[h3]Not Anymore…[/h3]

[i]A product of our choices, always will be…

...Always have been.[/i]

[i]Night, 17th of Sun’s Height, 4e208[/i]

Lightning bugs and campfires. Stars in the sky and lonely clouds drifting on the currents of lazy winds, leaving their mark on those on the ground in the rustling of trees and the chills of backbones. The fire warmed Sevari’s palms and the juxtaposition of the cold Skyrim winds and the heat of the fire made him shiver. It was a lonely night. He hadn’t spoken to anyone after Ivy, and Finnen was gone. He hadn’t even spoken to Jaraleet for a while.

The flask of whiskey he kept was getting more and more appealing as the seconds ticked by. For some reason, he was trying to cut back. But now seemed right for a drink. He reached into his pack and fished out the flask, uncorking it and drinking deeply, grimacing and growling with the large gulp. It burned all the way down, but it didn’t mask any of the footsteps behind him. “You aren’t quiet enough.” He sniffed at the air, smelling the tell-tale scent of an Argonian. “Jaraleet. Share my fire, friend.”

“Hmmm, I must be getting rusty. Or too comfortable, if not both.” The Argonian replied, nodding in acceptance to the Khajiit’s offer. He took a seat next to Sevari, his eyes going to the flask of whiskey in his hands. “I do hope that you are planning to share, my friend. It is quite rude to drink alone, or so I’ve heard.” Jaraleet said, letting out a sigh as his eyes darted towards the fire. “It has been a while since we last talked not since….Gilane, I think. The two of us, I mean. I suppose it doesn’t matter when exactly we last talked, but it has been a while.” He said somberly, shaking his head. “How are you holding up Sevari? Falkreath might be a breath of fresh air, a moment of respite, but men like us must always be ready for when those kind of moments pass away...not to mention there’s what happened with Latro…” 

Sevari shook his head, “If anyone remembers the most it’s me… or Sora.” He let go a growl of a sigh, “I put my gun in his face. I didn’t know what I’d have to do.”

He lifted his eyes from the dirt and the stones arranged around his firepit to Jaraleet’s own, “What of you? How do you fare in all this?”

Jaraleet was silent as he processed what Sevari had told him, there was only one reason he could think about why the Khajiit would point his gun at the Reachman. “He hurt Sora, didn't he?” He said, his voice barely rising above a whisper. 

He reached for the flask of whiskey in Sevari’s hand and took it from the Khajiit’s hand, taking a large gulp of the strong alcohol. “He made me promise to kill him if he ever hurt Sora, that's how I fare in all this.” 

“Fucking Gods…” Sevari sat ramrod straight at that and did not protest when Jaraleet snatched his flask, instead grabbing it back when Jaraleet was done and taking a pull himself. “He told me nothing about that. When was it? The promise?”

He kicked his heel uselessly at the dirt, “Damn it!” Sevari ran a hand through his hair and growled, steadying himself. “What’s to do then?”

“After our little impromptu trial towards Gregor, back in the Alik’r.” He replied, his eyes drifting to the ground. He was silent for a moment, unsure of how to respond to Sevari’s question. 

“I don't want to kill him Sevari.” Jaraleet said finally, shaking his head. “You, him, you are one of the scarce few in this group who…” He paused for a second, unsure of how to continue. “Understand me, I suppose. Who truly understand me, I mean.” He finished, reaching for the flask once again and taking another drink of the whiskey. “The three of us, we come from the same world after all.” 

He fell silent again, handing Sevari his flask back once more, as he weighed his options. The minutes seemed to stretch by and, despite the warmth emanating from the fire, Jaraleet felt a chill run down his spine. “We should go out, search for him.” The assassin finally said, looking at Sevari in the eyes. “We find him, and we bring him back. Who knows what he might do, what might happen to him, if we don't find him in time.” 

“We’d be leaving everyone when they need us most.” Sevari sighed, shaking his head as he thought everything over. Had Finnen truly fallen far enough that he was unable to be saved? What if this, their little group here, fell apart in their absence? Sevari stirred his fire and spoke, “You know there is a possibility we may have no choice. He knows everyone, he could describe us down to our damned eyelashes…” he looked sidelong at his Argonian companion, “Or scales.”

“He could be some raving fucking lunatic. You made a promise to Finnen that if he forswore what made him Finnen that you would put down what he became.” Sevari turned to his comrade, “We might have to go all that distance just to look him in the eye and chop his throat out.”

Jaraleet let out a sigh and shook his head; he knew that what Sevari was saying was reasonable, and more than likely possible, but that knowledge didn’t make it any easier to hear them. “I know all of this.” He said finally, his voice somber. “If it has truly come to all of this, if Finnen truly is completely gone, then I will carry out my promise.” 

