffside into the rapids.

He wasn't shocked that the pursuers hadn't followed them further. Even he would have assumed himself dead especially when his leg got caught in the stirrup and the horse's weight drug him down into the water with her. Lucien had cut his leg free of the leather and watched Shadowmere take her final breath as they lie together at the shoreline, his hands bloody and shaking around the pultruding arrow. When he was promoted to Speaker was the next time he saw his faithful mare, a void thrall, but still his wonderful horse.

He couldn't protect his family from the brotherhood's betrayal. For some reason he had this illusion in mind that they were above such a thing, but when members went missing and bodies showed up in their place the entire black hand knew it was one of their own.

He couldn't protect his own sanctuary from purification. He fought for them all but in the end there wasn't enough evidence to support their innocence. No matter how many stones he turned, how long he investigated, even Lucien couldn't deny how it looked. The only one he could be sure of was the newest recruit and when he sent his Silncer to finish off the rest of the family it was because he couldn't bare to bring his blade against them.

He couldn't protect his own Silencer, couldn't spare the pain of destroying the sanctuary, nor leaving them alone to fend for themselves amongst the remaining shambles of the organization. Lucien wasn't there to offer guidance, or to stop his protégée from investigating the mad god's isle. In the end he lost his protégée to madness, never witnessing their face in the Void.

Ultimately, he couldn't even protect himself from the fury of the black hand and as he died in that farmhouse and entered the Void for the first time the faces of his family greeted him, beckoning him welcome. Faces of those he failed for so long.

Lucien had grown accustomed to the void and when Sithis had allowed that cursed scroll to exist he thought he would be serving a purpose again. In reality, he was just a tool for battle, a means of protection for whomever possessed his summons, but he couldn't protect them all and several ended up dead at the cold wisps of his boots.

Sithis had always said it was part of a plan, but Lucien had begun to grow resentful with each member's death. Exhausted with those that summoned him to the point he rarely engaged outside of battle and faded into nothing when it was over.

Astrid might have been the only one in near 50 years that sought his advice. That actually sent him out for reconnaissance, but there was so much about her that infuriated him. Her lack of respect. Her ignorance. Her devaluing of everything he stood for, everything he sacrificed for.

He never expected that wisp of a Nord to become Listener, even when the Night Mother told him she would. He expected it a joke or that she would turn tail and run, that they would be seeking someone new.

She didn't.

He never expected the Night Mother to bid him to protect her, which for the first time in nearly 100 years he actually felt compelled to try.

The scar on her hip, forever imprinted into her flesh from the elf's lacking medical skills reminds him how bitter failure taste like. Over 200 years and he hasn't once managed to protect someone he cares about.

Rose on the other hand, protects people she has never even met like it's second nature. She saves lives on a near daily basis and Lucien is slightly envious of this. She doesn't know what it's like to lose family after family and feel powerless to control it.

When the betrayal of the brotherhood hits her, and Astrid lay dead on the floor he's reeling inside. She made it too easy. That woman deserved worse than she got, burned nearly beyond recognition as she were. Astrid deserved a real traitor's death. Like the one he endured.

The lostness in her face as she wanders the halls and sees dead family is what calms him, keeps him centered, because for once she understands what it's like to fail to protect someone, and it's bittersweet.

She doesn't go to Dawnstar for a long while, just like she stops calling for him altogether, and one day it feels like he is being ripped into shards. He recognizes these feelings like when his fellow Speakers carved their hatred into his body and the void is fading away from a vast cold nothing to a warm nothing.

He wakes up.

Actually, wakes up, and feels what it's like to have a heart beating with wild abandon. He feels the warmth of his skin and the cramping discomfort of having been unconscious on a wooden floor.

He recognizes the blood stains, the bookcase, and the abandoned bed of the swampland shack. He feels his lungs expand with breath and the panic in his gut when confronted with the empty space and silence of no longer having Sithis or his bride in his head.

He doesn't understand what happened, but he knows she had something to do with it. Knows it like he knows he is now very much alive and finds the sharp blade on the table before he sets out to find her.

It takes a while and a lot of asking around, but he finds her just the same. She is probably just as shocked upon seeing him as he was waking up for the 1st time in 200 years. He has her pinned to the wall and he could have snapped her neck.

He wanted to.

Her face is twisted in a way that reminds him of how he felt as his brothers and sisters piled into the farmhouse and cut him down mercilessly.

He lets her go and slinks back into the chair across the way. Watches her sink to the floor in a mess of trembling limbs and feels a sinking in his stomach that he hides with a wicked grin.

He never tells her about the high elves that lie dead in the gutter, the ones in black robes and golden armor asking around Riften where they might find her, just like he doesn't tell her about that shifty cat from the marketplace whose throat he cut wide in the sewers and left for skeevers.

He doesn't tell her a lot of things as he stares from the other side of the room, in fact he doesn't speak at all for a long while, and even if he hates what she's done to him he swears that this time he will be there.

This time, he will protect her.

Author's Note: So I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this chapter to be honest. Hopefully you guys found it interesting. It's kind of an add on to the previous one and it is an idea I had toyed with for some time.
I did want to give a shoutout to Hija de la Tempestad. I hope I spelled that correctly, but big thanks for the reviews and ideas on my other fic. Very much grateful!