**********WARNING********** Extreme Concepts Ahead**********WARNING********** Extreme Concepts Ahead**********WARNING**********

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SENSITIVE THEMES.

Monsotar was a Bosmer that needed a light to see through the darkness of Nirn, so he set himself on fire.

Part 3

Chapter 25: Monsotar Handseed

There was a child of six with no real purpose and no real aim in this world. She did things any normal six-year-old would. She played, sometimes alone or sometimes with a furry creature captured and snuck into her father's home and stored in a cage. This girl didn't have companions; friendship was something foreign; relationships were a profound affair.

She waded through the world, listening and never speaking. Sometimes, she would stay in her room, or find a corner in the house to read and dream. Her imagination was her only friend. There were days where the only people she'd ever interacted with, would come around and talk to her. Conversations lasting two or three moments. She cherished them. These were times where she could ask questions about things she couldn't understand.

This girl's mother died the night of her birth. Her siblings trained day in and out, paying their younger sister no mind except for the tiny inkling moments they spent at home. When she blossomed, she followed a path that knew only loneliness. She had to harness the pain of being alone and turn it into power, lest the world swallow her up.

She knew that heartbreak would grip her and the people she loved but still, she let the darkness come.

Drip. Drip. Drip. And more fucking dripping. Rollyn had it that what made the trees, the leaves that grew from them, and even the insects that crawled their massive limbs are made of self-replicating corpuscles. They move in our blood carrying the air we breathe and the nutrients from our food to the rest of the body. I thought it much like Valenwood in that way.

Sap slipped through the dried skin of the wall, gorges, and ravines between each cell filled with bitter-sap—poisonous sap. How the Thieves of the Wood lived in this mysterious Graht-Oak eluded me.

I think the guilt ate at me more than the hunger than the thirst, and the stink of my own sewage. Day in and day out, there was no sunlight; no fresh air to save me from the burning in my nostrils. But that paled in comparison to seeing their faces shaped in the grain of the wood that locked me in here and filled my world. Their names were like curses on my tongue.

Counting the days lessened my maddening. Every second of every minute of every hour. One scratch into the wood equaled one day. Today, I made my thirtieth scratch. It gave me something to do. It's easier to think about the days that pass then thinking about the day when I meet my end.

The darkness coupled with the memories can creep its way in at times. Milkar's too easy death, the brutality of Ceril's and Sickle Ear's execution. I would have ended my own life if I had something to end it with. My fingernails were ground down to flesh from counting, the walls were bare but rough, like bark but metallic, and I didn't think to slam my skull on the bark would do the trick. I've managed to kill five guardsmen who thought to reach for me through my cell's leaf-veil. But there was always a back up to bound me. Starving myself didn't work out either. The body of mortals is more resilient than one might think. Fail-safes left by the gods prevent us from it like the body has some involuntary responses to thirst and hunger that takes over. The next thing you know, you gorged yourself on the rotten goop they give you for food.

Most of all, I missed them. I miss them so much, it hurt. I should've known what was going to happen; I should've trusted in my own prerogative. My beautiful brothers are gone. Ceril with her charm. My Elren. Esmond, Gwendalyn, Sickle Ear, and all the others were gone now. I was kept alive. Me? I'm good for nothing. I will never amount to anything. Their blood is on my hands.

A small cup, a tenth filled, slipped through the Greenleaf flap. I swooped it up, careful not to spill its meager contents and threw it back down my throat. The water was only enough to wet the mouth. This was torture. Monsotar was trying to break me.

Whispers began to form on the other side of the leaf veil. A stern, commanding muttering.

The leaf veil peeled up, and Rindiel framed the exit. My heart beat against my chest, and I cowered by the very sight of him. Through the wetness of my sewage, I slipped to the corner, my breathing to erratic to control. Rindiel grimaced and frowned with pity.

'Come,' he said.

'Please, don't hurt me. Please.' I meant it.

'I cannot promise you anything.' He glanced at two other thieves behind him and chucked his head forward.

The two thieves moved in, tight grins on their mouths. I pushed myself against the wall, clawing at it to stretch further. 'Please, don't hurt me! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!'

'He wants to see you.'

My eyes widened. 'No! No!'

My blood throbbed in my veins. I swirled on the first thief and caved his nose into his brain with an elbow. He fell quickly, face first into the brownness. The other flinched and slipped in the muck. I tried to claw pass Rindiel, but he had his Ranseur at the ready. He tapped it to my chest, sending a shockwave of light energy through my body. I slammed to the far wall of my prison and dropped to the ground. The fight went out of me as quick as it came.

