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Reconnaissance	By : OrianeX Category: +A through F > Elder Scrolls Online Views: 1023 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Elders Scrolls universe and its characters and do not make money from this fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 1-Reconnaissance -1/2
- 2-Reconnaissance - 2/2
- 1
- 2
N/A : This chapter take place after (spoiler) the defeat of Mannimarco in the game.
See notes in the first chapter.
The floorboard cracked and he awoke again with a start, alert and terrified from the first second. He fought the urge to curl up in the corner of his bed and moan. Then he remembered that he was no longer in Molag Bal's jails and that he no longer had to fear the slightest sound, the slightest shadow that would have come to add to his torment. The stairs crackled and footsteps drifted away. A stream of gray light filtered through the thin curtains. It was already morning and despite all his efforts to be discreet, the Breton woman was always cracking the floor when she got up. For a few days she had been getting up early and only coming back late.
Mannimarco did not go back to sleep and looked at the ceiling where a single little spider web adorned the corner of a beam. A wooden beam roughly cut without any refinement. But already more pleasant to look at than the endless black stone of Coldharbour. It took him some time to calm down, the blood flowing throughout his body had the beneficial effect that he felt alive. The blood went to his toes, his heart was pounding in his chest and he felt the cotton blanket and its embroidery under his fingers. It was rough cotton. More than anything, he was conscious. From his decay, from his weakness, from the secret terrors that had rendered him helpless for a long time, too long. And which he could not completely get rid of.
He straightened up in his bed and listened for a moment to the sound of cutlery and cups on the kitchen table on the lower floor. He shuddered as he remembered the similar noises of torture instruments on tables. But he managed to drive out those worthless memories, moving them away with a shoulder shrug. His long hair fell to his eyes. It was dull and greasy ... he dismissed it too, annoyed. He snapped his fingers and conjured up sparks of light, sensing the lesser effort it required. His body was still heavy with sleep, he, who was able to spend several days without sleep, performing complicated rituals for hours. His teeth gritted as memories of his glorious past, his power, times of splendor and confidence came to him. His anger caught on, as he had for days, it was going to hold him all day, like an animal gnawing at his entrails and struggling between the bars of his mind, between torments and questions.
It was better than a terrified wreck but it made him unbearable to live. No wonder everyone was avoiding him for a few days. Even the Argonian servant did not want to clean up in the same room as him. Even the Breton, Muriel, avoided him …

He would never thought to see her face as he come out of Coldharbour, when he got out of the gate. To tell the truth, he had not really seen her, consumed by madness and pain as he was back in his body. He still did not know what means the sorceress had turn, but she managed to get him back. With the help of powerful allies, whom she had gotten rid of it as soon as she had him back. Her spell of vaporizer had been monstrous but controlled and left only desiccated carcasses on its way, corpses whose facial expressions were only varying degrees of surprise. Muriel had always kept this asset to look like a naive young woman, a little neglected, simple to the least informed eyes. But he knew how much she possessed an amazing magical focus and an intelligence that she usually kept silent. It was one of the reasons he had her as one of his mistresses.
If he had to qualify their common story, he would have been only "secondary" in mind. Or again, "tertiary" at best. The little Breton girl who had killed her father for exile in a dilapidated tower of Shadowfen had crossed his path by chance. She had accidentally come into possession of an Ayleid artifact that he needed and had negotiated with him.
It was a refreshing moment of his life, this little blonde with trembling hands but a determined look who claimed protection of her land and her person against his minions in exchange for the artifact. He would probably have killed her with a laugh if he had not felt the suspicion of power that danced inside her. At that time, he was bored to not find an opponent of his stature. For one to raise, it was necessary to leave a few alive. He had given her the chance and she had exploited it well.
Then he was interested in this little audacious Breton girl. Who was doing an engineering operation on the ecosystem around an old tower of Shadowfen. She had taken to heart the niche of a dying ecosystem around the nests of the last giants aspics of Sep of Shadowfen and was trying to revive them. Giant aspics. Those lizards, distant cousins of the dragons, those creatures no more interesting than ordinary snakes. But to look closely, she was doing an interesting job. Using elemental magic, a little chemistry, controlled farming and even corpses as catalysts, she was trying to change the entire ecosystem chain of the place. And she had managed to stabilize her work before leaving for two years for the magic school. He had intercepted her as she was about to sell herself to get enough money to get in to Shad Astula. Out of boredom, maybe, he gave her the money.
