Under The Whispering Tree (Isabelle)

 “As you can expect from being, well, me I guess I never had many friends as a child.” Lucien explains all too casually while inspecting his fingernails. “Other kids or more likely their parents weren’t overly fond of playing with the weird kid who appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly. So, instead I played by myself, or with the sailors when they’d come to port, or later on Vicente. Most of it was by myself though.” He trails off toward the end and falters before changing the conversation away from himself, and instead asks Martin about his childhood adventures. Martin simply shrugs and states his childhood was rather uneventful, something I find difficult to believe as all of us know his teenage years were all but boring. “What about you Baurus? What was baby Baurus like?” I ask the blade who thinks for a moment. “My childhood was more interesting than Martins, but not as much as Luciens, and not as depressing as yours for sure. Baby Baurus mostly just wandered around Sentential with mom and dad and picked up things along the way until Jauffre came along.” Similar to Lucien in a way being raised by Vicente from late childhood, Baurus was partly raised by Jauffre who began training him as a pre-teen molding him into one of the best agents I’ve ever met. A knock on the library door interrupts the conversation as Jauffre himself pokes his head in, informing Martin and Baurus it’s time for bed. Who knew that emperors had bedtimes? Though I guess it makes some sense, at least during a crisis where guard rotations need to work like a well oiled dwemer machine. With some groans, grumbles, and a promise to continue the conversation another time the bastard emperor and bodyguard drag themselves off to the opposite side of the temple. Jauffre gives a brief smile and a nod at Lucien and I before closing the door, and can be heard from the outside telling Martin and Baurus to get a move on, it’s late.

“Did you have many friends as a kid, Issy?” Lucien asks me after a few minutes of silence, squirming to make himself more comfortable against the hard wood and stone. “Do I look like someone who had many friends as a kid?” I respond, raising an eyebrow at the question, and thinking to myself where this could possibly be going. Conversations with Lucien can be…interesting. They can start off on one topic and end up on something completely different in a matter of minutes, or something might start out serious and become lighthearted, or the opposite is almost equally as true. “Well, no, you don’t.” He pauses for a second to make sure I don’t look offended, which I’m not, before continuing. “But I’m not the kind of person that looks like they kill people for a living!” Aside from the dark colored robes and silver dagger, that’s true, he looks like any other person, in fact he looks and to a certain degree acts more innocent than the average person now that I think about it. A living breathing example of complexity, innocent yet dangerous and a murderer with morals, who would have thought? “Why all the childhood questions where are you going with this?” I sit up straighter and look at him intently, trying to see what’s going on inside his head, and at the question he looks visibly uncomfortable, that’s a rare emotion to see. In the time I’ve known Lucien I’ve seen examples of anger, annoyance, sadness, some degree of loneliness though only very briefly, and a shocking amount of joy and excitement from someone in such a disheartening occupation. Most of the time I think he is happier than Martin, in all honesty. “Did you ever make up a friend so you’d have someone to play with?” Lucien asks very quietly, if there were any other source of noise in the library I think it would have been inaudible. Imaginary friends, all that probing to ask if I had imaginary friends, Lucien LaChance your brain both baffles and amazes me sometimes. “Not exactly ‘friends’ really, but I used to pretend there was a princess or something in the tower in the bay.” At the admittance Lucien perks up, perhaps feeling less embarrassed now at the idea, and he doesn’t have reason to anyways, imaginary friends are part of growing up. “I used to pretend there was a spirit in the tree near one of the inns.” Lucien admits, the whispering tree, he called it. “Of course a part of me knew there wasn’t, but sometimes I would climb up onto one of the branches and talk to it, and pretend it would talk back and whisper secrets about the travelers staying at the inn.” An interesting idea, I wouldn’t have thought up such a thing, maybe I just lack creative thinking skills. “Oh! And down by the docks and near my house I would pretend there was a shadow girl and play tag with her.” That makes a little more sense, given the shadows cast by all the movement throughout the day, and makes me think of something “Is that why Shadowmere is named the way she is?” Lucien turns red and mumbles a “maybe…but I also didn’t know how to spell mare so it became mere.” That’s almost cute in a way, a homage of sorts to an old friend that was once imaginary turned real. No wonder they have such a close bond, I think he loves Shadowmere above almost anything and anyone with a few exceptions. After a bit more conversation as the clock grows ever later we eventually start to tire and spread out the bedrolls given to us on the floor where we had been sitting. I decide to stay up a little longer and read, as I’d found an interesting book on one of the shelves. Meanwhile Lucien yawns, pulling up the hood to his robes, which even now still seem two sizes too big, and flops down onto the bedroll across the room. “Issy?” He asks quietly, eyes closed and blanket pulled up to keep out the cold of the mountain air. “Hmm?” I look up from my book briefly “When are we going back to Daggerfall?” That’s a good question, I hadn’t planned on any particular dates. “Whenever you want to, I guess, so long as things here are fine.” That gets a barely visible smile hidden by the shadow of the hood and strands of brown hair. “I want to show you some places, and sit under the whispering tree. Maybe the spirit is still there…” The end of the sentence trails off as he falls into a deeper state of sleep, but the message came across. Looking over for one more moment at the sleeping pile of cloth and mischief I nod briefly in agreement, a trip to the whispering tree would be nice. I could use a spirit's guidance at a time like this, I find myself thinking, even if it’s only the imaginary friend of a six year old boy.