'You are to get washed up and speak with Monsotar.' Rindiel approached, but I was too weak to fight him off.

He grabbed my hair and dragged me into the corridor. More of their number held me down. More molesting hands reaching on me, fondling, poking, attacking me. I cried.

Buckets of water splashed. My body was exposed for all to see. They jeered and snickered. They licked their lips, eyes rolling over me. More buckets, more water.

They gave me a girl's tunic, too tight as if previously owned by a child. Blood crusted on the groin area. Old blood.

What did I make of this? How low have my life had fallen? Where did I lose? When?

I sat in a small, guarded room, feeling the wood of the ground with my feet. The walls were grey and unrefined, like the high walls of Shimmer Root. The stink of hardened sap, sweet and high, raised into my nose. Like a wet metallic resonating from a smithy's cooling pool.

Rollyn taught me to distinguished smells of prominent wood. Iron-Bark, I knew it from a simple description. Long extinct, that was impossible. The war with the Daedra sought to that. They were stolen from our lands and disappeared. Only forged and carved remnants were said to remain in Valenwood. I tossed the thoughts from my mind. There were no Iron-Bark trees left, and if they were, they were my father's birthright.

I counted about three dozen Mer, mixed of blood, but all a descendant of Bosmer. The Thieves of the Wood stuck to their own but betrayed who they were.

Fear ran in me. Why wouldn't it? I watched Monsotar kill my friends without a single shred of remorse in him. We were mere bugs stinging a giant to the point he clapped us dead. That begged the question of why I was spared.

The slow thud of Rindiel's boots brought me to attention. He framed the door and entered the room. I couldn't look Rindiel in the eyes. He had Elren's eyes, his nose, his lips… They told a story of pity and trustworthiness. I trusted Elren. And when Milkar asked me to trust him, I didn't. Now he's dead. Elren's uncle grabbed the bend of my arm and pulled me into a winding corridor.

We were in a Graht-Oak that much I put together. A strange kind filled with rooms and halls and nowhere to go. Whereas in Shimmer Root lived a grove in a cavity of wide open space; this tree was more of a dark prison.

I stumbled as the corridor deposited us in front of two grand leaf-veils. Life was the veins that crisscross the planes of a leaf. Paths to follow and paths to steer clear. But even on a leaf, eventually, all paths lead to the edge.

'Leila,' Rindiel said. There was something off about the way he spoke. A cusp of sympathy bordering a sea of malevolence. I looked up at him. 'Something horrible is about to happen.' He looked down at me, this time all emotion seemed to have left his eyes and fell to his tongue. 'Think of my nephew,' he said, finally.

The leaf-veil peeled upward toward the ceiling, and he pushed me in. My feet touched the cold, carved floor. My body shivered despite the fire salts baking in oiled sconces in staggered rows along the grey walls that stretched down to a rounded nook. But before a dais led towards the darkness of the back wall, a long table, decorated with a meal so grand it seemed only fit for a king, stood. It was a dining hall. One such, I've only ever seen in the homes of Treethanes.

From the start and rolling down the length of the table, shimmering ivory and silver dishes and silverware peppered every finger's length of the table. But the smell…that divine smell of roast floated my nose and unleashed the floodgates of my mouth, causing monsters to roar in my belly. I grew mad with hunger and saw no reason to restrain bombarding the table to sate my starved body. That was until I saw who sat at the other end.

Peering behind steepled hands, Monsotar watched me with such intensity, it made my teeth rattle. I turned to go. There's a thing; if you must run, try running towards something, that way it always seems like you're running faster than you really are. Rindiel allowed the pommel of his Ranseur to clank the ground. A beam of light shot me in the chest and threw me to the ground. I crawled and latched his legs.

'Please, no. Please don't leave me here. Please.'

Rindiel said nothing. I hoped for some words. Anything to hear the emotion and remorse in them. Anything which to tell he felt any sort guilt for doing this to me. Anything other than that blank stare.

'Papa, who's that?' A voice, high and sweet.

'She's my dinner guest, Montedor.'

'Oh,' the boy said. 'Is that why I can't eat with you, Papa?'

I struggled to stand, to get a good look at him. I would burn that little boy's face in the folds of my grey matter. A memory for the ages. I will rove over it until time stopped ticking and the last man, mer, and Beastfolk become dust.

Monsotar rubbed his son's head. The boy was a replica of his father. Those dark eyes and strident features to cut an edge. He would grow into them. Monsotar never took his eyes from me.

