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Let's make something perfectly clear; my life was dedicated to a dream and not a person. Milkar may have spoken the words, but it was the words that created this monster.
Chapter 7: When Oblivion Calls
In the end, Ark'ay recycles all life, from the tiniest of lifeforms that causes disease and plague to the giant beasts that roam land and sea. He's a ten thousand-fingered god, quickly picking and plucking away life, and giving it anew. I never thought of death the way an ordinary person thought of it. It's something different for me. People are afraid of death; they do whatever it takes to avoid it. Although I'm not confronting every moment without the conscious of someone who didn't value their own life, I didn't think going the extra mile to fear its inevitability.
I am a simple mortal with a passion for rebellion, that much was clear. I didn't want to live by the rule of my Father, not by my Tutor, and not even the Divines in Aetherius. I want to forge my own path. So, if Ark'ay ever came to pull my string, I would deny him too. Not with fear, no, but with my innate craving for dissent.
When a mortal's soul departs from its body, you don't just wander into your next domain. The divines call you there, where you belong. Where did I belong? Where do I go when I die? I said, when I left home, that no one should remember me. I didn't want to exist like other souls—destined to wander the afterlife for eternity. I wanted the shadows to be my destiny.
Before the sporadic lances of light illuminated the back of my eyelids, I felt the cold wetness soaking every inch of my body. It stung on some parts as rain slid over burning wounds on my skin. My throat felt raw as if I'd been eating Hook-Briar new growth. When my hearing returned to me, the patter of rain echoed throughout the land. I opened my eyes to find myself laid out on a bed of ash and soot. The black sludge buried half my body, leaving shivers spasming for warmth.
The rain blared down hard enough to hinder all sight, veiling everything beyond two feet. But even as the typhoon stinted my vision, I could tell the place I lost consciousness in was no longer there. The Hall of Heroes was gone. Nothing but a black spot at the edge of a forest. I tried to climb to my feet, only to blown down a ridge and engulfed with flood water. The winds were too powerful. I pulled myself away from the flowing stream onto a bank, expelling the water from my lungs. The dressed I'd worn during the night had burned away, leaving myself revealed. Only a few strapped of cloth remained; I used it to cover my sensitive parts.
There wasn't anyone else around. Not my brother and not Elren. All the guests from the party weren't anywhere.
'They're all gone,' I said, choking on a sob.
Heavy under the powerful winds and rain, I dragged myself further through the mud back to where I'd awaken. I found Pondus under half-burned wood pulp. Florentine's stone wall protruded through the rubble as the only structure left. I wanted to cut that Altmer's head off. I slipped Pondus into its shattered sheathe still strapped on my back.
Some ways away, swirling tendrils of yellow magicka exploded outward. Mud and ash-mud floated upward in an unnatural spiral, crawling away from one focal point. As if rising from the dead, a dark-robed figure erected from the mud. There was no denying who'd survived the blast.
It was astounding to see, although it sickened me to see Florentine climb out of that crater. There were no scratches on her, not even a spec of dirt. Her pristine figure stood tall as her powerful magic did its work. She looked around at the destruction, rivulets of rain streamed down her face.
I got up then, and she turned to face me.
Pondus' short-lived rest was not in vain. I limped towards her. She looked down at me with a slow smile that built into a laugh. She gazed at me with such focus, I thought the sun to be in her eyes. 'Well,' Florentine said. 'I'll be.'
'You're going to fucking die!' I growled.
I swung Pondus, a slow strain in my weakened state. Florentine merely stepped aside, allowing the blade to miss her without effort. Every muscle in my body ached, my eyesight blurred, and my head was still on fire but from the inside. I felt like I died.
'You killed them all!'
The wind snapped all around us, moving the forest with life.
Florentine held a wet gloved hand, palm up and squeezed it slightly. The ground under me began to rumble and groan. I held my breath, and in a glancing moment, it shifted and sent me tumbling through the air and back to the ground. I fell, sprawled with the life nearly knocked out of me. Florentine approached me with careful footsteps.
She sighed. 'I didn't do this, little girl.' She turned her back on me. 'Listen. I can't let you go. I must bring you in or kill you here. It can be your choice.'
We stared into each other's eyes for a long moment. There wasn't so much of an empathetic tone to Florentine's voice. The indifference to murder me put a pause in my step. I think it was at that moment it broke me. No matter how far Rollyn and I walked. How many dangerous adventures we went on or foes we fought together, I have never met anyone as sickening as this High Elf. A void opened in my heart, and I think if I hadn't peered into that void, my life would have been vastly different. It changed me. For the worst or for the better was for the people I loved as well as the people I hated to decide.
Florentine and Aridiil. The Tam'Akar Inquisitors of the Thalmor Regime. They would burn in Oblivion even if I should send them there.