“Either way, I think we have to go and track him down. If he [i]has[/i] become a threat to our group, then we must neutralize it as quickly as possible and the two of us are the best suited for the task, I feel.” The Argonian said. “And if not, then we can try and convince him to return with us.” He paused for a second, thinking of what he was going to say next. “I know it’s not easy to leave the group behind but, if it’s just the two of us we can move faster than if we all leave Falkreath.” 

Sevari took in a breath, and as he blew it out, all of the things that Meg saw in him were gone. All of the notions of a good man vanished. Anything other than what he was, one of the Emperor’s sharpest knives in the dark, evaporated. He nodded once, almost relieved.

And then guilty.

But, he buried it well. Like he always did. Anything else could be saved for after the mission. “We have our task.” He nodded, “We set out in the morning.”

[hr]

[i]Morning, 18th of Sun’s Height, 4E208
Falkreath Campsite[/i]

After the strange encounter with Mazrah and the newcomer, Ivy, Gregor had taken a few minutes to decompress before he made his way to his second patient of the day. Maulakanth’s riverside attack had left a trail of broken bodies in its wake. One of them was already gone, of course, and Gregor felt a pang of sympathy for Daro’Vasora -- and Finnen. Gregor knew very well what trauma could do to a man. That said, his absence left only one more victim under his care. 

Gregor stopped a little ways away from Sevari’s tent. The two had barely exchanged any words after their attempt at reconciliation had been brutally cut short by Sevari being shot by the Dwemer Centurions in the ambush. Gregor had been preoccupied by -- [i]don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it [/i] -- and Sevari had been busy with getting enough rest. Until last night, of course. Gregor wasn’t even sure if he would find the Khajiit in his own tent. 

“Sevari?” he called out. “Are you there?”

Out of the mouth of Sevari’s tent a travel pack tumbled out onto the grass, bloated with supplies. As the man himself emerged, bedecked in the same bloodied clothes he’d been wearing and sometimes washing since Gilane, it was clear to see where his money went when they got to town. He stood opposite the other man. Or opposite the lich, anyway. No matter the moment they shared before he’d died there was no getting used to looking a dead man in the face.

And so his own did not pretend any mirth at his arrival, but nor did it twist itself in contempt. Sevari rolled his jaw, looking away as he drew in a ragged breath and coughed something from his lung. What he spat to the side before retrieving his pack was dark and thick. “Gregor,” Sevari said, hefting his pack on his shoulder, “How do you fare?”

The lich ignored the question and watched with bemused curiosity as Sevari appeared to prepare for departure. “I wouldn’t go anywhere with that lung, if I were you,” Gregor said cautiously and took a step closer to Sevari. “In fact, I’m here to check up on your progress… and that, I’m afraid,” he continued and looked pointedly towards the wad of dark phlegm that Sevari had just spat out, “does not look healthy to me. Please, sit.”

“I’m not going to be doted upon by-“ Sevari cut his vitriol short, almost sheepishly he stood before he drew in a breath. In a way, he was guilty for almost having said what he was going to, [i]by a lich.[/i] The man before him seemed worlds apart from the one he’d aimed his gun at in the Prison. He lifted a fist to his lips and gave a gravelly cough, trying to make it sound not quite as bad as it was, but still wincing from the grinding, sharp pains that were still accompanying. “By a man I hardly know.” He finished lamely.

Even so, he shrugged his pack off his shoulder and sat on it, legs crossed and elbows propped on knees, “I’m fine. I’ve lived through worse. Many have tried to kill me and none have done it yet.” He let out a cough and made to spit, but swallowed the metallic tasting mucus instead, “Fucking centurion isn’t going to be the one.”

Gregor smiled at that and knelt down at Sevari’s side. “While I admire your tenacity, mere willpower cannot make it so.” He thought about his own fight with Zaveed and the consequences that followed. “You need a healer too,” Gregor added softly, with Raelynn’s tear-streaked face looking down on him in his mind’s eye. He pushed the memory aside and placed a glowing hand on Sevari’s back, using Restoration magic to sense the injuries inside his lungs. He hummed while he worked and thought.  

“A terrorist, a weaver of dark magicks, a lich. Now you’re my bed nurse.” Sevari snorted, shaking his head, “Where the hells did they find you?”

“They’re all related,” Gregor said absent-mindedly, his eyes closed. Raelynn would have found the source of Sevari’s internal bleeding within seconds, he was sure, but Gregor wasn’t nearly as skilled or experienced and he had to search every inch of Sevari’s lungs meticulously. “Restoration is a very useful skill for any man traversing the deepest, darkest places of the world in search of dark knowledge -- knowledge that was never parted with willingly, and that was needed for self-preservation and the preservation of my loved ones. The Dwemer are an existential threat to my family and their way of life. So there you have it. Terrorist, lich, necromancer, healer. All one and the same person.” 