'Montedor, why don't you head on out with Rindiel?' Monsotar nodded towards Rindiel. 'Might you give him some lessons?'

Rindiel nodded and waited until Monsotar's son was at his side. He spared me a final glance before disappearing behind the leaf-veil. I closed my eyes, wishing I was somewhere else. Since leaving home with Tutor Rollyn all those years ago, I never felt my age. This day, this hour, I finally felt the little girl I was always supposed to be. And I was scared.

'The Black Raven,' Monsotar said from his end of the table. 'It has a ring to it.' His hand found a Spider Lychee and took a bite.

I inched towards the leaf-veil.

'Sit down.' He pulled out a chair. 'Have some food, you must be starved.'

Monsotar pursed his lips and took his seat again. He grinned and shook his head. 'I'm sorry about your friends.'

I said nothing.

'What would you have me do? Allow Milkar to do as he pleases? Your family's arrogance has never been checked in the history of Valenwood. From the farmers of your forefathers to the warriors that walk around with the Lockharte chip burdening your shoulders, your pride is innate.'

'I watched my father disown me; I watched you kill my brothers and my friends. You think I care about having pride? Pride is all I have left.'

Monsotar considered me for another moment before finishing his fruit. 'Eat.'

'I have no appetite.' I lied. It took everything in me to hold my legs in their place before I devoured every morsel before me.

He grinned, showing a row of pearly whites. 'You're going to die.'

'Is that not what you want?'

'If I wanted you dead, Young Raven, you wouldn't be standing here. There's something more.'

For the youngness of Nirn, Y'ffre gave his blood and body and wisdom to the Bosmer. For Valenwood, his final resting place, he taught us the Green. For me, he gave me darkness. 'Something more?'

'You wondered about these forests playing a criminal. Children like you, with so much power in your hands dabbling around forces you do not understand. That was your brother's demise; his downfall was always misunderstanding the world. Or, perhaps, he knew what he was getting himself into and led you all to believe something different.' He circled around, his steps slow and calculated. 'You poked and prodded. Was it so hard to believe we would wake up and retaliate?' Monsotar shrugged.

As he grew near, I clambered away. That leaf-veil wasn't going to open; not unless he wished it.

'What was it that you were trying to stop? The desolation of Bosmer culture? The corruption in Silvenar and Falinesti? The spread of my influence? I have never initiated the span of any of these just so you know. The fall of Valenwood was not of my doing. This isn't the romanticized dream you see behind those lids of yours, Raven. These forests, these trees, they are the Thalmor's now. That's what the people wanted, and that's what they're going to get. There is no more Valenwood. No more Boiche or Tree-Sap people. The Greenpact is a thing of meager existence. There is only Alinor and the Aldmeri Dominion. But, of course, children will always be children. You lived the dream of social justice and canonized a sole view. In the end, you've become nothing more than terrorists making fragmenting but a small piece of a larger world.'

'You're wrong,' I said. 'We only wanted to stop the Tam'Akar. But we needed cooperation from the officials to do so. We couldn't do that if you had them under your thumb.'

'Stop the Tam'Akar from what?' Monsotar asked. 'Stop their false inquisition? You think Aridiil cares about the savages that live in the mud of our province?' He laughed. 'Milkar has washed your mind.'

'What?' His words were beginning to lose me.

'You can blame your own mother for Aridiil's interest in the Greenpact tribes. If she hadn't hidden her power amongst them. They would all be safe rather than on the verge of extinction.'

'My mother?'

'And Milkar,' he said. 'Didn't you know that?'

'I—'

'Of course, you didn't,' Monsotar mocked.

'You're lying.' I shook my head. I wanted nothing more than to kill him, but fear stayed hands. Fear of what he might do, or what I might lose.

'No, I am not.' He wagged a finger. 'And the best thing about all this is that I am trying to stop him. And your brother tried to ruin that. All because he was angry at me.'

'I can't.' I covered my ears. 'I can't listen to these lies!'

'Milkar came to me first. Many, many years ago. Probably when he was your age.' He nodded at that, his eyes flickering back to a memory. 'As arrogant then as he was when I ended him. It's such a shame really. Such a waste of endless potential. Your brother knew I worked to hold back the tide that was the Tam'Akar. Their inquisition of our people is inevitable, but at least I was going to buy some time. At least I was facing off against them in a battle of maneuvering rather then setting a flame to kindle war. Your brother was radical. He came to me asking for war; he wanted to drag it out in the shadows. Like what you were doing for the past year.' Monsotar paced again. 'He even took Esmond, my most loyal Crow to do it. I could see why Esmond followed him too. Milkar was charismatic, and Esmond wanted revenge on his father.'

