The Old Oak Tree (Lucien)

 A/N: Undead trauma bonding time woooo...and Farkas is there too.

 

“What’s your favorite kind of tree, Abigail? Considering you grew up in The Rift you must have seen many.” The thief who’d been walking alongside me and mostly ignoring me stops abruptly in her tracks and looks at me with a look of utter confusion. “What?!” Stopping as well, I repeat the question, slowly and with clear articulation “What is your favorite kind of tree?” in response her face scrunches up, I do a similar thing when deep in thought. “Beech.” She responds before running to catch up with Issy, Olivia, and Isabelle who had been walking farther up ahead. Huh, beech, that’s an interesting choice, I would have guessed birch, or maybe pine- both are quite common in these parts. I was always partial to oak trees though, personally. Upon arriving at our destination which is a place I’d heard of but truthfully never been I sense a strange presence…being a spectre gives one just a bit of an edge up on sensing other supernatural entities, but it turns out to just be Farkas sitting on a rock near the lake tossing stones into it while Anna chats with a young and somewhat strangely dressed woman. “Who’s the scary looking lady?” I whisper, popping up next to Farkas and accidentally scaring him a bit, I always forget he’s a bit of a scardy-cat, must be the anxiety. “Her names Serena and we found her in a crypt.” He responds, still throwing stones before stopping midway through the next one and looking at me “Why are you here?” While thinking of a quick response I look over at the party I’d arrived with who now stand talking to Anna and the other lady. “Excellent question, my dear werewolf. Truthfully, I have no idea, I just heard Issy was going somewhere and felt like coming along.” With a silent nod he seems satisfied with the answer and moves over a little to allow me to sit on the rock as well. “So…crypt lady?” I ask, glancing over to try and get a better look at what she looks like other than dark hair and and pretty fancy outfit for someone found in a crypt. “Vampire, really old vampire” Farkas pauses for a moment “And her dad is a complete bastard” he adds, I make a mental note to follow up on that topic, that seems like an interesting can of worms. “She also had an elder scroll strapped to her back so now we’re here…” Hang on, a what?! I don’t think I know of anyone who’s gotten their hands on an elder scroll outside of a very few select people that I know get into various kinds of trouble in many different situations, and a very old vampire is not on that list. That would also explain the residual off putting feeling I had even after identifying Farkas, there was another supernatural being around. “How old is she?” I ask him, now able to get a slightly better look without it seeming like I’m intentionally looking, she looks pretty young maybe around our age when she was locked away or turned, and I thought getting murdered was no fun…I’d hate that. “Well, she thought Windhelm was still the capital city and didn’t know what the empire is, or who the septims were, and a lot of other things so…she’s probably from somewhere in the first era?” Damn, and sometimes Issy and I feel old, that’s Telvanni master wizard level old, I hope someone gives her a history lesson or two.

Later that night after dinner is finished for everyone who needs food to live and most of the dawnguard and the rest of our little band of companions have gone to bed it leaves only Farkas, Serena, and I sitting at a table along with one of the huskies. “What’s your favorite kind of tree?” I hear a voice ask from the doorway amidst the silence of the three of us and the dog and turn to find Abigail, a callback to our earlier conversation. “Oak, but I also like ash.” Satisfied with the answer she nods and heads off to bed. Turning back around I see my two companions and even the dog that had been enjoying being pet looking at me with varying degrees of confusion. “We were walking through the forest earlier and so I asked her favorite tree, it’s not that weird.” I reply, crossing my arms, it’s only a question I don’t get what’s so confusing.

