The Doomsday
His nostrils awaken first.
The smoke drops ashes on the Isles, grey rain from the blue, and the smell is that of burning cities. His sleep cracks to pieces with every breath, while the fire and the fallen stones tell him for sure.
It has happened again. And since he is awakening, his Lord cannot be that far.
Haskill drifts away from the rock, the stone bed where chaos has shoved him this time. It is always the hardest part, getting on his feet; it is the moment of true realisation, when the old terror of an imminent danger is but a pale memory among the ocean of destruction all around.
It has happened again, and Haskill knows – the instant in which he lifts his head, ready to stand again, holds in itself the first fragment of reconstruction.
He gets used to the smell of blood very soon. Other matters require his attention right now – turning to the corpse of this world, spread above, under his feet and all around, certainly will not make it any better now.
He does not need to drag a chair with him this time. There is one outdoors already, trapped in silver crystals. Sheogorath has fallen nearby, holding the finest looks a corpse can have.
Like that, again, his long wait restarts. And Haskill suffers for no reason – he runs skeleton fingers on his limbs, on the worn cloth wrapped around his dead shell, trying to remind himself of how his Lord has nothing to do with mortality.
But the bones he feels under his hands are too fragile and old, even for him.
In silent prayer, Haskill keeps watching those ice lips that must move again. He knows what his first words will be like – he will roar his madness to those wounded skies, he will laugh, shout, call out to his realm in despair.
Then creation will happen again – for every time, no matter how terrible the damage, he gets back all the glory he is due.
But rage and tiredness, new enemies that could never escape the eyes of a servant, have been dawning in his Lord not long ago.
Centuries have gone – the labyrinth of Sheogorath's soul is home to him. And it has been years, or maybe ages, since Haskill started fearing the day when his sleep would no longer end, when his own patient embrace would never be broken.
Haskill pictures their silhouettes turning to stone, in a corner of Oblivion too devastated to ever exist again. Slowly, his wait ends – he has to start hoping.
He falls from his thoughts late, only to find, predictably, golden eyes staring at him. If not enough to heal the pain, their light wraps up his doubts at least.
So he returns to his duties of servant, trying to find out, together with his Lord, where to start from this time.
What had never been there is the immense depth of his joy, or rather the shade of concern that has been haunting his relief since way before than now.
What had never been there, Haskill realises, is fear. He watches the mortal flesh his Lord is hiding in, and swears to the fresh wounds of both.
This must be the last time.
Inspired by The doomsday by deviant Chopsticks-84. Such gorgeous art.