There was a silence between us. Monsotar roved over to the table, twirled a utensil then set it down. 'There's no stopping them. They'll come. Full force. Your idea of stopping them was to kill the only people who know what they are. You were detrimental to your own cause.'

'Milkar could've stopped that tide, but you killed him.'

'Just like Aridiil, your brother's real goal was to find the Ghost Flame.'

I froze. A trail of bumps rising and fallen down my spine. He watched me, and I felt vulnerable, too vulnerable. I hid where there was nowhere to hide. In my mind, with my ghosts. The pain hid here too, waiting for me. Milkar's face, the words he spoke. Aranwen, Ceril, Sickle, Esmond, and Gwendalyn. And all the other people that have touched my life. Where was Elren? Where was Rollyn? They were nowhere. I wanted my mother when I had none. I was alone, I always was. Just myself against the blackness of the Void.

Before I realized, Monsotar was at my feet.

I scrambled and flailed as if drowning at sea, taking on too much water. The weight of Valenwood rested on me, and it was too heavy. I couldn't take it; I couldn't breathe. Monsotar pulled me up from my arms and threw me to a chair. My limbs couldn't break the spell of panic; the choking world gathering in my lungs.

Milkar, Elren, Rollyn…and even you, Father. Save me. Save me, please. In that instant, I didn't think I could hate those four more than anything else on Nirn.

'It isn't that Ara's Ghost Flame is some all-compassing power that spans over,' he counted on his fingers, 'three schools of magic?' He smiled. 'It carries a sort of command. One measly little spell won't be enough to take on the brunt force of the Empire, no matter how weak it might have become, but it's when people hear the name, they will be reminded about what it was used for. The bastard of the Septim line may have closed the gates, but it was your mother that led the charge to protect Valenwood against the biggest horde Tamriel had ever seen. That sort of legend shakes foundations to its core. Why do you think the Thalmor started its inquisition?' He raised an eyebrow amusingly. 'The Altmer are still scared; still confused over how a single human from the north conquered all of Tamriel where they couldn't even unite the Bosmer under the same banner until recently. And now the men of the Empire worship the first of the Septims as a god.'

'Why? Why are you telling me this? The truth of my brother, the Thalmor and their Tam'Akar. What is your purpose?'

'Ah. The point of all this is. I know what your goal is. I know what you want. You made your brother a promise, and you still wish to hold on to it. The problem you're facing is that I killed your brother. Honestly, a bit of an impulse, I admit.' He grinned. 'I've been said to have a temper at times.'

'I will never help you!'

That grin of his fell satisfyingly flat. 'And that is where we have a problem.' Something in his personality changed in almost an instant. Where the shrewd and calculating intelligence once reigned, a new Bosmer usurped it. Wildness set to his eyes, and his lips drew back like a wolf ready to kill. I saw the blackness in his soul then, an evil unkindness.

Feeling his fingers begin to lace and intertwine with my hair, I tried to stand. My movements hungered for food. He was fast and struck accordingly. A fist to my jaw then he held tighter and slammed my head into the table. The silverware clattered and dance. My blood spilled from the wound to the table. I stood up, the pain not registering to my mind just yet, but it came. He came with it. I held up a cross-block with shaky arms, and Monsotar's fist slammed into it. The power of his assault sent me hurdling back. I crashed against the wall, ejecting blood through my teeth. His knee came in quick, crushing my sternum with an audible crack. A deep breath felt like knives swimming in my lungs.

'You tried to end everything I worked for, Leila Lockharte. Or should I continue to feed your dreams of grandeur and call you the Black Raven?' He let out a shrill laugh. 'The Black Raven of Shimmer Root.' I looked at him through swollen eyes, barely conscious. 'That really does have a ring to it.'

I tried to cry, but the only thing I could muster was a bloody hiccup.

Think of Elren.

My eyes began to shut, darkness shrouding my mind. Think of Elren. I trembled.

Wetness overtook my body, ice and frost to shock my world. An artic to wake the senses. I gasped alive and saw my body soaked; Monsotar holding a pitcher.

'You've killed members of my family and took their livelihood. That's unforgivable, Young Raven. Very selfish. And yet, I offer you my hospitality and a way to keep your brother's memory. What do you do?' Monsotar brought his finger to his mouth and tapped his lips. 'You throw it back at me.' He lifted a leg and struck my rib, pelting me over. 'Why is that? I want to know. You've starved on food I wouldn't feed a Fellhog, and here you are, denying such a great meal.'

