DISCLAIMER AND LARGER SUMMARY:
This is the story of a Mer on the continent of Tamriel in the universe brought to us by the developers of Bethseda Softworks. DISCLAIMER:
Tamriel, Nirn, and all associated themes are the sole property of Bethesda. There is no profit made from the writing of this novel and is written for the sake of enjoyment and challenge. The only thing I own by creative concept is the story of Davmyn Uvirith.
Life for a child of the Dunmer people in the Fourth Era is never easy, nor do the people of the bruised skin have the name 'Ill favored by Fate' mistakenly. Such as the tale of Serjo Telvanni Davmyn Uvirith. The beginnings of this most fiery of Dunmer- soaked in the culture and faith of his people- are lain here; from his earliest childhood, to his early adult life. His tale will see his beginnings upon the island of Solstheim, and follow him through his many trials and tribulations as he embarks on a long journey that spans the course of nearly two decades.
Pride shall meet with hardship, Faith will be confronted with obstacles, and a sense of honor will wrestle with practicality.
Meddle not in the Affairs of Wizards, for they are often the most dangerous of affairs to be caught in.
"Is every Hero bound by the strings of prophecy? Or can a man make his own destiny and become a Hero because of his deeds. The educated scholar will tell you no. A man is but a man until he is doom-driven.
But a man that tries to drive himself to doom? That is a frightening man indeed."
-Edecius Auriam, Imperial Scholar
4E177, before his hanging at the hands of a Thalmor Justicar.
A gentle breeze rolled in across the Sea of Ghosts from the North. Though the breeze moved lazily across the waters, the Sea of Ghosts rippled and churned. Beneath those depths a slaughterfish raced along, fleeing from the waters that were touched by this gentle breeze. Where it went, the waters grew chilled. Some base desire to flee drove the slaughterfish like an arrow through the water, right into the claws of a dreugh. The creature's claw snapped down on its hapless victim before it too felt that chilling crawl of water that had been touched by that fell breeze. Its mandibles clicked together for a moment, before its tentacles lurched itself through the water with as much speed as it could.
This breeze rolled in across what at a casual glance would have been thought to be enormous roots, though closer inspection would reveal that they had been worked to serve as platforms out into the water. This breeze passed across a woman with skin the color of ash who was disembarking from the back of some aquatic creature, whose form beneath the waves cast a shadow that was unthinkably massive. Atop its chitinous shell grew what appeared to be a cabin made from fungus. The breeze blew passed her and sent her robes ruffling, before turning stoutly towards the south. The Dunmeri womer stood there on the docks, looking out in the direction that the frigid breeze had flown.
The Telvanni Master moved down the docks with a sweep of her robes. It had been almost ten years since she had joined the ranks of masters of House Telvanni, and since the massive destruction that had been reaped during the Oblivion Crisis when that terrible horde of Daedra had attacked, she had risen in prominence. She had led her tower settlement of Tel Uvirith against the Daedric hordes rather successfully, using the militia she'd built from her settlers, and the magics of her House, they had driven back the few Oblivion Gates that had opened up in the Molag Amur region. She'd worked with the Ordinators in the area, as well as the Buoyant Armigers. There had been a number of injured that she'd even allowed to continue dwelling there, promoting relations with the the Temple as it was reorganizing itself. Reynel herself fully embraced the changes that were being preached by the former Dissident Priests- who were now being called the Reclaimed Priesthood.
But now, she was forced to come here to Port Telvannis, the ancestral home of her House, the ancient Great House of Telvanni. Missives being sent by the Parliament of Bugs were never to be ignored; she didn't know exactly why, as there weren't even stories of what happened to those that ignored the Parliament.
That merely reinforced the idea in her mind that she was wise to come.
What she would have done to have garnered such attention, she had no idea. She'd opted out of Aryon's offer to become Magister and challenge Gothren for his position as the Archmagister of the Vvardenfell sect of the House; And what's more, she had nothing to do with his murder at the hands of the Nerevarine. There had been some scuffling over the position, though eventually it was Master Neloth of Sadrith Mora that had claimed the title of Archmagister of the Telvanni sect.
Reynel Uvirith would walk proudly amongst her people though, even if she'd not been to Port Telvannis in a handful of years.
Perhaps they'd finally noticed just how young of a master now sat at the Council of Vvardenfell's Telvanni masters? Perhaps they were displeased at such a youngling upstart claiming to be a master and someone meant to challenge her?
