Layers of Bad Decisions
“So you’re a werewolf, right?”
You ever met someone that clangs every alarm bell in your head? The kind of person that reminds you of every hope you used to want, the people you’ve dreamed of killing for ripping those hopes away, and the things you were sure you’d never dare to hope for again, all at once?
If not, well let me introduce you to one, leaning in close to whisper in my ear, still wet from the glowing magical fountain he’d been standing in, shirtless with a smirk, while the elf he’d thrown into the fountain moments ago sat sopping wet on a bench.
Describing Lucien as anything other than a complicated mess would be like describing a Covenant war party as organized, intelligent, or tactful. The first time I’d met him, he’d been an awkward, distant mess that spoke with the stiffness of a Legion Commander and hit with the force of a charging Daedroth.The second time I met him, I spent the better part of the night convinced Lucien had either significantly contributed to Aestaril’s near-death state or was planning on making Aestaril be the corpse he so eerily resembled, constantly confused by Lucien’s ability to dance between utter moron and slimy flirt.
It was hard not to shake the feeling Darius had come back to haunt me.
And yet there was something else, something that kept me from cutting my losses and leaving at the first sign of conflict. I’d like to pretend it was the naive hope that the Aetherian Union might finally be a place to fit in and settle down. But in the lonely moments, the moments in my camp far from anyone I might murder in my sleep, I knew it was the dumb hope that the people I’d grown fond of actually might tolerate having me around.
Because if I’m being honest with myself, I never should have been standing in front of that fountain. There was that part of me, the part that the wolf had woken up, the part that howled at me to do the smart thing and run. It knew that Lucien had seen my claws. I guess I knew too, but what was I supposed to do? Throw all this away? Drag myself back to the Pact and beg for more contracts?
Yeah, that’s definitely what I was supposed to do.
Tonight was rapidly becoming a disaster. Mere moments ago, I’d felt... I don’t know, high? Elated? Call it whatever the fuck you want, but it was the first night in six years where I hadn’t felt the wolf once. The time had vanished in an instant, laughing and chatting with Lucien, Castien, Aestaril, and that strange Bear Man. I hadn’t felt normal like this in years.
How fucking sad had my life been that I was excited to be the butt of everyone’s jokes about Lucien and I flirting?
As night faded to dawn, Lucien had been standing in the fountain, making his usual ridiculous advances on me. “C’mon, you already sort of admitted that you like me, this is going to happen anyway. Might as well do it right now, in front of the angry elf, outside in public.”
Gods, fuck me! Why? Why do you always have to find ways to ruin me?
Of fucking course Lucien had put the pieces together, as I stared wide-eyed at the sun rising in the sky, as I stared at my hands that hadn’t turned into claws in over a day. And of course Lucien knew what it meant that I wasn’t ribbing him for implying I’d fuck him in public.
Tonight had felt like I was human again. Couldn’t you at least let me have that, you fucks?
But as dawn streamed down through the branches, as light illuminated Lucien’s smirk, as his words fully slid their cold steel between my ribs, I could feel her again, rising with a snarl. And I knew. It was over. Because this is always how it ends.
My heart hammered in my chest, my hand turned to ice as it found the dagger at my hip. She started whispering in my ear, pumping images through my head just like always. Her roar filled my ears, her growl muddled my words. It would be simple, just like the Pact soldiers who had found my camp in the middle of the night two years ago. Run my claws through Lucien’s abdomen, use my momentum to knock his bleeding corpse to the ground, and send my dagger through Aestaril’s throat. I’d done it before, I could do it again.
Fuck, why did Aestaril have to be here? At least I could rationalize Lucien dying. At least I could tell myself that the pieces of him that reminded me of Darius needed to be left bleeding and broken on the ground. But Aestaril was just... here. Wet. Pitiful.
I tensed and slid my foot backwards, bracing myself to move. “So you caught it.” My words were quiet, a whisper only to Lucien.
I needed to know. I’d opened myself up, told Lucien and Aestaril a story I hadn’t told anyone for a long time. That was the moment Lucien had seen my claws. And if I could prove it, then I’d know. I’d know I could just go back to being a mercenary, maybe find a few nice towns to roam between in Summerset, and slowly drown Lucien and Aestaril’s blood with whatever the fuck they drank down there.