He opened his eyes and mouthed a quiet [i]‘aha.’[/i] The golden glow that clung to his fingers intensified and radiated warmth as Gregor did his best to mend the tear that he’d found in the membrane of Sevari’s right lung. 

Sevari noticeably loosened as he felt the light euphoria that accompanied healing magic. He nodded, “I never was any good with it. Opening people, rather than closing them.” He frowned slightly, looking at his hands for a good moment before he spoke up again, “Men don’t find themselves in wars and seek out lichdom as a first option.”

Sevari looked back at Gregor, almost surprised to realize he’d show his back to the man, “Then again, men don’t lose their families and resort to state-sanctioned murder as a method of grieving.” He coughed into the crook of his elbow and spat to the side away from Gregor, still dark, “I guess I’ve not a lot of room to judge. Why, Gregor?”

He paused for a moment, tracing the visible tattoos peeking out from beneath Sevari’s clothes with his gaze. The only sound around them was the wind and the distant clamoring of a town coming to life in the morning. When Gregor spoke, his voice was low, weak almost, and barely more than a whisper. “You must understand that I was driven to desperation. My father tried everything, to no avail… there was only one option that remained, and it was left to me.” His armor clinked as he shifted and moved a little further behind Sevari, moving out of the man’s peripheral vision, pressing his hands more accurately on the place where Sevari’s skin and clothes hid his injury. 

“My lineage is… cursed, afflicted, whatever you might call it. My father and his father and his father’s father and all of their children were all killed by an illness of some kind. Not too young, mind you, but…” Gregor bit his lip. “Middle age is no time to grow old and perish. I watched my father die. There was nothing of him left in the end. His last words were ‘you have to do it’. I had no idea what he meant until I went through his library and found the journals that described his attempts to cure himself… to cure us all. Nothing worked. Magic, alchemy, not even prayer.” His tone took a turn towards darkness. “There was only one thing left. One thing my father hadn’t tried.” 

The wind carried a gust of needles that danced in front of them for a few seconds before moving on to toy with something else. Gregor watched the needles go in silence. 

“I thought it would work. I mean, it did, but… I thought it’d be a real solution. People died, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make,” the lich whispered afterwards. He looked at Sevari, at the back of his head. “What’s a few lives to set things right? To defy fate?” Gregor laughed mirthlessly. “I was desperate. And I was afraid. That’s why.”

Sevari nodded along, finding too many things in the tale Gregor had woven that tugged at his regrets in the same way his own memories and dreams did. He busied himself with picking at a callous on his palm, “A few lives to set things right…” he mused, a bitter little smirk played across his lips, “Yeah.”

“The man you almost killed, that almost killed [i]you.[/i] I’ve known him most of my life, on and off,” though on and off was to put the estrangement lightly, “He was a good child, a shy little boy who had trouble speaking louder than a mumble. His sister and I were the fighters, the brash ones, rough and dirty and spiteful.”

“Now look at him.” Sevari shook his head, slow and almost mournful, “First time I met him in years I hardly recognized him. The way he’ll tell you is that I came to him asking for a favor to smuggle me somewhere.”

“The truth of it is that I needed to know if the rumors were true. I could’ve asked any smuggler anywhere. I wanted to know if the reports were correct. That dread-captain Greywake was a little boy from Senchal who’d lost his family and waded through blood to find an answer to why.” Sevari shrugged his broad shoulders, “Imagine how I felt seeing the man who’d taken more than a few lives to make things [i]feel right.[/i] Like I wasn’t looking at Zaveed. Like I was looking in a damn mirror.”

“I think that’s why I didn’t hand Latro over to the Dwemer or kill that fucking Argonian you and I keep around.” Sevari tried craning his neck to look at Gregor, but without success he just returned to looking at the trees and their swaying branches, “Why I didn’t just stab you in the throat when I met you in the Haunted Tide.”

“What’s a few lives, Gregor. What’s too many?” Sevari frowned, “It’s why I’m packed and ready. I was never fond of losing friends or making enemies out of them. Less so nowadays. I’m going to find him, Finnen. Gods know if hurting the ones you love and hold dear sentenced you to death, I’d be dead twenty times over. Meg told me I’m a good man. Hate to make her wrong.”

Gregor dropped his hands to his side and straightened up to his full height. He'd done what he could, but he wasn't sure if it was enough. He also knew he couldn't stop Sevari. Part of him thought it was irresponsible to leave like this, but another part of him wanted him to find Finnen and bring him back. 