'You aren't killing anyone,' a voice said from behind Florentine. A blade slid across the Altmer woman's shoulder, drawing blood, and soaking her robes with red.
'That hurt,' she said, without so much as a flinch.
Aranwen held his sword to her face and wedged himself between her and me. The fire seemed to have mostly burned away his clothes as well.
'Elren?' I inquired frantically. The boy ran through my mind as quickly as the lightning flashed above. 'Where is he?'
'Behind you, Leila.' I released a sigh of relief as Elren's quiet foot landed near my head.
Elren knelt next to me, his hand on my shoulder. I reached for him, and he grabbed my hands within his. They were warm and life-giving, his eyes smiled. 'I'm glad you're okay.'
'Your dagger,' he said, laying the thing on my chest. 'It isn't good to lose something that was just given to you.'
'Given the circumstances, I'm sure—'
'No excuses.' He winked.
'Ah.'
'Can you stand?'
'Not really,' I answered. 'My body feels broken.'
In truth, my body felt as if the entire Hall of Heroes crumbled on top of it. Heat and pressure would do that, causing your muscles to relax and spasm. I was out of the fight, that much I was assured. But Aranwen and Elren seemed like they were in for a fight.
Florentine shifted her position and crossed her arms. 'Why not kill me?'
Aranwen scoffed. 'You actually enjoy murder. That's not what we're about.'
Florentine shook her head slowly and wagged a finger. 'So naïve. You children have tarnished your Father's name. How disappointed your mother must be, looking down at you.'
Florentine's face fell into a grim slouch.
'Just a bunch of kids rebelling for no good reason. You are interfering with matters you don't understand.'
'Matters we don't understand?' Through the fog of pain, I pulled myself to sit up. 'We're simply rebelling, you say?'
I was standing now, my legs wobbling, nothing in my control.
'I am rebelling. That much I'm assured,' I squeezed my fists, 'but to say that what we're doing means nothing is damning. You murdered Bosmer; you colluded with the Thieves of the Wood to corrupt our sovereignty. Your disregard for the people living in the shadow, those with no name and never will become anything you respect, must stop. You will be stopped by us.'
Waterfalls of rainwater fell in great pillars to the forest floor. The accumulation of the various layers of tree gathered water until it was substantial enough to bend a branch. The flood was ankle deep, but the thirst of the forest kept it from getting any higher. The Tam'Akar lieutenant stood silently as the forest remained a world of water. Her golden gaze glowed through that veil of mist.
'By all of us,' Elren said, pulling up next to me. He took my hand with his and gave it a little squeeze before facing forward.
'You three seem to have a death wish,' Florentine said.
'Leave it be, Florentine.'
Esmond came up at her right flank through the underbrush, his eyes trained on the Altmer.
'You?' For a brief moment, that flawless face broke into worry. It was satisfying to witness. 'Shouldn't you be dead?'
'Why does everyone expect me to die so easily?' Esmond sneered.
'Aridiil isn't one to leave loose ends.' Florentine raised her hand towards Esmond. 'I'm always looking after his mistakes anyways.'
A lance made of stone shot out of Florentine's palm hurdling straight for Esmond's head. But the mage didn't as much as flinch at the sudden strike. He raised a single finger as the barbed spike reached him. A single beam of focused fire-induced magicka zipped through the air to meat Florentine's spell, and the two cancel each other out.
Florentine took a step back as she realized the weight of the situation. We outnumbered her. Although, I believed that if she had to, she would be able to take all of us on without breaking a sweat. From what I've seen of the woman Altmer, she was more than capable of destroying an entire Quiver within the Ranger Guard effortlessly. 'Well, you're lucky this time Esmond Flowers.'
'I've denounced that surname a long time ago.' Esmond gritted his teeth.
The revelation took me by surprise.
'How about the son of—'
'Leave, Florentine. Or you will die here.'
She surveyed us with those yellow eyes one last time, looking from Elren, to me, to Aranwen, and finally to Esmond. Her eyes seemed to have drifted off into the distance as if something more interesting caught her attention. No one else noticed, but I did. I followed her stare outward towards the line of twisted root and underbrush. Straining my eyes as hard as they could bear, I saw the form of an elf. He watched from the shadows as still as a stone statue, unwavering.
'I'm no fool,' she said, turning away from the shadow. 'But I'll leave you all with this one message: Know that you all are children in a game not built for children. You are all missing the point. What we do is for the prosperity of all elven kind, and it will do well if you all cooperate so that none of you will see early graves.'
And with that she spun on a heel, her boots squealing in the mud and her cloak whipped in the winds. We watched her go, first becoming a shadow then nothing at all.