“Hard not too,” Lucien whispered. “Especially after the claws. It’s alright, your secret is safe with me. But... I might need a favor.”
Of course he was just like everyone else. Some people meet a werewolf and scream that it needs to die. Others just scream. But the worst ones? They want to use it. I’m not sure whether I was disappointed or just slowly starting to accept that Lucien was another manipulative piece of shit who enjoyed having power.
“Yeah, of course you do.” My eyes fell to the ground, my fingers tightening on my dagger as I slid it from its sheathe.
“Not right now,” Lucien said with a snicker. “But later. You okay with that?”
My eyes darted across the fountain, visualizing the fastest route out. My breathing sped up, and the growl shifted to a snarl as the wolf readied to spring. “You imply there’ll be a later. I could gut you right now, slide a knife across Aestaril’s throat and leave no witnesses. Then I’m gone, just like always.”
I’d have liked to think I was good at reading people, but Lucien had proven that was an idiotic assumption. Maybe I should have known what his face falling to a frown meant, what his guard dropping as he took a step back meant. But none of it mattered in the moment. The wolf was howling for blood. My veins sang with her fire.
And his words hit like a sucker punch.
“I... I think you’ve misunderstood me,” he said. “I told you, I don’t... you’re my friend, remember? Attack me if you want to, I won’t stop you.”
In my head, I’d expected him to draw his sword, to drop to a combat stance. That was easy to anticipate. I’d seen him do it before, and it would take just a few quick steps and a feint. Lucien would be dead, Aestaril would follow, and I’d be gone. She screamed for it, hungry for their blood.
But his words... there was no preparing for that. Slowly they hit me, pulled back the snarl, made me realize what he was doing. And he wasn’t doing anything. His hands were nowhere near his weapons, he didn’t take a defensive stance, he just... existed. It didn’t make any sense. No one does that for monsters like me.
I tried to force words out through the growl stuck in my throat. “Friends? You’ve known me for a few weeks. You... you...” My words faltered as I struggled to say it. “You know me. How can you say something like that?”
And that motherfucker. He just looked at me like he wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. “Why wouldn’t I say something like that?”
Her growl died, the wolf whimpering as it slowly started to sink in she might not get the blood she wanted. My lips quivered, and I tried to look away, hide the tear I could feel sliding down my cheek like a god damn traitor. “Because no one ever says that.”
I could hear the smile in his voice. “Hey, maybe you’ve just met the wrong people.”
My eyes slid back to him, and I’m sure I looked like a slack-jawed dumbass. Like a spear hitting a fleeing soldier, the absurdity of the situation struck me, and I couldn’t keep a laugh out of my voice, even through the twinge of tears. “Gods, the fuck did I do with my life to get to the point where you’re the right people?”
“A good question,” Lucien said. “I don’t envy you.”
My hand fell from my dagger as I curled my hands into fists, digging my claws into my palms to force them to go away, blood trailing down my knuckles. “Yeah, I don’t envy me either.”
A normal person would have asked me to leave. A smart person would have given me space.
Lucien, however, leaned in and stared at me with a smirk. “So, are we going to kiss or not?”
I stared at him, eyes wide. Slowly my smile spread, my head shaking. That jackass. He knew how fucked up I was, and he made a joke of it, like he always did. “Really? At a time like this?”
The smart thing to do was to just laugh it off and leave, ride far away from Vvardenfell, and go find a nice camp in the temperate beauty of Summerset.
But c’mon, you read this far right? When the fuck do I do the smart thing?
So I cracked a broad smile. “Fuck it, why not.” My hands grabbed the back of his head, pulled him close.
And I kissed him.
I know what you’re thinking. Oh boy, romance, I swooned and let him sweep me off my feet. How adorable.
Go fuck yourself for thinking that. I don’t kiss like a fucking bosmer, jackass. I’m a goddamn Legionnaire. So I led, I pulled him close to me, and you better fucking believe his goddamn lips did what I told them to do. And as fast it started, it was over, my hands releasing him.