The fanciful thoughts amused her for a moment, but the reality was there was likely just some sort of papers that needed filled out that some mer had likely just had the care to think that should be filled out. She'd heard of the slow moving House's politics, that had often spent decades before adding a new noblemer's name to their records.
It wasn't until she stepped through the gates that led into the city proper for the home of the Parliament of Bugs that she realized just how small the settlements back home were. The walls themselves were made of the curling roots of the main Sadrith Tel that comprised the whole of the city-settlement, each building springing off from the original's spores. She thought that Sadrith Mora was large, but… She'd forgotten just how impressive the homeland was.
The great tower of Port Telvannis, which had stood since the First Era, was absolutely massive. So many spore pods that were filled with people were about. There were people milling through the roads, a vast number all doing business. Calls went out from kiosks beyond the gateway, that had the carved sigil House Telvanni on the massive stone. The great sweeping arcs of the roots of the Sadrith Tel were all over, growing through the ground at seemingly random intervals, and from many of these grew more spore pods, each one hollowed out and with a doorway set to their front. She'd entered through the main gate that led from the docks, and was definitely in some market district. She could even see the Sadrith grown cages that once held slaves for sale. Now though, they simply held beasts for sale. Ever since that Hlaalu puppet king for the Imperials had instituted the ban on slavery (with the surprising support of House Dres, a House known for being slavers), her House had suffered greatly. Once their slave markets had provided quite the profit, though now many were being repurposed and worked for the use she was currently seeing.
One of the Dunmer animal handlers was apparently having a rough time making a sale on a Nix-Hound that appeared positively vicious as it thrashed in its cage. She didn't bother to approach, having Dwemeri Amnunculi to protect her Tower Settlement, with plenty of guards besides.
It was beautiful, and she hoped that one day her great Tower would rival this massive place. She adjusted her shawl about her shoulders, though she doubted that this far from Red Mountain would there be any ashstorms of significant size to cause her the need for her breather scarf.
Regardless, the Telvanni Mistress found herself looking towards the Red Mountain again. She found a strange feeling settle over her heart. Some part of her felt a wariness, perhaps foreboding resonating from the sight of the volcano's silhouette. Perhaps it was simply seeing in perspective how small her little tower settlement was compared to the slopes that it was ever so near. This was, after all, the first time she was viewing it from such a distance, and even then to see the top she needed to lift her head slightly. Not much, but enough to realize just how massive that volcano was, visible over the walls of the home of all Telvanni.
"Impressive sight, isn't it?" asked a voice from behind her that set the hair on the back of her neck raising. It couldn't be…
The womer turned and found herself staring face to face with one Dunmer that she had no particular fondness for at all. She remembered him from the Oblivion Crisis; back in those days, he'd worn the tattered robes of a priest and carried a disillusioned look in his wine colored eyes.
After the Crisis, he'd settled his own crisis of faith and joined House Telvanni, and had been a particularly nasty thorn in her side as he'd been a favorite of Neloth- who was one of the nosiest Archmagisters in recent history. She sighed and brought a hand to her temple while looking him over. The mer wore his face wrong, smiling with his face like he were some human ape.
He hadn't changed much in the time since she'd last seen him; he still wore his hair long and hanging just past his chin, the top the color of blood, while he'd dyed most of the ends a darker, black color. The Hand of Ghartok had been tattooed on the left side of his face, leaving that side black. She doubted that many would look kindly on the mark that had once been used by ALMSIVI, although perhaps others would be pleased to see the standard of Nerevar if he were so inclined to spin the reasoning behind the tattoo that way.
Reynel knew that he'd simply gotten it to feel more like a native Dunmer, like the silly N'wah pretender that he was.
"Teldrys, what are you doing here? I thought that your master had dragged you off somewhere to the North," said Reynel with a roll of her eyes and moved to sweep past the man. He stopped her short though by stepping directly into her path. Reynel's eyes narrowed into slits.
"Actually, I sent for you, my dear Reynel," laughed the taller Mer as he moved in closer to her. She refused to move, refused to back away an inch and found herself in a position far too comfortable and familiar for her liking with the other Mer. "I wanted to catch up, since I figured that you hadn't visited Port Telvannis since your ascension to Master-Wizard."
He wanted to catch up. She was stunned, and positively livid all in one fiery moment. This FOOL wanted to catch up?! As though they were friends?
"The last time I saw you, Teldrys with no name worth mentioning, that if I ever saw you again I would feed you to a Daedroth," snarled Reynel as she glared up at the Dunmer with her hands fisting at her sides. "I distinctly remember telling you that."