I watched her go. Every step she took, my hatred grew. Something inside of me changed upon meeting her, seeing what she could do, and how she thought of people who were lesser to her. They called Aridiil the Nefarious, but what do they call her? And just how much eviler does the Altmer who control the Aldmeri Dominion get? It made my blood boil and chill simultaneously. I knew now that in this world, any hesitation will get you killed. See your friends die, your own head cut from the rest of your body. Not me. Not Milkar and his dream. If they want to try me, then they'll have to try hard.
Elren craned his head back towards the silhouette. I hadn't expected him to spot the same thing Florentine and I did. 'Milkar is here,' he said.
Milkar emerged from the storm, eyes trained on me. Florentine's face had turned white under her golden-hued skin, and I wondered why. My brother was the closest any of us was to Mother's skill in battle. If I was that Altmer, I'd have left too.
The typhoon still pounded Valenwood with no end in sight. Any evidence of the Hall of Heroes had been burned away and cleaned by the heavy rain and wind. It was a sad thought. Very little survived the blast, causing us to leave promptly. Firstly, the Ranger Guard would have arrived. They would ask us questions upon questions, having in mind that someone attacked the Hall. Then the Aldmeri Dominion would come, and that's when we'll surely be in trouble. The Dominion was always the problem.
'Your sword, Milkar.' I displayed Pondus across my hands to my brother.
Milkar made no hesitation to don his new sword. The Bosmer who would usurp the corrupted here in Valenwood holds the sword that the Camoran Usurper once wielded.
Although there was some truth to Florentine's words where we were just kids playing an adult game, we knew that there would be no one else to run it. I, myself knew that what I was doing here was a mere adolescent cry against my father and everyone else who thought that could control my life, but I didn't care. I wanted the freedom to forge my own path all the way to the point where I would deny the Divines their right to my life. That is what I wanted—to deny any destiny that I didn't control myself. On this path, there are real problems that the people around me must face. Elren saw the death of his family; that is his reason why he will follow Milkar. Aranwen and I see the truth in my brother; we knew that if there was anyone that can win, it would be him. He was like Mother. And there was no stopping him.
'They know who we are now.' Aranwen frowned.
Milkar nodded and rubbed his brother's shoulder. 'Don't worry, Aranwen. They will be wary of us; they will keep an eye out. But they won't dare interfere.'
'Who attacked us then?' I asked.
Milkar scanned the forest, not looking for anything but just analyzing. 'It was him—the leader of the Thieves of the Wood.'
Elren released a sigh full of sorrow. 'Monsotar Hanseed.'
'You know him.'
Elren nodded. 'He helped locate my clan for the Tam'Akar, but they betrayed him.'
'The Tam'Akar offered Monsotar Augoth Thornbush in return for their location. But the High Elves didn't want the secret of the Ghost Flame to land in anyone else's hands. In the end, Monsotar got away with Augoth.' Milkar rummaged through a pocket satchel and withdrew a small vial with a flowing red liquid. He offered it to me, and I took it. 'Monsotar didn't expect Esmond's betrayal. We found out the plot to eradicate Elren's clan and, so we took measures to prevent it. Needless to say, we failed. But not without gain. I managed to allow Monsotar to leave unharmed if it meant giving up Esmond as a sacrifice.'
'Which I still hate you for,' Esmond interjected.
'Your illusion magic helped us fool the Tam'Akar. But when Aridiil found out it was you, he threw you in prison instead.'
How or what kind of power does Monsotar possess to do,' I waved around, 'this?'
'That's a question we'll have to ask Augoth Thornbush ourselves.'
Augoth Thornbush, the man who gave Mother her power over the Ghost Flame. When we first met the old master enchanter, he didn't seem like much. Just a cowardly old man trying to flee the shackles of tyrant kingpin. I tried to imagine what sort of enchantment could level an entire Graht-Oak, but I was having a hard time doing so. It isn't to say that there aren't powerful enchantments, but never one as powerful. Mother's power was supposed to combine conjuration and destruction magicks. Her power granted her an otherworldly flame from the depths of Oblivion. Father once recalled seeing the violet embers that radiated no heat but would turn flesh into ash faster than the most potent flame spell. It's kind of hard to fathom magic like that existed in our world, but there are also tales of human men able to through entire legions of people with a whisper of their voice. Our grey-skinned brethren in the North worshipped a trio of gods that could make anything possible. Some say they were in fact gods, and others say they were just mighty and immortal Dunmer, but even if there were beings like that existing, what difference do they compare to the Divines?
Can this Augoth Thornbush give a mortal the power of a god in the form of a sword or suit of armor? Does Monsotar wield such a weapon?
'What do we do now?' I asked my brother.
The rain began to subside, and the whipping winds died down to a bustling breeze enough to rustle my brother's cape.
'We find Augoth Thornbush,' Milkar shrugged, 'then we start a war.'