He had offered himself a pure moment of entertainment by writing a letter of recommendation to the magical academy. He had imagined the head of the high-ranking magicians who had received it and of the young woman, and his fortress had resonated with his laugh for several nights.

And it had been a good investment since at the end of her sophomore year, she had sent him a letter, through one of his followers, to warn him that Shad Astula's magicians were about to bring out an old artifact from the shadows to target him and his daedric portals. With carefully prepared rituals, well-placed spells, and a few factions of cultists and daedras, he had countered them. He had recovered the artifact and returned it against the academy. But a well-informed daedra had time to seize a female student who was not seasoned enough to defend herself and bring her back to his fortress on Tamriel.
The poor little rabbit was not ready to go to Coldharbour and he didn't want her under the nose of Molag Bal anyway. He had expected her to be terrified and curled up when she found out who had taken her, but he had a nice surprise. The little audacious blond had matured, becoming a young woman, in much better health than he had known, much better dressed, equipped and with reinforced courage. Her first sentence when seeing him had been "So, it seems you received my letter."
He had a little fun with her, being alternately terrifying or charming with her, threatening or giving her a hope of getting out of it. He had deprived her of her magic and she had resisted the traps he was setting for her. This Breton girl had learned to survive in a hostile environment. Then she surprised him too. She had long-term projects, well defined, worked, thoughtful, detailed. Beneath a simple-minded appearance, she was brilliant. And not afraid by death. She had shown him molds and unique plants that fed on corpses abandoned in some of the fortress's corners. For her, life and death were inextricably linked to each other. Political conspiracies did not interest her. She was fascinated by the twists and turns of nature and their functioning. She was not a druidess, not really a shaman but a sorceress without question. But also a loner girl who did not have interest in her contemporaries more than for profit. Finally, one thing led to another, he charmed her and made her his mistress. He had taught her a lot of things, and not only on the magical subject. She had been a pleasant companion to moments of weariness or patience.
When his plans with Molag Bal had become time consuming, she had convinced him to let her go back to her tower, to work on her own aim. And he only occasionally travel there for a night of entertainment. But he never really got bored with her. Even if he had not given her more importance than another of his distractions of flesh, he had to admit, with hindsight, that he had no bad memories with her. No intrigues, no crying blackmail or seditious attempts to monopolize his attention. But still, she was just a temporary entertainment.

Mannimarco suddenly raised his head and caught his breath. How long had he been sitting on the edge of his bed ? The sun was now over the horizon. He was hungry. He went downstairs and sat down at the living room table. The sound of his footsteps on the stairs was enough to warn the Argonian servant that it was time to serve him his meal. The maid came in and narrowed her reptilian eyes. She did not like him, it was clear. He often heard her whistling scorn once she was no longer in his presence but not caring if he heard. Before his imprisonment, he would have punished her violently for this kind of outrage, but he let it pass. He had just looked at her once and she had spun like an arrow. She contributed to his annoyance.
While eating, he resumed the remembrance of his return to life.

Muriel and two sinister henchmen had brought him back to a hiding place at the bottom of a mountain. A healer whom Muriel had held hostage had healed his bruised body. She had threatened him cruelly and coldly until the necromancer had recovered all the members and motor skills he had lost.
After that, there had been days and days of madness when he had even struggled to get up from his curled up position, still sinking into post-traumatic seizures, barely emerging to feed himself. Step by step, calm and good care had broken through. But they had to move again. He did not know the threat at that moment, but Muriel's voice was hard and scathing as she gave orders, quickly covered him, and guided him to get into a covered cart. It was only during this trip, when he had seen the sun rise on the plains of Torval, that he realized he was alive. The displacements had been incessant and he had been exhausted. His complaints were countered by patients arguments of Muriel.
