Vivec mediated upon arriving back in his temple. His legs crossed, his hands resting on his thighs, he felt through the dreamsleeve for echos of his thoughts. A quiet beach, shadows of his former self. A simulacrum of his once-best friend.

His once-best friend? What was the great Hortator doing back on Nirn? Vivec had dealt with the man prior, in the deep heat of Red Mountain. Their last meeting was one of... strife, to say the least. Vivec felt a vague sense of guilt, a remnant of his mortal tendencies. His head clouded with memories of his friend Indoril. Their first meeting, Vivec's affair with his wife, the eventual battle and destruction of Nerevar leading to Azura's curse on the chimer: these events tumbled in a cyclone around Vivec.

A great pause, each dreamcube lining up and unwinding into a single thread which pointed to events of the future. Vivec saw it unfold; he saw Nerevar's return and what would happen to the Tribunal. A quiet wind led the way to the future. The calm Aetherius overtook him.

A breath inward and he was back in his temple, his eyes perceiving the dim torchlight which kept the darkness from touching the inner circle. A silent form approached his soul and left him cold, begging the Aether for warmth. He laughed to himself. His imagination was his only source of excitement, post-CHIM. His heart met with the familiar pang of loneliness and went to lunch with it.

His temples throbbed, his eyes grew weak.

Can gods catch a cold?

He looked out onto the vista of stars and found himself questioning his point of godhood. Nerevar had returned to smite the Tribunal. Godhood would soon end for his friends, but what about himself? Vivec, unlike Sotha Sil or Almalexia, had achieved CHIM. He saw things that not even they could comprehend. Again, loneliness swallowed him.

The infinite void looked inviting.

Vivec turned away from the frozen wastes and stared inward, breathing deeply. He felt the power of the gods pumping through his muscles. He had unimaginable abilities to affect the flow of space-time throughout Nirn, just as Tiber Septim once did to replace the jungles of Cyrodiil.* His abilities were even greater than Septim, for he had managed to unlock the power of Lorkhan's heart.

Vivec contemplated his selfishness.

Was harnessing the power of the Heart worth the dunmeri plague?

A smirk. Yes, yes it was. God or false god, the awareness that I now have far surpasses the price that I had to pay. The once-best friend included in that price. He swam in the possibilities, again unwinding time to its one endless string and examining the future. A deep breath escaped his lips.

Vivec peered deeper into the events that would unfold in the Tribunal. He saw the Nerevarine interacting, sowing the seeds of fate into the land of Morrowind. Vivec dove into the past, into the depths of Red Mountain once again, and transcribed the events for the return of the Nerevarine. The time would come to share these documents with the outlander, to play his own part in sealing the fate of himself and his comrades.

Some events still happened behind clouds of interference. Vivec rubbed his head with two fingers and thought hard as to why he would not be able to see them. Was it uncertainty? Fear? The inability to cope with how the events unfolded? He laughed. His not-quite-a-god-but-a-god-ness stood in the center of all these possibilities as the obvious answer to his inquiry.

He swallowed hard, trying to ignore the inevitabilities of the end of every timeline. Death was inevitable for all mortals.

*Emperor Tiber Septim used his abilities to alter the climate of Cyrodiil to a more temperate one, allowing for mass colonization.