(AN: I've got plenty of Resist Fire potions for the flames that my decisions in this story have received/may receive. Surprisingly, that last chapter received very few.)

(Nevertheless, some big things are going to happen in the next few chapters. How far am I willing to take this story? Well, there won't be any one hundred and twelve chapters like in "The Dragonborn and the Lioness", that was a challenge that I feel I just could not top again. Maybe I'll go half way and give this story fifty-six chapters [lol]. I do have a few ideas to go along with in this story, but I might not even need fifty-six chapters to finish this story. Just whatever does it.)

Oracle of Azura

Eirik awoke some time in the dead of night - though which night he knew not for sure. The sound of keys clinking in the lock of his cell door roused him from sleep. As he opened his eyes, he saw a hooded figure clad in dark robes enter into the cell and stand for a moment, gazing down upon him.

"Why?" a woman's voice, seasoned with age, asked softly in an accent that was decisively non-Nordic. Eirik could not answer. "Why does the Queen of Dawn and Dusk mock my people by choosing you as her champion?"

A knife was drawn and Eirik pushed himself up against the wall as best he could. His hands and mouth were bound, but his feet were still of use. The figure knelt down and held up their right hand in a gesture of peace. The knife was then brought up with the left hand and severed the gag on Eirik's mouth.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am a priestess of the daedric prince Azura," the woman said from beneath her hood. "I am your escape to freedom. Turn over now, let me cut your bindings."

Eirik turned over as the sound of the woman's knife cutting at the bound cords on his wrists was heard.

"How did you get in here?" Eirik asked.

"The mistress I serve appeared to me in a dream," the woman continued. "It is the first time she has appeared to me in a great many count of years. She told me where to find you, she told me how to get into this prison and that I should rescue you."

"Why?" Eirik asked.

"You are Azura's champion," the woman said begrudgingly. "She wants you free. That should be enough for you."

"What did you mean by what you said when you came in here?" Eirik asked.

"You should know, snow-back," sneered the woman.

Eirik's wrists snapped free from the bonds and he turned around to face his rescuer. The light was dim but Eirik could see a soft gleam of red beneath her hood.

"You're an elf," Eirik stated.

"And you're rather stupid, even for you snow-backs," she replied. "Now get up, we must escape this place before the guards discover us. It would be just like Azura to lead me here only to leave me to my fate."

The Dunmer woman rose up and walked out of the cell while Eirik followed after her. They were now walking down the dungeon hall to the entry way, a flight of stairs leading to the upper levels of Castle Dour. They quietly made their way up and out of the castle and then ran westward out of the castle courtyard and down a long stone ramp into the city square of Solitude.

"We're almost out," she whispered. "Stay close to me."

"Why are you doing this?" Eirik asked.

"It is Azura's will," she replied in a hushed voice.

"But you seem to harbor ill-will towards Azura," Eirik replied.

"Still I must follow her," said the elf. "It was her will that I lead my people out of Morrowind almost two hundred years ago when the Red Mountain erupted, even though we came to this shit-hole of a country. Had I closed my ears to her commands, we would have all died, buried under centuries of ash..." She scoffed. "I trust that would have been to your liking, no?"

"What? No!" Eirik retorted. "You don't even..."

"Lower your voice!" the elf hissed, then turned back to face Eirik. "You Nords are all alike: oath-breakers, murderers, bandits and traitors. I was there when Torygg's great-grandsire gave us permission to live in both Solstheim and Skyrim. I was there when the Decree of Monument was written, and I have seen your people go back on their word."

"Is that why your people support the Empire?" Eirik asked.

"Your Empire?" she laughed. "All they have given my people are promises, empty words without meaning. Many of my people living in Cyrodiil died in the Great War, the Dominion spared none who stood under the banner of the Red Diamond. But when the war ended, the Empire abandoned them: they did nothing to stop the Sons of Skyrim from driving the Dunmer out of Bruma and have no interest in ending the suffering of my people in your precious city of Ysgramor."

"Isn't that why they're fighting a war?" Eirik asked.

"They fight this war because of your chief elf-killer, Ulfric Stormcloak," she replied. "He dared to defy the Empire and so they retaliated. Once he's dead, their legions will simply go back to Cyrodiil and leave my people to their fates."

"I'm sorry, I haven't..." Eirik began, but was interrupted.

"You didn't know?" she asked. "You've not treated Dunmer the way Ulfric does? I suppose you'd also say that not all you Nords are like the ones in Windhelm. Bah! One Nord alone mistreating the Dunmer is reason enough to drive the rest of you white-skinned, jaundice-haired apes into the sea to drown to death where you belong. And believe me, it will happen. For too long my people have suffered silently under the yoke of Nordic oppression. You know not how many times I have listened in quiet sorrow as pilgrims came to the shrine of Azura, begging the Mistress of Twilight with tears in their eyes to bring justice upon Uflric and his band of hate-filled bigots."

They paused just at the foot of the steps leading into the town center of Solitude. Eirik looked west towards the main gate of the city while his rescuer looked east. The sight of several of the guards of the city patrolling the gate holding torches aloft made him wary. Then he noticed that the elf was not moving and turned to her.