Then they landed again in a secluded cottage, in relative comfort. Days alternated with nightmares and a beginning of lucidity. Muriel's voice rocked him during the moments of terror. He had been violent sometimes , had sought to escape in a moment of paranoia, and had always been brought back. He had lived moments of degrading humiliation, had shouted insanities to the world and his savior, had struck her even once, but she had always resorted to reasoning, comforting and listening him with a fearful patience and calm. He had never managed to trust her completely, to reconnect with her as a mistress. He always wondered what interest she had in bringing him back alive. Was she a daedric pawn intended to betray him? His powers were weakened and his resources scattered. If he even tried to reappear at the sight of his last cultists, he was at risk of being hunted down. And it was certainly not for love that she had acted. There was no place for this kind of feeling between them.
Then they had left again, in an emergency, in the middle of the night. As he was finally beginning to eat and move alone. As he finally felt the magic back in his body. He had resisted, tried to find out what had happened, and he had just drawn an information from Muriel : the queen had opened the Summerset island to foreigners and they were going to hide there. Her argument was that the vestige and the henchmen of Molag Bal were certainly not looking for him on his own native island, under the nose of the Altmers. It was so insolent that he had accepted the idea.

Muriel looked more tired then and had already dyed her hair to go unrecognized. He had been giving her a hard time since, pinning his miserable state on her, and because she was the witness of his most humiliating setbacks, for his dependence on her and her resources. He would have preferred not her to bring him back, not a so insignificant person in his life. She had just found warm clothes for him during the crossing and ignored his verbal outbursts.
They were three to get on a small boat handled by five dark, and unwelcoming silents Nordics. Muriel had to give up her destruction staff before getting up. Apparently they had a debt to the Breton woman and knew a little of her skills. The captain had tried to look at him under the hood he was wearing during all the crossing. Fortunately, their Argonian companion in leather armor had diverted attention by commenting on the stormy state of the sea and the opening of the Summerset island. The woman had given him the reply, posing them as survivors of the battle of the Lundun Hollow who were looking for fortune and a fresh start. But the captain did not seem fooled. Mannimarco wondered if they would eventually strip them and throw them into the sea but apparently put their debt of honor higher than their greed. The fact that Muriel agreed to give up her weapon so naively, annoyed him. He had been on his guard throughout all the crossing, through the jolts of the sea, the waves that had struck them and even when they had seen the first reefs. He was on edge to the limit and he would have killed them all if Muriel had not kept her hand on his arm for a part of the journey, dissuading him silently from acting.
When they had hit the ground, the Nordics had come down, heavy as vultures, and the captain had caught the woman by the wrist to announce that they had kept their promise. And that from now on, they would take them into slavery, sell them, and maybe even have a little fun before that. And he wanted to know who was this Altmer she was hiding so badly.
The necromancer had gone back, as if he were fleeing, and the Argonian had done the same, proof that he knew Muriel well. He had felt the sorceress who was drawing in the magicka the island was bathed in, before the captain even finished his threats. Then he had felt the unpleasant withdrawal of the magic when the Breton woman cast the spell without channeling it. A sound of broken reality and biting cold had resonated and swept them away when they were several meters away. An iceberg with jagged, erratic contours stood where the five Norse men had landed. They had no time to scream and their faces with open mouths were frozen forever. Muriel had returned to them. The Argonian had gone to help her because she was holding her arm, bloodied and limping. The problem of using magic without a catalyst was getting caught in the effects or suffering a backfire. Despite her power and probably because of her fatigue, the Breton woman had her hand frozen in the frost and had to tear her skin out of it. Her foot had been caught in the ice too, fortunately her boots protected her a little. She had hobbled silently for three days, until they arrived at this abandoned cottage, on an isolated isthmus.

They settled there. He understood that Argonian was coming from Shadowfen and had been saved by Muriel around her tower. He served as their bodyguard and recruited an old Argonian woman for the lowly work. But Mannimarco had quickly figured out that the sorceress was out of money and resources. She did her best to provide some comfort but had to start looking for earning money.
The cottage was a two-story little house and he naturally installed in the largest bedroom upstairs. Muriel occupied the second bedroom next to his. There was a small office and nothing else on the second floor. The two servants shared the little room below, near the kitchen. A dining room served as a reception room and main room. The witch had spent a lot for a quidam cleaning and preparing the place before their arrival but it was modest. The meals were more and more inconsistent.
