This story is a prequel to the events that happen in The Elder Scrolls, more specifically Morrowind. I'll try my best to stick with what is known about the War of the First Council, but I will use a creative license when there is no information or there happens to be more than one telling of an event (which seems to happen a lot.) This isn't meant to be a "true" story of what happened anyway, more of a "what-if."
I hope you enjoy!
Vehk
They called him Vehk.
His mother had called him another name. His father, a netchiman, died during a raid five years after his birth. His mother died when he turned ten and two. With her death, he became no one. With her death he was called Gutter-get. Prostitute. Thief. He spent his childhood breaking into mansions, pilfering drams with mud caked fingers, and selling his body to the pervert smoking moon-sugar with a broken pipe. Soon he smoked with a broken pipe too.
Years later, he became someone. Hunting rats and gold had earned him the attention of other gutter-gets, prostitutes, and thieves. He led a Morag Tong. They cut down their rivals like bushels of wickwheat and Vehk left the leaders of other gangs with stumps to call hands, hanging the trunks above their doors like chimes. For ten years he led his gang, conning, cutting, killing, loving, eating, stealing, until he was caught and became no one again.
What a fool.
He remained a fool during his brief six year sentence. It was only by a stroke of luck that he was freed. Vehk moved from city to city, avoiding the watchful eyes of House Indoril whom which he scorned.
And what a life it had been on the run.
What a life it had been being no one!
The summer sun made him wince as he trotted down the narrow streets of Mourning Hold—stomach empty, two sixth-drams left. Not that this state of poverty was ever unusual. He kept his gaze low as a few patrolling Indoril guards with their sharp bonemold pauldrons and white skirts marched by. Vehk knew it was impossible to be caught after all these years, but the paranoia always got to him whenever he saw his reflection within those iron masks.
House Indoril touted that Mourning Hold surpassed other House capital cities like Port Telvannis or Blacklight. And Vehk believed them. Spanning beside the Veloth River, Mourning Hold was the shining beacon of Chimeri culture—both low and high. Vehk ignored a crying babe as he climbed over wooden piles and into the dank alleyways of Mourning Hold's bottom—the Mourning Row. His childhood had been spent there within the dark corners and nothing had changed. Same shambled tenements, same half-naked whelps begging for spare change, same perverted, skooma addicts.
Although, then again, perhaps not as many starved whelps and beggars. The last time he visited the city, Queen Almalexia promised to build more resting homes for the poor. Perhaps she managed to keep her promise.
Eventually, he arrived at his destination. The Dremora's Bosom was one of the many brothels infesting the Mourning Row. He had been working there for a month using his most prized skill. Men sought out his tenderer, docile side, while women sought his masculinity and power.
Which was why they called him the Hermaphrodite.
Today the Bosom was filled with netchimen and farmers celebrating Mephalan—a day when murder and sex frolicked like the two moons. Many of the prostitutes danced with more passion—they were getting paid more after all. Vehk was assured to eat and smoke for a month.
A lute player strummed while one of the tattooed ladies from one of the Velothi tribes pummeled a guar drum. Smoke clouded the shortest mer's shoulders. A patron—a regular one named Rithalis—took one of the girls and ripped away her thong while she pulled down his trousers. Drams were exchanged. The sweet scent of pleasure soaked their gold skin and echoed from their gasps. Vehk let out a tuft of smoke from his nostrils, the skooma pipe hot beneath his lips. His mind shot awake as he breathed in the drug and weaved his fingers within his long, tangled hair. He couldn't go without sugar when he worked. He couldn't get sugar without work. The eternal circle of poverty.
A masked Indoril guard sat in the corner. Mysterious. He liked mysterious. The silver expression of the mask looked upon the band of sinners with twisted disappointment. Now, now—what was an Indoril guard doing in a prostitute-skooma den? A patron? No. The guard hadn't taken off his mask to drink or kiss the ladies, and he didn't look like he was there to start trouble.
The prostitute-whore and Rithalis sung on top of the satin pillows.
Vehk smiled at the masked man and was about to walk over and seduce him, but his bangles were pulled by one of his patrons, an Indoril retainer. It wasn't surprising to see Indoril nobles too tired of their wives to seek comfort within the Bosom. He straddled the patron and bent close enough to twist his ear piercing with sweet strokes. The Indoril smirked and placed gold within his fingers.