He dragged me to the dining table, fingers laced through my hair. I could smell the roasted meat even over my own blood. Even then, it made my stomach growl. 'When I say eat—you must eat!'

I pushed away again, earning another bang with the table. More clattering of plates and forks.

'I think you'll be pleased for what we're having for dinner! Look.'

I watched the meat then. Still steaming—still succulent and moist. I watched and watched. And then I realized for what it was. I eyed a steak, a perfectly cut squire made to look like a sirloin. I saw it, inked lines, zigzagging to the point of butchering. The sigil of the Raw Tooth tribe. I heaved though there was nothing to heave, blood maybe. I fell from the table, tears falling, teeth chattering, and my world spinning.

'I'm sure it's tasty,' Monsotar said. 'Take a bite. I know you're hungry.'

Through my pain, I heard him take up the meat. My friend's flesh—her flesh. I promised them that I would protect her, and I didn't. And now this…

Monsotar pushed it against my lips, and I pursed tight. He squeezed the roasted flesh; the smell of it was sweet.

Since the first time I left my home, I knew I was different. I knew there was something in me that would snap before anyone could bend it. I truly was a puppet, I didn't care, my dark fires were all that mattered. I would burn Nirn if I could carry ruin to every corner, but I will not eat my friends.

I glimpsed a steak knife that had fallen from the table. I reached for it quickly and brought it across Monsotar's face. It didn't produce the desired results—Monsotar still lived. A new red line striping his cheek. He let the blood run free and took a step back, smiling… laughing, even. I tried to stand but couldn't. I tried to raise my hand but couldn't. I just couldn't.

He stretched his arms out, like a bird about to take flight. 'Why are you so against it?' He asked. 'You wanted to protect the Greenpact Bosmer. You wanted to see their flourishment in this world that changes and abandon culture like that behind. You wanted that conservatism, did you not? Or were you acting on the impulse of a child with no grounds? A child with power and skill but a feeble, naïve mind?' He began to growl. 'They feed on their own kind. Eat them right from the dirt from where the killing blow was administered. They wander the dirt like insects, naked, their genitalia exposed to the world. Fucking and sucking each other in orgies of feral ignominy. That is what you wanted. And yet you refuse to eat their flesh? Do you think Chieftain Gleril's daughter would have hesitated in devouring your corpse?' He eyed me as if waiting for an answer. 'You'd be scat by now.'

Monsotar's vest dropped to the floor. Blood from the wound I dealt streamed down his cheek, rolled to the peak of his cheek, and dripped on to his chest. Drip. Drip. Drip. And more fucking dripping. Next, his pants dropped. I watched the blood slide down the hills and valleys of his belly and down his legs. I watched that line of blood escape and pool onto the ground.

I got up and ran. The charge made me crash against the leaf-veil sending it ajar, just a bit. A tiny sliver of freedom calling out to me. Yearning me to come forth. I could hear Monsotar's feet squelching closer, slowly. I banged and banged. But no one came. Not Rollyn, not my father, not my mother, or my brothers. Not even Elren came. Even when I thought of him, he didn't come.

Monsotar held the collar of my tunic and threw me back towards the table. I landed hard, fracturing another rib. I cried out loud this time. I cried hard and didn't have it stop. The pain oozed in me then out of me. I did this. This was my fault; I should've walked away from Milkar that night. I should have killed the raven. I saw it then, still with its emerald gem lodged in its beak, sitting in the darkest corner. Monsotar grabbed me again, ripping that old, little tunic from me and turned me to. I had nothing else on.

He lowered his mouth to my ear. I felt the air leave his nose, I heard his breathing and smelled his scent. 'The Black Raven of the Woods.' He chuckled. 'Now that has a good ring to it.'

I stared towards that slightly ajar leaf-veil. I stared until I saw the eyes of a small boy. A child that was supposed to be off with his lessons and smiling and playing. His eyes were innocent, and they reminded me of Elren's.

Pushed up against the table, bent at the waist, head down, I couldn't move. I couldn't think for anything.

As he entered me, I wept for my brothers and my friends and the Silver Crescents that died because of me. As he entered me, pulling and pushing and grunting, I no longer felt of myself. The bloodlust the pumped through me withdrew with each sob and each plea for him to stop. There was no longer love, no longer that mercy I pride myself to keep. As he entered me, what little innocence I wanted to hold was gone. As he entered me, Monsotar took me into him. The Void mangles you—it takes your soul and makes something different of you. As the blood ran down my legs, Leila Lockharte left with it.

Only disaster remained.