Keening?
His furry head tilted as he lifted from the courier's body, twisting the dagger in his hands. His bare hands, he realized with some horror, immediately turning loose of the bronze hilt and letting it clatter to the cavern floor. It made an all-too-familiar ringing noise as the crystalline blade bounced across the ground.
The sound evoked memories, horrible memories of a painful but necessary endeavor. He could feel the heat, hear the shrieks of the Dreamers that threw themselves into the fiery pits, recall the saucy rumble of a devil's voice as he taunted his old friend mercilessly. His chest heaved as visions flashed of the monstrous, terrifying Akulakhan, towering over the chamber. He had narrowly made it across the rope bridge as the expressionless face of the construct collapsed on top of it, the entirety of its form crumbling and sinking into the pits of Red Mountain.
His furry snout scrunched. He glanced back at his companion—a priest of Mara he had picked up in Dawnstar—and grimaced. The poor mer didn't seem to have the slightest idea what was going on, an expression of genuine concern plastered on his face. He seemingly wanted to ask what was wrong, but seemed too winded from their skirmish with the Falmer.
Slowly, carefully, the Cathay-raht stooped down and let his gauntlet-clad fingers wrap around the hilt of the fallen blade. He winced as he did so, the words of Vivec echoing in his mind for the first time in two centuries. For all intents and purposes, he should have been dead.
"Karsaga, are you quite alright?"
The voice was quiet and breathless, the priest creeping silently closer to examine the artifact. Almost instinctively, Karsaga shifted his weight to shield it from view. Part of it was selfishness, the need to be alone with this chunk of his past. Part of it was fear, fear of what the mysterious weapon may do to his friend if he so much as glimpsed it.
"I'm fine, Erandur," the khajiit stated in a low, deep rumble. "It's just…"
He trailed off, twisted the blade in his hands one more time. He was still alive, somehow. Could Keening have lost its power between its loss and its retrieval? A sigh of relief escaped his lips just as his heart sank into the pit of his stomach. At least handling it wouldn't kill anyone, and Kagrenac's magic wouldn't cause anymore mass disappearances. At the same time, how sad was it that it had been reduced to this?
"Are you certain?"
Karsaga's brow furrowed, his whiskers twitched. Slowly, he turned around and held Keening out for his companion to see. Erandur didn't seem particularly impressed more than confused and a touch worried. The concern intensified when he reached out to examine the object, only to have Karsaga yank it away and clutch it to his chest.
"I haven't seen this in years," he finally muttered, more than a little embarrassed. After all, he knew Keening wouldn't hurt anyone—not in the state it was currently in—but just the thought of how it used to be…
"What is it?" Erandur asked, his accent thickening in his bewilderment. He lowered his hood and cocked his head to the side, brushing a stray strand of hair out of his eyes as Karsaga hesitantly presented the blade yet again. Before he had the chance to renege on the offer, Erandur quickly lashed out and snatched it away, twisting it between his hands just as Karsaga had.
"It's rather nice looking," he conceded after a tense silence, once he noticed the look of dread on the khajiit's face. He lifted it up to the azure lights of the cavern, rotating it slowly and watching the reflection from the blade cast a flurry of shining reflections on the wall, turning a dark corner into a radiant skyscape of stars.
"Feels a bit weak, not that I know jack about daggers'n the like. Never been a blade mer. Not since…"
Slowly, Erandur trailed off. Clearing his throat, he lowered Keening from the glow of the mushrooms and handed it back to Karsaga. The khajiit accepted it reluctantly, nodding slowly as his face fell. If only Erandur had been able to hold the dagger back in its prime.
"You've seen it before, though?"
"I used to own it," Karsaga mumbled, fingers running over the blade. Perhaps "own" wasn't the exact word. He was trusted with it. He borrowed it, albeit almost permanently. However, it was easier to say that it belonged to him than to explain the circumstances.
After all, he wasn't exactly proud of himself, his "achievements." The Nerevarine came in and swept Morrowind clean of the Blight, yes, but then he simply faded. People stopped caring, and perhaps he had stopped caring, too. When rumors of him fleeing to Akavir arose, he never contested it; the people of Port Telvannis had no idea that the sketchy khajiit they berated was the betmer they praised. The people of Kvatch didn't even know what a Nerevarine was, and definitely did not recognize the feline hurriedly escorting people to safety as a hero.
Then the Argonians came, and the Red Year. He had fought alongside the Dunmer, struggled to help refugees, but his face had already been forgotten. He listened quietly as people sobbed, cried, wanted to know why the Champion of Azura had left them. As Morrowind fell further and further into disrepair—as he watched himself fail—it became harder and harder to take credit for his previous deeds.
The Nerevarine, star-chosen protector of Morrowind, had let his people down. In the end, cursed by the eternal life corprus had granted him, it was easier to simply follow the dislocated Dunmer to Skyrim, wander off into the foreign province, and disappear completely into obscurity. He was no hero anymore. He was just a cat who was friends with a priest and pretended to be a novice at the College of Winterhold so he would have steady work.
"Aye, fortune is strange, isn't it?" Erandur chuckled, interrupting his thoughts. "Something gets stolen long ago, and here it is now, Mara be praised. I wonder if that strange fellow at the College will let you keep it once he's done with it. You have done a lot for him, and it is rightfully yours."
Karsaga's lips twitched up into a half-hearted smile. Maybe he would; even if he didn't, at least he knew that Keening was harmless. He sighed thoughtfully as he slipped the blade into his belt, just like old times. Despite its weakened power, he could still feel the faint hum of the enchanted crystal against his hip. In a way, it was comforting.
As they turned to leave the caverns with their prize, Erandur snorted a quiet laugh and shook his head.
"You know, s'kind of odd to hear you say that relic was once yours. With all the gouts of fire and giant swords, you never struck me as the type to use a glittery little knife in a fight."
The khajiit smirked, pulling his hood over his head as he disappeared ahead of Erandur into the mist and shadows.
"It was a circumstantial thing. A long story. Maybe I'll tell you sometime."