"Recite me one of your poems, Hermaphrodite."
Already Vehk was popular with the scholarly men and women—the ones who enjoyed poetry and history books wrapped in careful leather. Vehk himself didn't know how to read or write but he still recited the Bosom's best poetry.
He licked the Indoril's neck, readied his female-aspect, and whispered his poem, slowly, in rhythm.
"Marriage is a wild temptress,
Birthing lies, deceit.
If ere'y mer hath born by her,
No mer there'd be to meet.
/
And murder Dreams in his bed,
He's dreamed a dream too long.
Pierce 'em till he wails at night,
The Nightmare-Spear of song.
/
So thank you, sweet Mephala,
For killing off our sorrow,
For murdering Marriage in her bed,
And marrying Murder 'morrow."
The patron slackened. Vehk slid off, grabbed the pipe, and puffed again as the patron recovered—still smiling with pleasure.
Vehk was never pleased—at least not without skooma. After so many poems and patrons, his pleasure had numbed into his puffs of skooma smoke. The patrons never noticed as he whispered false-ecstasy into their ear. And Vehk didn't mind his lack of pleasure if it was for the right reasons. He took the two drams between two fingers.
Food and skooma.
Skooma and food.
He noticed that the silver-mask had been staring at him as he recited his poem. A thin grin washed across his sweat sweetened lips.
When he stood, the Indoril patron grabbed his wrist.
"We're not done."
Vehk snickered—they always wanted more. "Two drams—one poem."
This quieted the Indoril retainer. Already he had five women, and Vehk charged more. Two drams. Two aspects.
He weaved towards the corner table and slid onto the bench next to the guard. The man's shoulders tightened and he scooted a fraction away. Vehk began to trace the bird-pattern on the man's iron gauntlet. Black daedric letters were tattooed on both of his golden hands. He frowned at the strange marks. The only daedric symbol Vehk could read was "vehk."
"Do you want me to recite you a poem, serjo? It's only a pittance. Two drams."
The guard ripped away from his grasp. He smiled. A first time patron. He had to play carefully with him.
"Or maybe just a touch? For free. You inspired me with curiosity."
The mask didn't move as Vehk embraced his shoulder. With a swimming hand, Vehk made for the guard's trousers, but before he could slide it beneath, the guard seized his wrist in iron. Vehk hissed as his right arm slammed into the table, and the mask-man pushed him away as if he had been an Auriel ready to stab him with a spear. He didn't bother getting himself out of the hold. Instead, Vehk pushed at the cold iron of the mask until the guard slammed into the bench.
The Indoril guard released Vehk's arm and tried to push him away as his mask began to suffocate him. Vehk thought he could silently choke him into the next plane, but a force punched into his thin torso and kicked him off with a strength impossible for mere mortals. He coughed when he landed into the satin pillows, gripping his bare chest. Nothing broken—probably.
"Enough!"
Vehk rubbed his wrist and gazed up. The Indoril retainer he had just whispered his poem to held out a hand that he took, helping him onto his feet. The Indoril's gray teeth showed as he seethed.
"Apologies for my caravan-asi." The Indoril dug into his pocket. "A dram for your trouble."
Vehk took it with nonchalance, then gazed back into the corner.
The silver-masked guard had returned to staring at the table—as if being scorned by his caravan master didn't matter. The retainer returned to his drinking and whores while Vehk fingered the dram within his sweaty hand.
The pain in his ribs that resembled a warning meant nothing to him as he waltzed up to the table again, but this time he sat in front of the guard.
The crying mask bore into him. Vehk ignored the cold stare and ordered two mugs of flin for their indulgence. He had to spend the free dram on something. When the drinks came, Vehk leaned back and placed the rim within his lips—waiting for the guard to do the same. Instead he was met with his own distorted reflection.
A moment passed before he grew tired of the silence.
"Are you dead?"
The mask finally moved into a tilt.
Vehk continued. "It's unnerving. The mask. Care to take it off and drink with me?"
The mask was silent as if pondering how or what he was going to say. Eventually, a sigh escaped the metal. The man's voice was as open and deep as the sea.
"I can't, muthsera. Now, will you leave me, please?"
"'Muthsera?' 'Please?'" He laughed. "How proper you speak to a whore!" Vehk rose his cup into a toast then drank a quarter of the flin. He smacked his lips. "Do caravan-asi usually work sitting down?"