"If Megana said that, it must be true," Gregor said and stepped back into Sevari's view. He offered him a hand to pull him to his feet. 

“What does she say about you?” Sevari quirked a brow his way. Honest curiosity, but the  history between the two of them would have Sevari understand if the man thought it was a jab at him and certain life choices. He took the hand and his inquisitive gaze remained on Gregor as he was hauled up.

The lich bowed his head. "She was in favour of letting me stay, but she fears me. It was plain as day on her face. Now… I don't know. I don't wish to frighten her any more so I've left her be." 

Sevari nodded, “Yeah, I’d do that too. She thought I hated her for a while. I cleared the air, but,” he looked Gregor up and down, knowing he’d be able to fill in the rest, “She’s not a killer. She’s not… like us. She couldn’t understand me if she wanted to, she couldn’t know the things I’ve done with her view of a good man intact.”

“It’s one thing to poke a man with a sword in battle. To stalk him for days, know his every move as well as he does, smile on his face and then strangle him to death in an alleyway after getting him drunk is…” Sevari sighed, shaking his head, “That’s a whole hell of another.”

Gregor nodded as well. That was evil. Was it as evil as cutting down one’s erstwhile ally in the pursuit of power, sacrificing his soul in the process? Probably not. But it [i]was[/i] evil. “We both have to believe that our past actions don’t have to define the person we can become,” he said and placed a gauntleted hand on Sevari’s shoulder. “Megana doesn’t have to know. The past can stay in the past. Find Finnen and bring him back. Let your actions now speak for themselves. This war… it can be our salvation,” Gregor continued, his voice now full of pathos. “If we see this through to the end, if Daro’Vasora’s plan works, we’ll be…” 

He trailed off and laughed softly. “We’ll have been in the company of heroes. That has to count for something.” 

Sevari looked Gregor up and down, shrugging and nodding, slapping Gregor on the pauldron in what was the first friendly gesture the two had shared since their meeting, “I'll give you one thing. At least you didn’t tell me the same damn shit everybody tells me.” Sevari smirked, “I’m a product of my choices, I always will be and have been. Us both. It’s time to make better choices.”

“Agreed,” Gregor said and took a step back, giving Sevari one last appraising look. “I’ve done all I can. Don’t get shot again.” He made to turn and walk away but stopped himself in his tracks and turned back to face the Ohmes-raht. 

“Should I go look for her?” the lich asked. While his helmet betrayed nothing of his emotions, his voice was as soft as a lover’s gentle touch and he radiated vulnerability. “She… wrote me a letter. She said that she’d be back.” 

Gregor balled his fists and looked down at the ground. “Do you believe her?” 

Sevari’s brows rose for a moment at Gregor’s sudden vulnerability. The truth of it all was that he barely knew Raelynn more than he knew Gregor. He knew that’s who he spoke of. He couldn’t tell him for sure, because he didn’t know what sure was. But he had led men before, had good Inspectors and trained rebels whose will to fight on hinged on his words. “She’s never lied to you before.” He said with a measure of surety, “She’s going to come back. The way she looks at you,” he said, recalling the way his wife would look into him and see his very soul through his eyes, “It tells me every time she looks away she makes a promise to herself it won’t be long until she looks again.”

“You don’t leave the ones you love and promise to come back to just… not.” He lied, looking away from Gregor and remembering promises and vows to people long gone, “She’ll come back.”

He could still see her lying there, her raven hair spilled out over the pillow, her back to him, while the first rays of dawn began to spill in through the window. “I’m sorry,” Gregor could hear himself whisper, barely more than a breath, with naught more than a note on the nightstand to explain. 

The tattoo on his forearm burned. Gregor shook his head. He had seen how Sevari looked away. “That’s exactly what we did,” he said. “Isn’t it?” 

Sevari reached down and hefted the pack on his shoulder again, knowing it was nearing the time to meet Jaraleet so they could set out soon. He frowned, looking off at a hundred faces he’d lied to in service to everything from the Empire to his own greed. He’d recruited Finnen and though he had left so many just like him to the wolves, Finnen had become something more than just an asset. He met Gregor’s eyes once more, “Not anymore.”

Gregor could only hope that the same was true for Raelynn. He unclenched his fists and squared his shoulders, and the momentary window of vulnerability closed shut. The lich’s emotions shrouded themselves in inscrutable chainmail, steel and black cloth once more, torn and ripped and filled with holes as it was. He gave Sevari a wave and turned around to go back the way he came with the same slow, plodding footsteps that were now distinctively his. 

“Not anymore,” he repeated quietly to himself.