To her absolute astonishment, the mer leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. He opened his mouth to speak, but before even a word passed through his mouth, a soft tremor ran up her spine.
She lost interest in whatever it was that the former priest had to say, and instead looked over her shoulder towards the towering silhouette of Red Mountain. Something felt off; it was comparable to knowing you were alone, but still feeling eyes on your back. The next tremor that traveled up her legs from the ground was not nearly so gentle, and in the next moment… She wasn't sure what was happening. She knew that she'd been looking towards Red Mountain when everything suddenly changed, but she simply could not comprehend the sudden and complete wrongness of what she was seeing. It was… terrifying.
The sky had become black so quickly and suddenly as a gout of smoke and ash issued from the top of gigantic Mountain that had once carried the name Dagoth-Ur, followed by a sudden fiery red light piercing through the blackness. She knew, on an intellectual level what was happening. She could see it, feel it as the world trembled around her and she fell backwards into hands that were as gentle as they were assured in their grip. Which was to say not at all.
Red Mountain was erupting.
It started slowly, at first. Murmuring that rivaled the tremoring of the ground, but just as the great piercing light of the mountains fires had emerged so, so too did the screams begin in earnest. More and more of her people were realizing exactly was happening. More and more were suddenly aware of just how many friends, relatives, loved ones, and just people were on the island.
"Oh, Azura," she gasped, hands covering her mouth. She looked up to Teldrys, who was staring intently at the scene with his own mouth hanging agape. A thought dimly occurred to her that her home was in the path for that molten death that was now turning the whole of the island of Vvardenfell that same burning color. The womer turned her face away and retched softly, trying to pretend the faint buzzing in her ears did not sound like distant screaming carried over waters.
"... Your… Your tower," choked out Teldrys over the frenzy that had taken hold over the people that had just a few minutes ago been trading and talking and gossiping. "You could have…"
Reynel nodded slowly as the realization also dawned on her.
She would have been dead if not for one pretentious ass of an N'wah.
Small hands broke the trance of the dream, and the Dunmeri woman blinked her red eyes as she sat up quickly. Her head swam in the trappings of sleep interrupted before she finally settled her gaze on the disturbance to her rest- restless though the nap had been. Kneeling on the edge of her bed was a young child, a little Dunmeri boy with a pout on his face and bright red eyes the color of lava staring down at her face. A messy mop of red hair rested on his head, sweeping forward in front of those bright eyes. The womer sighed and gently rubbed her face as she removed the thin blanket from herself, exposing her night shift covered body to the chill air within her pod home.
It was a severe disappointment to the former Mistress of the now destroyed Tel Uvirith to again be woken and confronted with her small quarters, when she'd once been amongst the youngest of Telvanni Lords on Vvardenfell. With a gentle yawn, she reached out and gently began brushing the shock of red hair from her son's face. He frowned, shifting a bit beneath the shawl he wore over his shoulders and clothing. She'd heard this manner of dress had become popular amongst children of Vvardenfell, but with his small size, it seemed so comical on him, as the shawl which should have stopped above his elbows, instead fell all the way to his wrists.
She smiled fondly as she remembered the first time she had ever held him, how his tiny, frail body had fit into both of her cupped hands. And the first time he'd made his cry when she'd thought he'd not draw breath.
"Yes, little Scrib?" she asked as her yawn settled, looking on her son with soft eyes. He had her larger ears and the coloring of her hair, but as he grew closer to seventh year of living, she was beginning to see more of his father in him. Especially in the cheekbones; Teldrys had truly had the most stunning cheekbones, even amongst their angled featured race. "I thought I said I would be napping and that you shouldn't wake me until it was time to set out for Raven Rock?"
"But I wanted to go out and play, Mummy," said the boy, trying to unsuccessfully brush her hands away from her hair as his eyes lit with joy. The Dunmer wore their expressions in their eyes, not their faces. Her little Davmyn though was an odd one, as he often displayed more movement to his face than some others she'd met throughout her life. Perhaps this again was Teldrys living on through their son? "And you've been napping for three hours at the least!"
Reynel froze mid hair stroke of her son, eyes widening.
"Blast!" she exclaimed, leaping from her bed and very nearly sending her son tumbling to the floor. Her hands we quick to catch him and set him right upon the bed before she darted away. "Three hours! I should never have slept that long! Hurry child, go and fetch your shoes! Off with you, or we will miss Dusty!"