The mask-man hesitated before answering like a beggar-boy caught stealing with no way out of being whipped.
"Right. Yes, well…no. Not really. I'm sorry, I'll—"
The guard made to stand, but Vehk stopped him.
"No, no, you don't need to stand, sera!" Vehk chuckled—bewildered. "I wonder—why would you watch your retainer pay for whores and not have one for yourself? I assume someone that works for an Indoril is well paid, well fed, and well-bred to have whatever he wants."
The guard sank back onto the bench. The Indoril guard's next words were tainted with restrained anger.
"He pledged an oath to his ancestors that he would keep faith to his wife. He brought me here to make me watch after I walked into him breaking that oath. He says that I can do nothing about his adultery. And he is right."
Vehk snorted. "What is so wrong with adultery if it gives you pleasure, caravan-asi?"
He could feel the guard's glare even through that mask. The cold look made Vehk's skin crawl.
"Adultery is no pleasure when it harms another, muthsera."
Vehk drank again, this time watching the strange Indoril guard from narrowed eyes. He should have left then—the silver-guard had no drams to spend on his services—yet Vehk's livelihood, his pride, was being challenged. Spending a moment to prove a prudent guard wrong on Mephalan wouldn't hurt.
"Did you swear the same foolish oath to your wife then?"
"I'm not married."
"Then by Azura what is stopping you from wanting to hear my poems? I'm uncouth, is that it? Disgusting? Vile? Can't stoop low enough to spear a prostitute? Well, I've heard it all. They're all lying to themselves. We all are disgusting, vile, adulterers. Even you, caravan-asi."
Silence. The guard was fiddling with the table as he stared out into the crowd of debaucheries. Orgies and moans melded with the smoke—empty, unfulfilled eyes glared at them in the corner. Vehk didn't see what was so interesting about the room or its inhabitants.
Finally, the silver-masked man spoke beneath his breath. "They come here to find an object to fill the hole within their hearts. They keep coming because as soon as they leave their hearts become empty again. They use you. They convince you that you can never leave, because you think they love you. But you're only a small solution to a bigger problem. That isn't love. I don't know why or how you ended up here, but I know that this place isn't what you deserve. If I could, I would free you, muthsera."
Heat rose into Vehk's chest. Free him? He was free! He shot up as the guard finished and tipped the full tankard of flin into his lap. Alcohol splattered onto the mask and he stared into the reflection.
"You don't know me, s'wit!"
Vehk slapped him and the mask collided into the wall with a clang. The rupture of whispers silenced at the noise.
It was just a mer. A thin scar trailed past his dark eyebrow into his cheek. Blue eyes watched him as if through clear water. Vehk had expected an ugly face beneath that mask but the guard's features were soft, nonthreatening, and striking. He didn't seem too perturbed by the assault, and pursed thin lips, concerned not of his reddened cheek, but for Vehk.
That look caused him to flush, and the words of scorn he intended to throw at him became nothing. He stumbled over his words and flailed for another retort yet nothing came of it. How embarrassing, how deeming, how insulting.
The guard stood and they were eye-to-eye. With a quick motion, he picked his mask off the floor and placed it on his face again.
"You're right, I don't." He bowed. "I'm sorry I upset you, muthsera."
And without waiting for Vehk to respond, the Indoril caravan-asi stepped outside.
The Bosom returned to their love-making after that mood killer. Belatedly, Vehk realized he hadn't asked for that guard's name. He snorted. Good riddance. He never wanted to see that mer's disgusting face again. What would that rich, well-fed, cur know about his suffering? He knew nothing about suffering, not when he worked at the feet of a high-born Indoril mutt!
Shoulders sinking, he collapsed back into the bench and drank the rest of the flin, scratching his forehead. Something within him felt empty. Was it the lack of skooma? His pipe sat with the Indoril retainer who hadn't even seen when his caravan-asi left the whorehouse—too consumed with the tattooed woman perched on his aspect.
A moment passed and Vehk rubbed his head to ease the pain. He stared longingly at the pipe. He knew he wanted a puff. His body told him he needed a puff. Yet the emptiness told him not to. The emptiness hated that pipe.
The Indoril retainer came over again and slid two drams onto the table.
"I changed my mind."
Vehk glanced towards the door. "Your caravan-asi—"
"Forget him. Another poem, whore."