The necromancer was bored to death and was angry at not being able to put his magic to work, still too weakened. Muriel gave him books and some soul crystals but far from what could have been enough to lead a real ritual. Several nights in a row they opposed fiercely, he wanted her to let him go to the nearest town, and she told him back it was best to wait until the end of the fall so that the last tracks of their trip were covered.
The last night she had taken refuge in her room in order to not to talk to him. The next day she started to leave early in the morning and come back only in the evening. In the beginning, he thought it was because of his unpleasant behavior. Then he began to get angry about her absence, having no one to torment or question. The Argonian who seemed to accompany him everywhere, silently, hidden, was although keeping himself out of his reach.
During those few days, he had not paid attention to what was happening, engulfed in his negative and morbid thoughts. Now that he was taking a step back, he realized. Muriel had come back first with a magic staff. Then the ordinary served them by the Argonian servant had improved. A merchant had brought planks to make a library and new, more interesting books had been placed on the shelves, without him seeing her doing.
When he had finally emerged from his torpor, awakened several mornings in a row by Muriel who was leaving, he had paid attention to the behavior of the two Argonians. It was while spying on a conversation in the kitchen, while he was walking outside, that he had heard.
The bodyguard complained to the maid about the behavior of the necromancer who had sent him one of his insulting remarks, again. He wondered how the Breton woman, intelligent as she was, could still endure this unbearable guy. The old Argonian woman had slipped and teased him asking if it was because he would have liked to guard the girl closer. After the wrathful protests, she had mentioned the fact that the Breton woman may well be moving on because she was gardening for the wealthy Altmer family from the nearest manor house. And that she apparently brought back small gifts from one of the family's sons who had taken an interest with her. She even had some generous wages that allowed them to improve their daily lives.
Nevertheless, going to the mansion was a long walk and Muriel made the journey every day, without using a magic portal. She was using her magic to restore the manor's large garden and the owner was always asking for more. She came back very tired, late, hardly answering him when they ate together and he felt her magic wane. During the time she had been under his protection, he had never seen her so exhausted and dejected. Her breton constitution and her affinity to magic had always kept her in good physical and magical health. But she seemed to have exceeded her limits. Which added to the disgust of the necromancer.
The day passed, long and boring. He walked the isthmus on foot and turned to the country that was waiting for him, full of life to offer. Full of perspectives. He was not at his best yet, but he could have left without looking back, if his ego had not got in the way. To leave without settling his accounts with Muriel would have been an admission of flight and it would not have been enough contemptuous towards the Breton woman. To whom he owed his liberation. His insolent druidess with high potential who was just waiting for his recovery. And whom another Altmer was charming with trinkets. He returned to bed directly to ruminate what his next actions would be.

The night passed slowly. He had enough. To jump, to be under the protection of a woman who was fading and ... and the argument between the two Argonians had enraged him illogically. An Altmer who exploited the Breton woman, he could understand. That she has found a second-best way to support them, pass again. But that a punk tried to seduce her so grossly, whereas he knew she was sensitive only to intelligence and power ... How could one fall so low ? And under his nose ... His anger swelled and he felt in his veins run a power that had long missed him. He heard the wood of the bed creak in the next room. And a sigh that reverberated between the walls. A sigh of fatigue and weariness. It was too much. He jumped out of bed and opened his door on the fly. He abruptly pushed aside the curtain that closed Muriel's little room and entered.
The young woman, still in her nightdress, jumped and opened wide eyes :
"Mannimarco ... what's going on ?!"
He looked around and found the restoration staff she possessed. A good model, enough to channel his power, which he took immediately.
"It's still early," she said in a worried voice without moving, "you have time but ... that ...
_ What are you doing, Muriel, all these days when you get up? "
His voice was cold and harsh like the rocks of Coldharbour. The young woman looked away. She ran her hands in her long brown-dyed braid wearily and her voice was full of shame :
"I'm making money to ... maintain this place, gardening. I need this stick," she added.
"Not today," he answered coldly.
