Chapter Text
Magnus rose slowly, inching over the horizon, drawing life to yet another brightening dawn.
The fresh sunlight spilled over sparse pines, glittering the untouched snow, bringing shine to the small creek that ran behind the cabin. The night had been achingly silent; the morning, however, brought to life chirps and soft footfall of a few squirrels making their way into a new day.
Smoke was wisping up from the chimney in soft bouts, a signal of a small fire inside. It was waning from the night before, dying in the fireplace, and the day ahead would be mild enough to go on without it. The windows open were much preferred anyway; only the Divines knew how Applewatch needed to be aired out.
Cold, hissing breeze flew in the cracked window. It had been, since Magnus first made its ascent into the sky, but this time, in mid-morning, it differed. It was noticed.
He could feel it prickle across his bare chest, needle-points of ice over sensitive skin. The cold was invited, he welcomed it wholeheartedly, as the next sensation he noticed was the searing, hot pain that flooded underneath. The cold was, indeed, a wonderful contrast.
The air was freezing, and it was sweet. Aromatic herbs, a freshly dead fire, and the metallic smell of healing salves; underneath it all, as pungent as it was, he smelled faint fruit and pastries. All of it was hitting him head-first, tumbling in as each if his senses awoke.
Lucien shifted, or tried to, and felt that same hot sear rush through his limbs. He stopped shifting, deciding instead to focus on his face. The imperial felt beads of sweat on his forehead, dripping horizontally down his temples. He felt his hair stuck to his shoulders and chest with the same viscous sweat, but at least he felt clean. For it was only sweat, no blood, no trampled footprints, or dirt in his wounds.
As the drowsy spell of a coma leaked from his body, he found himself exhausted, but very much in control. He licked his lips, and it felt like he hadn't used his mouth in centuries. He scrunched his nose, noticing next the blinding heat that coated his face.
His eyes fluttered once or twice, thick black eyelashes on tanned cheeks, before finally coming open. All he could manage was a squint, for the blinding heat was from Magnus hanging heavy in the blue sky, staring in the window. Lucien determined flatly that he was certainly, undeniably alive.
He managed through the burning, sore muscles, and turned his neck to face away from the sun. He was now staring at a screen, a wooden frame draped with an elk's hide, and his next realization was that he was still at Applewatch.
Now that the Speaker was fully awake, he felt the eager urge to move. He did not want to be lying in a bed, stuck with sweat and caked fatigue any longer. His muscles, however, told a different story; one of exhaustion, sleep, and pleading for nothing but rest.
He sighed, his first sound in centuries, and managed to slowly climb his way to sitting up. He was leaning back on his elbows, chest bent and head up. His eyes closed as he felt it again, the nagging hiss of his skin, but he opened them to look down. A bare upper chest, a tightly gauzed abdomen, and loose linen pants, the ones that he wore often under his robes.
When he looked up, when he faced forward, he knew what he would find. He'd known since that morning breeze blew over his chest. Still, when he saw his Silencer crumpled on the ground, fast asleep, something bloomed in his chest. It was not that searing, hot pain; it was much, much more painful to admit.
Mid-morning, blaring sun, and all the windows wide. Sunlight swept through, leaking in the windows and casting rays on the floor. And there, several feet from the end of the bed, she lay. Smack in the middle of the floor, between the sturdy, oak door and the bed. She was wrapped in a blue wool blanket, exposing herself only from the neck up. Her head was resting on a flat pillow, Seashell hued hair covering most of her face. That sun-bleached color, the ghost of a strawberry-blonde, was bright and shiny under the direct light from the window. Blinding, literally and emotionally.
Her face was serene as always, sleeping like a cherub despite any event that preceeded her slumber. How anyone could find so much peace in sleep, no matter what, only the gods knew.
Pale cheeks dusted with flowering flax, lips pink and slightly apart as silent breath escaped. Lucien felt relief wash over his ailing body as he seen she was unconscious. He greedily took in his solitude, soft silence for only him and the sun. He could hear the faintest warbling of birds outside, and he spied a deer or two, but it mattered not; he sighed with heavy, weighing relief.
Lucien tried to recall what happened, and it was painfully easy. Laughing, high and mad, blades whipping over his flesh. His own kin, family, tearing him apart, and he did nothing. He remembered his own voice, the sputtering and choking, pleas of innocence, the framing, but it held no weight. The words had escaped him with bursts of blood to follow, and he remembered that metallic surge, breaking free through his nose and mouth with suffocating volume.
Hands and feet bound, skin flayed, and the laughter so, so endless. When he finally lost his consciousness, after agonizing hours balancing between, it felt so pleasurable he had wanted to weep.
But now, he was here; he was inside an aromatic, homey cottage, healed, and his Silencer crumpled in the open like the loyal one she was.
Lucien lay backwards, slowly lowering himself to stare at the ceiling. Birds began to caw and chirp louder, the sun was moving higher, and the air became nothing but crisp again as the still heat fled from view in the window.
He thought of the Night Mother, he thought of the Void, calling and beckoning as he had died. He had accepted his death, on the floor, at the hands of his family. But his Silencer; she was always stubbornly tugging at the threads of life, willing it to go her way.
His eyes flicked down, looking over himself as he lay on his back and spied just the top of her over the bedframe. He watched her breathe slow, full breaths, content in her sleep, even on the hard floor of such a wretched home.
She was always making things difficult. Although they differed, he admired the vigor in which she moved. The excitement in her dark, full eyes, every emotion sprawled open on her face. She moved, tugged, pulled at fate with everything she had. For her morality, she always said with such unwavering honesty. For human nature, for her heart. He always wondered: what morality? what human nature, what heart do you stir up trouble with, you conflicting creature?
That feeling, warm and deep, bloomed again in his chest. He willed his eyes away. A heavy sigh fell from him, and Lucien screwed his weary eyes shut.