Vehk nodded halfheartedly. Since he hadn't smoked, his poem lacked motion and passion. After it was over, the Indoril was disappointed and grabbed the drams from his fingers. Vehk didn't protest—the retainer had been loving a corpse, a stone wall, an empty simulacrum of a man.
For the first time in years, Vehk didn't earn enough on the day of sex and murder.
A week passed before the shakes began.
Vehk slept beneath a grate that used to cover a sewage drain. A grate that now protected his body from the summer rain. He moved every week—nowhere was safe for too long—yet when the shivers began, he was forced to remain beneath the grate. Sugar upped in price again, and with what little he earned during Mephalan he could only afford enough to smoke for a week. Nights were slow with only two or three patrons that asked for him.
The Indoril retainer returned—this time without the mysterious silver-masked guard. Vehk thought he had been fired, but the retainer lamented about the caravan-asi like a woman would about someone more beautiful than they. Apparently, it was because of him that he couldn't bring whores into his manor anymore. It was because of the caravan-asi that he had to visit the scum of Mourning Row.
"That n'wah." The retainer spat. "My soldiers despise me now because of that fetcher. He's making moves on my wife—I see how she whispers about him behind my back. If he wasn't my best caravan guard, he would've been out in the streets begging for scraps from the Queen of Mercy."
He cawed a laugh. Vehk sneered as he followed the retainer's shoulders, massaging them weakly. Without skooma, even basic pleasures were hard to reproduce. The retainer ordered for him to press harder, yet Vehk didn't have the strength. Instead, he focused on the purse resting on the Indoril's belt.
"He should be so lucky. My father said on his deathbed, 'Make Nerevar a captain for he served me more as a son than you ever did.' How dare he? A low-born n'wah a captain? Ha! Never in fifteen thousand eras!" Vehk licked his lips and moved his hands down his warm back. He grunted. "I should teach Nerevar his place, but my men love him so. They're planning to rebel against me, by Boethiah's plot. What do you think I should do, Hermaphrodite?"
Vehk had been distracted by the retainer's words and so didn't take the purse from his belt. He most certainly couldn't steal it now that he was being addressed.
"I don't think I'm fit to say, sera."
"We're leaving Mourning Hold tomorrow and we won't return for another month. I want nothing more than to kill that fetcher when no one is looking. Would his death keep my men in line?"
Vehk stopped rubbing.
The retainer nodded his head.
"…perhaps."
Silence.
"Yes, yes…perhaps."
Vehk slipped the purse within his empty skooma pipe and distracted the retainer with drinks and poems. Eventually, the Indoril stumbled out of the Bosom with a full belly and no purse.
Vehk smiled as he walked down the alleyways, whistling a tune he heard from one of the bards. He threw the dram purse into the air and kept his hand near his dagger, waiting for a murderer or crook to steal his stolen earnings. He only hoped the retainer would remain drunk for long enough to not notice what was missing on his belt.
As he walked over the bridge towards the slums, Vehk gazed down into the waters. As he watched his reflection within Masser's light, he thought about the Indoril's plan to murder that caravan-asi...
Vehk marched over the bridge. That was none of his business. He wasn't going to meddle with that guard's problems—the arrogant s'wit probably thought nothing of him after last week.
A pit grew within his stomach.
They use you. They convince you that you can never leave, because you think they love you. But you're only a small solution to a bigger problem. That isn't love.
He bought the sugar and made his way to his home beneath the grate. Using his makeshift fire, he heated the bottom and pulled the pipe close to his mouth. He began to imagine himself into a better place than the grate. A paradise where hunger and pain didn't exist, where the Mourning Row were gardens, where his desires became reality.
But all he saw was Nerevar.
Nerevar's blood painting the plains. Nerevar being beheaded. Nerevar's hands and feet being cut off. Only stumps remained. Foresters. Murderers. He saw that Indoril retainer's reflection in the mask, standing over Nerevar's body with a spear pierced through his back. Laughing. And then Vehk saw the Indoril asking for another poem. Would he refuse him? Could he refuse him? Two drams. Skooma and food. Food and skooma.
I don't know why or how you ended up here, but I know that this place isn't what you deserve. If I could, I would free you, muthsera.
Vehk wasn't free. What a grand lie. Vehk would remain imprisoned with skooma until the end of his days. What could he do?
The skooma rippled through his blood like poison.
There was only one thing he could do.
Save Nerevar.