He raised his hand to her, fingers bended and cast the spell. The young woman collapsed in the bed. He approached. Once unconscious, rid of the tensions that rippled her face and stretched her whole body, she was different. She had become more beautiful with time. He had pleasant memories of this body offered to him. There had been others, more beautiful, more temperamental, more powerful, but she remained the calmest mistress he had. Her charm was in her full female forms as well as her long blond hair. But it was dull and damaged by the dyeing, the black circles that hollowed her eyes brought out her state of exhaustion. There were burn marks on her hands, due to the intense use of her magic. It added to the scars she had scooped after the spell she cast to the Nordics on the beach. And she probably was not eating at her fill.
However, she was wearing a black silk nightgown, embroidered with a few colored threads. The dress was well designed, flattering her silhouette and was of altmer style without a doubt. While the rest of her wardrobe was still very simple, even rough. She had never paid much attention to her clothes when she was alone with him, except for comfortables ones. Mannimarco glared at the thing and his anger redoubled. He pulled the blanket over the sleeping body with a furious gesture.
Then he did magic. He went downstairs and headed straight for the kitchen. The argonian servant jumped at him, stammered and cried when he reminded her who he was. She was still alive when he left the house with a decided step. Now he wore fine clothes, ornamented forearm gloves, and his physical appearance was altered. He quickly opened a portal to the mansion.

There was a smell of ozone, almost a burning smell, characteristic of an open portal. Muriel winced. She had this mild headache characteristic of a stunning spell. She opened her eyes and through the thin curtains saw that the sun was shining almost at its zenith. She moaned and put her hand to her head. The embarrassment faded away and gave way to more rational thoughts. She straightened up and rubbed her eyes.
A chair had been placed against the wall at the foot of her bed, facing her. The Altmer stood there with a royal posture and no longer slumped. He watched her with an indecipherable expression. Something had changed in his features. His blue-gray eyes had resumed that burst of vivacity that prevented anyone from taking Mannimarco for a fool. He casually rolled the vulgar magic staff between his fingers. He wore a tunic she was sure she had never seen, a gray embroidered with silver threads and black silk pants. He seemed to have taken a long bath and his white hair was shining with health.
She sat on the edge of her bed with the blanket in her arms and pushed back the braid that fell on her chest.
"You seem to be better." she said as a greeting. She sniffed the air and told :
"Who's the poor idiot who tried to stop you? Are our two servants still able to perform their services?
- One of them is, but ... with a little more heart at work. Well, with less soul, though. " He smirked sullenly, ironically, and Muriel stay quiet.
"This confirms that you take back energy.
_ And you look like a wreck. "
The woman looked away and pretended to take her hairbrush on the shelf next to the bed.
"I'm tired, that's all.
- By bending over the rose groves of the Falcar family, no doubt."
The implied in his cynical answer stopped the Breton woman who grimaced. The altmer bolted up, dropping the staff and in two steps was on her. He lifted her out of bed, holding her by a handful of her dress, and slammed her against the wall. He had no effort to provide, the Breton was no match for his pure physical strength. Despite her sturdiness, she was still smaller than him. She let out a cry of surprise and closed her hands on his wrists to prevent him from squeezing more.
"Where does this silk come from, Muriel, you who hate the vanity of the appearance, you let yourself be tempted by pathetic gifts, you finally have enough of the detestable situation in which you put us? Are you turning to a more wealthy protector ? "
Muriel countered his gaze with courage without slackening. She clenched her teeth.
"How far would you have accepted the gifts from this little peacock?
- If I did not know you, I would say that you are getting jealous. "
The absurd response disgusted him, he grimaced and he clasped his fingers on her throat :
"That's the kind of stupid remarks you've spared me so far, those that make me want to kill you."
She immediately kicked him in the leg, strongly enough for him to let go of his grip but he kept her in his hand, at his mercy. It was the moment he heard her finally lose her patience. The voice of the Breton woman rose in volume.
"Oh, stupid remarks, really? Who's been stupid for too long ?!
She exploded and pushed him with a blow from the flat of the hand in the chest, with an unsuspected force powered by anger:
"AND WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING ? WALLOWING IN YOUR DEFEAT LIKE A PIG ? SPENDING YOUR TIME IN COMPLAINTS INSTEAD OF ACTING?! WHEN WILL YOU FINALLY USE AGAIN YOUR FUCKING INTELLIGENCE FOR SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE ?!"