“Have you ever seen the gildergreen?” Farkas asks while on the subject of Skyrim’s flora and fauna and I shake my head “Big tree in the center of Whiterun, near the temple, the shrine of Talos, and the steps up to the castle? Right outside my front door?” Oooohhhh, that tree. “Now that you describe it yes, really old one, oak tree I think. Looks worse than the last time I saw it but the last time I saw it was long long ago.” The last time I saw it aside from the brief trip to Whiterun a month or so ago must have been the time Vicente and I came to Riften, where a thief tried to pick my pocket, and that was over two hundred years ago now…time flies when you’re dead. “How old are you? And…what exactly are you?” Serena asks now that we’re on the topic of questions. “My name is Lucien LaChance. I was a speaker for the dark brotherhood, a splinter group of the Morag Tong that serves the murderous needs of citizens outside of Morrowind from the shadows, in what’s now Cyrodiil around two hundred years ago. That ended when I was betrayed because of a very long and messy story that my friend Issy who you met earlier, the depressed looking one, can tell you about and I was brutally murdered by my comrades. Now I take the form of a spectre, essentially…I’m a fancy version of a ghost and eternally twenty five years old, and I can teleport. Oh, and walk through walls!” For dramatic effect I show off the skill and appear sitting next to her “See? Teleportation, ability to be solid or not- very handy when going through walls, objects, or people, and I’m semi transparent, blue and sort of glow. Only downsides are I can’t eat, sleep, and the other Isabelle, the taller, skinnier, and more annoying but still nice one, somehow got a spell to summon me against my will. Outside of her summoning though I can go where I please for the most part.” The vampire seems intrigued, which is understandable, if I met me in my current form I’d be curious too.

 “Do you remember much of your life?” Oh, I remember all of it, from my very first childhood memories to the last cold and painful moments before the last bit of life left my body. “I do! For instance when I was a child there was a big old oak tree I’d climb up and play in, or simply find a big branch to sit on and read. It terrified the people who looked after me, but it was less frightening than when I’d run around the docks before I could swim.” That makes me think of something “Farkas, aside from a river you’re landlocked- can you swim?” He makes a motion for “sort of” before directing the topic back to my story, a helpful thing as I tend to get distracted and go on tangents…not unlike Vilkas I suppose. “And when I moved to Cyrodiil there was a similar one outside the city I lived in, and a traditional song I like involved them too, oh and my old flat where Issy now lives is surrounded by these massive oak and ash trees…but also some thorn bushes and I do not have fond memories of those.” The husky barks in agreement, thorn bushes are never a fun thing to have to deal with. “What about you miss thousands of years old vampire, what’s your story? I was adopted by a vampire, you know, but he was only around three hundred.” Serena gives a tight lipped smile, given the fact the dawnguard hunt people like her I’m not surprised, at least they gave her sanctuary. After hearing some more of her story, and the ordeal that one goes through to become a daughter of coldharbour I’m really glad they gave her sanctuary. I may kill people for a living, but what goes into that ritual is truly despicable, and I would have no greater joy in undeath than squeezing whatever twisted undead life remains out of Harkon's miserable body. I feel bad for Serena, in some ways her death, or circumstances leading to it, are almost as bad if not equal and quite possibly worse than my own. My death was gruesome, but an assault like that is crueler than any knife the black hand stabbed me with. Farkas mostly just sits quietly listening and petting the dog, a calm easy presence among my own at times hyperactive personality and Serena’s understandably rather bleak one. Occasionally he adds into the conversation when asked a question or to share a story of his own childhood, which seems to be full of its own ups and downs, but for the most part he seems more interested in the dog than the conversation- quite content to let the two undead people trauma dump about their own unsavory circumstances.

Eventually it becomes late enough that even Serena has to get some rest. I wonder if the dawnguard have a spare coffin around? I’ve never seen a vampire sleep in a regular bed, except for the times Vicente would fall asleep in a chair while reading me a bedtime story, and never understood if the coffin was purely for aesthetic purposes. Whatever the case is, vampires need rest too. Werewolves, not so much, at least with the variant of lycanthropy the circle has, so Farkas stays up a little while longer. However it comes to a time where he too has to retire, even if it’s more for Anna’s sake than his own. Whatever happened at Helgan gives her nightmares from time to time, and it seems like one of those times is tonight. Sometimes I wonder about asking her but continue to keep the question to myself, trauma can be a difficult thing to process, and she’ll be ready to talk in due time. With the rest of the fortress quiet it leaves only me and the husky sitting on the carpet by the fire giving and happily receiving pets. “So…what’s your favorite kind of tree, doggy?”