"For too long," the elf woman continued. "My people have born the yoke of oppression from your kind in silence. But no more. They cannot stand for this any longer, and they will not! If Ulfric wins this war..." She scoffed. "...if Ulfric wins this war, he will find another one on his hands. The Dunmer know that he has no love for us or the Empire and House Hlaalu, or what's left of it hiding in Windhelm, will not fare well if he drives the Empire out of Skyrim. My people know this and they know that the Empire will not help the Dunmer in Skyrim: we must help ourselves."

"So why are you here?" Eirik asked. "Why are you doing this if you hate Nords so much?"

"Only the Mistress of Dawn and Twilight," she continued. "Knows why you, of all people, were chosen to be her champion. But she has more important things in your future, and I suppose languishing in the dungeons of Solitude was not one of them. She requests that you come to the shrine of Azura nestled in the mountains of Winterhold."

"I have other things to do with my freedom," Eirik replied.

"She said you might say that," said the elf. "She also said that if that be the case, I should...let you go."

"Really?" Eirik asked. "Let me go? You're not going to try to force me to go back to the shrine?"

"What, even though you're unarmed and I a master of the arcane arts?" asked the elf with a chuckle. "Yes. She said that, whether you will it or no, your path shall lead to the steps of her shrine. As the old saying goes, 'Once a servant of the daedra, always a servant of the daedra.' But since you choose follow blindly in your illusion of choice, then I have one last thing to say to you."

"I think I've heard enough out of you for one night," Eirik replied. "Now which way are we..."

Before Eirik could finish his sentence, the elf woman clapped her hand over his mouth, placed her other hand around his neck and began dragging him by the neck away from the stairs and towards the shadow (seen clearly enough even at night in the light of the moons) of an arched walkway that passed over the eastern end of the market-square. Once they were under its shadow, Eirik was able to wrestle himself free of the elf's grip.

"What the hell was that for?"

"You almost got us discovered!" she hissed. "Now keep your head about you. This is the way we must go."

"But there is no way out of the city," Eirik said. "Save by the main gate."

"You know nothing, snow-back," she retorted. Turning then to one of the pillars of the giant arch that formed a wall of stone separating the houses of Solitude from the market district, she opened a door that led into a narrow stone corridor. Into this she led Eirik and they swiftly passed through the city walls and down a spiraling staircase of one of the towers.

At last they came to a door which the elf woman opened, telling Eirik to go first. Looking up, he saw that he was outside of the walls of Solitude with a clear night sky glowing under the light of the two moons. There were few stars to be seen and the last chills of the dying winter still clung to the midnight air.

"Where do I go from here?" Eirik asked.

"How should I know?" asked the elf. "I'm a priestess, not a prophetess."

"Aren't you an oracle from Azura or something?" Eirik asked. "Didn't she tell me where my friends were?"

"She told me only what I told you," replied the Dunmer woman. "And also this." She leaned in and whispered her last message into Eirik's ear.

"Tell it to no one else save for whom it was meant for," said the elf. "If they ask for who it was who sent it, tell them that it was Aranea Ienith, priestess of Azura."

Eirik said nothing as Aranea slunk away into the darkness, leaving him dressed in prison rags all alone in the darkness in enemy territory. He had returned to Skyrim but was unarmed and alone. But now he had a purpose once again.

(AN: Thankfully this chapter was shorter than the last one. The big stuff hasn't happened yet, but we're getting close. VERY close. If my reviewers have been paying attention since "The Dragonborn and the Lioness" [which they say they have], they will know that something very big is going to happen very soon. We also get to see the elf lady Aranea Ienith from the Azura quest. Seriously, the Elder Scrolls wiki and UESP pages say that she led the Dunmer from Vvardenfell in the aftermath of the eruption of the Red Mountain, but that would make her over two hundred years old. While it is not said just how old elves are in this world, there is no definitive data to say that they're as long-lived as Tolkien's elves [and i'm sure the Kirkbride fan-boys would take offense at assuming they are like Tolkien's elves since Kirkbride's Morrowind lore was so anti-Tolkien that acknowledging anything that was Tolkien-based would just be a "dumbing down" of the Elder Scrolls series and making it like a DnD rip off - you know, the typical responses to Oblivion and Skyrim from that end of the fandom].)

(Aside from, as I think I've said after every chapter which shows the Kirkbride-instigated racism of the Dunmer, art imitating real life, there is another reason I make the Dunmer have animosity in return to the Nords. Two hundred years they've been living in Skyrim and while the first two or three kings who lived after giving them the freedom to live autonomously in Skyrim without being involved in their politics [did they fight in the Great War or were the ones who died as Aranea mentioned just collateral damage?] were probably okay with that, those sentiments changed my Ulfric's time. Of course I'm sure the majority of my reviewers, like my brother, would rather have the Dunmer just take the Nords' racism on the chin and not retaliate in kind or plan to repay evil for evil [like it has been established that they will in the book "Dunmer of Skyrim"], but that is not a realistic option considering the background the Dunmer have against the Nords and against anyone who isn't Dunmer [or even who isn't Dunmer of their own House])