He stepped back, not frightened but wary at the fury that was berating him:
"How can you be so bright and be defeated by a damn vestige, a shoddy hero !!!"
Ordinarily, the Breton was a cold person, showing little emotion, she was almost a psychopath sometimes. The strongest feelings he had ever seen on this rarely animated face were the passion for her project and curiosity. It was the first time he saw her angry, a real blind rage that transfigured her into a disheveled fury, throwing words like knives. She clenched her hands like claws in front of her, angry and added :
"It was unbearable to imagine you, the most brilliant sorcerer, the most powerful necromancer in Tamriel, reduced to a victim of the jail of Molag Bal the brute ! It drove me crazy all this potential, this intelligence spoiled by the luck of a little fool ! That's why I got you out of there, idiot! "
She gasped in anger and Mannimarco tasted the bitterness of hearing voiced what he had kept silent from himself.
"But I have my limits, Manni, you're much smarter than me, I was waiting for you to finally make plans, to foment ... I'm at the end of the resources that I can use. And I had to..."
She broke off suddenly, grabbed the edge of her nightgown and pulled it off with angry gestures. He followed his movements with a new interest. Something woke up in him. She threw him the garment in a last gesture of anger :
"... find at least one way to feed ourselves, I may be tired but not stupid, I would not have... prostitute myself. Ellezerol gave me gifts and it would have been incoherent to refuse them. To let him hope to better handle it. "
The necromancer took a look at the piece of silk in his hands coldly. He threw it aside. He would never have acknowledged it publicly, but she was right. Insensitive to the vulnerability her nakedness was supposed to rendered her, she pointed one last time an accusing finger at him :
"I need you to wake up, and when you'll be decided you will need resources, allies, a network ... everything you need for your ambition !"
This last gesture took him back years, facing an insolent young Breton girl who was negotiating the safety of her miserable piece of land in a mixture of fear and courage.
"Why my ambition ? Why not serving yours ? What interest ? Because you have, at least, one interest...
- My selfish mental comfort. I already told you, I can not bear the intellectual waste, it revolts me, it bothers me, it keeps me up awake."
But this time it was a more mature woman, fearless, lucid enough to know the gap between their intellectual levels but still brave enough to fight for her convictions. Muriel considered herself too unintelligent to achieve big plans but she despised those who were intelligent without realizing their potential. Humans had a fascinating psyche. He reconsidered the fevered naked woman facing him, wondering why he had not put her in his bed again for so long. He had a spark again, a physical and mental epiphany.
"It still is a vague motivation.
-May be, it's just a pay for the vague interest that made you never killed the poor foolish girl that I was.
He shook calmly his head, unable to think of gratitude between them.
"I wish someone else saved me...
- Ah. No chance. I think everyone else has given up."
They went silent for a moment and Muriel felt the adrenaline of her anger flowing back, like a levee broking after a long use, leaving only an intense fatigue. The altmer took advantage of this moment of weakness to press her again against the cold stone wall, a hand on her neck. She feared again for her life and raised her fingers, ready to conjure a spell.
But it was only a moment before he kissed her, aggressively.
"My little druidess ... always so insolent." he murmured.
He grabbed her by the hip and buried his hand into her hair to force her to allow him to deepen the kiss before pushing his tongue against her, like a challenge. She struggled but without enough conviction. She gave some useless punches against his chest and he pressed his body harder against her. When he released her mouth, she had returned to her normal voice, and answered with an old sentence between them :
"I'm NOT a druidess ...
_ But insolent, you still are. " He kept to himself that, at least, she was an efficient one.
He took his time to make her feel his whole body against her, her nakedness against his clothes. He lifted her by pressing his hips against her, making her feel the beginning of his excitement through his pants. She let out a surprised sigh, he ran a hand under her buttocks, took her off the wall and pushed her back on her bed. He stifled her doubts by kissing her for a long time while his hands regained possession of his mistress's body. She resisted and tensed at first, but he drove away her fears by covering her neck and chest with kisses. He bit and licked her generous breasts, kneading her hips and buttocks nostalgically. He took a long breath against her neck, feeling her pulse, the smell of life, the softness of her skin, all those things that drove away the stench of corpses and blood which he had made his speciality. He straightened up and undressed hastily and Muriel did not try to flee.
