Far Horizons
Summary: One's dreams are like the horizon. Always in the distance.
One always had to skirt Saarthal. The area leading to it from Winterhold was more often than not being watched by bandits, or necromancers, or had trolls lurking about the snow-strewn pass.
Kazahan preferred the isolate wastes; the silent cold mountainsides. Even in Elsweyr he'd never felt so close to the moons.
The Gods would taunt him on nights with Masser and Secunda looming over the horizon. Her voice would drift along with the snow on the wind, asking him to return to her, begging him to come to bed with her. He ignored her voice because it was not her voice. It could never be her voice. He busied himself with tasks to keep from reacting, until the Gods tired of their sport and moved on.
Looking back, it was only a matter of time before their lies became more powerful and complex.
He had been leaving Winterhold at night, with the wind howling bitter cold and leaving icicles and snow in his mane, snow pulled from the permanently frosted ground gathering on his whiskers. He stayed away from the main path, though the unfortunate corpse of a mage seemed to be occupying the sabercats some distance away enough for it to safe as long as he did not do too much to gather their interest.
"What has become of you, Kazahan?" Her voice drifted past his ears, as if she were physically there. He closed his eyes and continued on.
By the drift of the moons overhead in the clear sky, it was some time before they tried again.
"Kazahan, Kazahan," her voice whispered. "Kazahan, my love."
He remained silent.
"Do not ignore me, Kazahan," the Gods lied. "This one does not know how this is, but do not let this be a nightmare."
He opened his eyes, and before him she stood, as if she were truly there.
He was struck dumb, unable to do anything but look.
"It is you," she said, relief coloring her tones. "Not by your eyes, but by the way you stand I can tell."
He remained still, regarding and regarded.
"Please, love, speak to me. It has been so long. I feared you dead."
"You are a lie, sent to torture by the Gods," he answered. "Khajiit knows this."
"If any, it is Rajhin," she laughed. "Or Baan Dar. A boon granted in a dream."
Kazahan shook his head, slowly.
"The gods grant no boons," he said. "Only honeyed words and cunning traps to revel in our misery. Only far horizons we can never reach."
She said nothing to this.
He turned away from her, and looked up at the moons, and continued to walk, his eyes on the horizon.
"Kazahan," she called, her voice breaking. "Kazahan, come back!"
Of all the things to convince him, it had been that. He knew then she had been real, a dream made manifest for both of them.
Yet, he ignored her, and continued walking, until the only sounds were the whistling of the wind and his steps on the bleak white mountainside; ever closer to the Moons.