The boy laughed and, rather than leaping from the bed as she'd expected, instead held up his hands and she watched as he gathered magicka into them. Despite her desperation to dress, she found herself pausing to watch as the magicka formed cords around him and he brought his hands to his chest. With a wicked light in his eyes and his lips twitching, the Dunmeri boy leapt from her bed finally… but he did not go to the ground. Instead, her son began to levitate across the pod, straight to where he kept his shoes near to the doorway. Reynel smiled softly. He'd only just learned the spell last week! And, with the rate he'd been developing the skill and playing with it, she had no doubt that he'd quite the affinity for it. And perhaps any other spell from the School of Alteration.
Perhaps she had started him off a little early with some of the spells and skills she'd been training him in, but the boy had so much potential! And she would do nothing else but to ensure that her legacy would be secure through him. And what's more… any advantage such a small Dunmer would have in this world would be a great one indeed. He gently touched down on the ground, and picked up his shoes, dropping with a small oomph on his behind. When he noticed that she was looking, he tilted his head and asked in the innocent way that only children could, "Mummy, aren't you going to get ready?"
Reynel chuckled and nodded at her son, before setting to work on pulling her hair back. Even if they didn't quite make it to catch a ride on the Silt Strider that was beginning to slowly creep up in years, she was confident in her abilities as a wizard to safely bring them to the Temple.
"And don't forget to grab some ash yams for the trip, Scrib," said Reynel to the boy as he began to hop about, forcing his other shoe on his foot. "You know that Revus will not turn Dusty around because you forgot your lunch."
"Yes, Mummy!"
She didn't tell him that they may have to walk, as the boy had never walked free of either Raven Rock nor Tel Mithryn without being in the traveling compartment hollowed into the carapace of the Silt Strider. If he knew that being slow meant an adventure out in the ashlands of southern Solstheim, he would undoubtedly take longer to make sure they'd be walking. While she was confident, she knew the dangers of the ashlands were not merciful, between the Spriggans whose bark was charred black and still possessed the warmth of the Red Year about their bodies and the deplorable Reavers that stalked their coasts; Teldrys had learned that more clearly than she could possibly know. More than she'd ever be willing to let her son experience.
She let one of the few smiles she let crack her features spread for a moment, before it died away. The boy had stopped in front of the small shrine that they kept pushed off into a rather small spot in the corner of their home (if a rounded spore pod could be considered as having corners by virtue of furniture placement), where the boy knelt quietly for several long moments.
Davmyn always made sure to tell his father good-bye when they left home. She felt a small pang in her heart at that, and while her son was distracted let the moment settle fully over her. She missed that pretentious ass…
Taking a deep breath through her nose, Reynel forced herself to finish getting prepared for the day. Soon enough she was dressed in her robes and had her staff in hand. Davmyn was still praying before the altar.
"Davmyn," she said, trying not to let her own feelings of loss overcome her nor bleed into her voice, "We need to move, son. Otherwise you won't get to ride in Dusty."
The Dunmeri was silent for a few moments longer, before he stood up. When she drew close enough, the womer was quick to tie his hair up into a small topknot to keep it back from his face. His hair wasn't extremely long, not in the way that her own or his father's had been, but the boy seemed insistent that it needed to be in his face. He almost rebelled against the idea of anything less than that, unless she tied it just as she had now. It gathered most of it back from his face at a small knot at the back of his head, while the longer portions hung down his neck with some fringe framing his face.
The boy looked positively silly, and she often told him if he kept up with his ways, he'd have prettier hair than her own.
"Mummy, why don't we just walk?" asked Davmyn, and she just shook her head as she tapped his forehead with a single finger. The boy's eyebrows scrunched together tightly at that.
Of course, when Reynel opened the door to their home and saw the retreating form of the giant Silt Strider- a towering creature that was a conjuncture of long legs that would bring it easily height-wise to the cap of the main tower branch of the Sadrith Tel, and an almost barrel like body covered with a chitinous shell. She had no doubt that they would see it for the entire trip.
She looked down at her son, who was beaming up at her with bright red eyes.
"Looks like you get your wish, Davmyn…" sighed the womer, and the boy let out a exclamation of joy. She had no desire to walk all the way to Raven Rock but… when needs must. Shaking her head as she took her son's hand, they set out on their long walk along the coastal ashlands of Solstheim's southern portion.
A/N: Well folks, here is the prologue to my NaNoWriMo entry; The Affairs of Wizards. I hope that you'll enjoy this tale I spin, and that I can make sure you remain with me the whole way.