He took a moment to look at her beneath him, flushed, still attentive, with fatigue still in her eyes but also a spark of desire. Which affected his ego, that she was able to desire him again after all the things he had inflicted on her. He lowered his hands slowly on her shoulders, in the strands of hair escaping from her braid, on her panting chest, her flat stomach and her sensual woman's hips.
The picture of the naked body of a woman, but not alive and not totally human interposed. Fugitive memories of the abuse he had inflicted and those he had suffered suddenly came back to his mind and his hand came to a halt, he felt his desire ebb. He clenched his teeth and forced himself to overcome this conditioned reflex. Since all these years, all the rituals, all the experiences that he had seen or led, he did not think for a moment that he could be traumatized by physical or mental torture. He feared more than anything to lose his male dignity in the face of the female he was bedding.
Muriel brought him back to reality when she put her hand on his shoulder and straightened up to him, pressing her tender chest against his, pulling herself up until her lips brushed against his ear and followed the outline. In a sigh that was full of relief and confession, she whispered :
"You know... I missed your hands."

The Argonian in armor who served as a bodyguard to Muriel and who shared her roof ran back to the isolated island and entered the house in a hurry. The sorcerer was not in the main hall. And the necromancer was not in the library corner behind the stairs. However he heard noise on the floor. Some squeaks. In his state of precipitation, he did not analyze it immediately and climbed a few degrees before stopping short. He was unsure if he was going to intervene, did anyone was attacking this isolated place and fighting on the floor ?
But the squeaks became rhythmic and there were grunts added. The Argonian was transfixed. An irrational reflex made him climb a few more steps silently. Then he heard the stifled feminine moans, and the dull blows were settled on them. Then there was an imperious voice that warmly ordered : "Do not hold back, let me hear your voice!" The argonian experienced the equivalent of a human blush. His dorsal crest bristled. There was the sound of flesh against flesh and another feverish order :
"Say it, say my name ! "
The argonian slipped away at full speed and immediately sought to drive that memory away from his head.

Muriel was still laying lasciviously in the bed when Mannimarco rose from her side once his breath was back. He was not the type to indulge in post-coital exchanges. The Breton woman looked at him getting dressed between her half-closed eyelids. She was exhausted now. He had not been tender during all the sex, he had used her, he needed to feel alive and fit. At least he did not try anything sadistic. He had even already prepared the rest of his actions.
He took the woolen coat she was wearing to go out from the coat hook and put it on the bed :
"Put this on and follow me."
Muriel looked at the garment with suspicion. She rose up with difficulties, her body protested and she asked :
"Only that ?"
He was taking the staff and preparing a portal spell.
"You don't need more, trust me."
The request was incongruous from him and he knew it perfectly. Nobody followed him out of confidence but out of interest. She was exhausted but not completely refreshed by this simple pleasant moment of sex. This kind of activity had never been a token of love on his part, only an outlet. A way to be back in control.
She was not crazy enough to believe that he was completely back to normal. His behavior had been quite erratic lately for her to be wary. However, his superior and arrogant tone reassured her. He did not ask, he ordered. It was the normal tone she knew him before he was locked up.
The portal opened. She watched carefully to discern a trap but it was a bedroom on the other side. Mannimarco had already passed and he turned towards her in the gate, looking impatiently at her. She sighed, she did not really have anything to lose. She followed him.
The bedroom was large, clean and opulent. The furniture was engraved, thick curtains were hanging from the windows, carpets covered the floors, and there was a large four-poster bed by a fireplace. she smelled a refined incense used only by rich women. Muriel closed the sides of her coat, embarrassed, to hide her naked body marked by the wild touch of her lover.
"It will do," he said, casting a careless glance at the room. He lift a hand and pointed to the bed.
"Sleep, rest, you are safe here."
It was a sentence she had often tell him for the last months, in moments of terror or paranoia. It summed up everything she had offered for him to become himself again. Beyond the interests he could have towards her, it was a form of gratitude. He left the room without looking back and closed the door.
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Reconnaissance