Cearbhail:

I'm so so sorry about the time it's taken for me to do this. For all of you who don't know, I'm on facebook now. The link is on my personal page. But... if you check there, you will see that I've been busy planning a D&D world (I'm a DM now, I guess). So, I've been doing all this for my friends and it's kept me from doing what I enjoy... making characters and imaging stories with worlds... shab... D&D is exactly like that. Only it's my own this time. I have character sheets up on the facebook page for all my NPC characters I play as, as well as the player characters everyone else created. Trust me... you can tell the difference. You all know what I come up with... and it's a stark contrast with everyone else's stories that I tried to recapture in my own words (most of the time with their nagging voices telling me 'it's wrong'.)

Anyway, I'm back. And next week, I have a major weekend planned. Shoutmen, Commonwealth, and hopefully Assassins Den. And of course, more of this. So... major reveal.

=^^= Enjoy...

[Davilia]

I never thought that air could smell so good. With no more ammonia from all the urine polluting the air and my lungs, I could feel my head beginning to liven up again. I mean, I could still smell the damp musty air that all dungeons had but at least it wasn't ancient blood and feces. My body was still shaking from everything that I had encountered, but now that I was out of the room, facing a long hallway, one that seemed to stretch on forever.

It was a stark change from where we just came from. I mean, we just left a chamber filled with blood and bodies, mutilated from some kind of sadistic necromancer Vatu had experienced on his first cave dive, or something akin to a cave dive. The hallway was a well-lit, white corridor with hanging candle lanterns; doors lined almost every few meters on both sides of the hallway. Comparing this hallway to the environment we just came from… I wasn't sure we were even in the same dream anymore.

"Ok… where are we?" I asked around.

Hans only shrugged, shaking his head. "I would wager we're currently in Vatu's progression tunnel."

"His what?" Primrose asked while she was blowing all the crap she gathered on her robes off with some Air magicka. We're still covered in all the crap we collected while we were in that bloody draining pool. I already did what I could to blast the crap off me, and it did little to help. I can't get rid of the smell, but Illusion does a lot to make me think it's gone.

It was then that I saw the small Nexa, an impossible cute girl with long lavender feathers, walked up to us, crossing her arms. "I'm not sure what he's referring to, but this is a tunnel that goes further into Vatu's mind. From where we are now, the surface mind, one with first impressions and first interactions are common, all the way to the deepest recesses of Vatu's unconscious mind, to where his ego and his id battle for control. The further we head through this tunnel, the deeper we will get into Vatu's mind space."

Hans sighed. "We'll be slowly raping Vatu's personal thoughts." He glanced at me, giving me a look that reminded me of how I just got done talking to a virtual image of Vatu's personification of myself. I might have broken his perception of me only because I wanted to clarify that I'm not racist.

I turned away from him, looking back at the childlike Nexa. "So… is this what you really look like?'

Nexa shrugged. "I hope so?"

Well… I guess she wouldn't know for certain then. "Why are you still a child? I mean… we're out of that place, so… shouldn't you return to your normal self?"

She shrugged at that question too. "I don't write the rules here, I just exist within them."

Hans chuckled at her answer, walking over and patting her on the back. "I know the answer, young sprite. Since we're not in a specified time place for Vatu, you're still the same age as the last place we visited. As we enter any other places of Vatu's mind, we'll eventually find different periods of time in Vatu's mind. You'll likely stay your current age, or you might take on the age of whatever Vatu is at the time. If you're younger than Vatu, you'll likely vanish altogether, but… I haven't met any sprite that's aged in the progression tunnel before."

Nexa only glanced up at Hans. She looked forlorn. "It's not fair." She only said as she sighed, looking down the corridor. She stepped in front of us, extending her arms to the doors ahead of us. "Every single door is a memory, a small glimpse into Vatu… everything he is and why. And the further we go into this place, the further into Vatu's mind we'll go. Each door has its own corridor, more doors that explain his surface thoughts, going deeper and deeper until you find the exact thought he had about every little instance of that memory. And yet… while I'll know this, he won't. And neither will the… real me. The me that probably loves him. She gets to be with him… maybe. And I'll be here, changing and evolving with every new thought and memory of her… changing to what he thinks of her… not who she really is. I'm just a … sprite. A figment of the imagination, a placeholder for everything thought and felt for the real Nexa."

The look in Hans' eyes told me everything I needed to know. He was expecting this from Nexa. I don't know how many minds he's climbed through, but I can see just how often he's experienced this very thing. This has to be a thing that occurs too many times for him. Maybe in every mind he's raided, he's experienced sprites that act like this. So, was my mind this complex inside too? If he went into my mind, would I find things like this? My head was spinning at the thought of what I might find inside myself if I ever tried to ponder inside it like I was doing with Vatu.

"Um… sir?" I glanced up at Hans. "So… if I asked you if we could enter my mind next?"

His eyes shot up, and he gave me the sternest look I've ever received from him. "Never, under any circumstances, are you to astral project yourself into your own mind. Any tampering, any knowledge you gain from yourself would crush your mind in an instant. You saw how your interactions with Vatu's perception of you almost crushed his image of you. Now, imagine you're looking at your own mind, learning something you shouldn't know. Now it's common, and it's changing your mind, which you experience, and then it changes again… and again… and again. You will overthink yourself to a point where your mind will crush your astral form. You will die in your mind."

"Wait…" Primrose held up her hands, stepping up to Hans. "If our astral forms die…. We die?"

Hans nodded. "Yes… I thought we covered this."

That stopped both Primrose and me. Primrose brushed her hair out of her eyes and said, "NO! We did not discuss that, sir! That's new information."

Hans shrugged. "Right now, you're the mind's part of your soul. And if you remember Restoration class, as well as Mysticism class, you would know that the soul is a collection of three parts: the mind, emotion, and ambition. The astral form is part of your mind, so… one third of your soul. If you mind is shattered… there is no soul. Your body is a mindless husk. Never able to be woken up, basically in a coma. Even if we repair your mind, it will be a fresh soul, not the same one you had before. A brand-new person. So… yeah." He nodded. "If you die here, you die… metaphysically anyway." His eyes narrowed. "I once astral projected into a guy that had already died once… mentally, anyway. I got to see the fragments of his other mental self… a broken shattered frozen form of his old mind… he was shattered by an Illusionist when he was… hmm… about Vatu's age." Hans glanced down at me. "By some Illusionist that was too curious about what her friend thought of her."

"OK, I get it." I sighed and turned around. "Let's get this over with."

Primrose looked down at her blood-covered robe. "And all I'm wearing are bloody robes with a staff that shoots a tiny ball of light…great." She sighed as she slid down against the wall. "Davilia, just leave me here because I'm sure I'm not making it through this. I'm going to die in Vatu's mind."

I walked over to Primrose and grabbed her by her sleeve. "Nuh-uh. I am not going alone with Hans the Judgmental, gender-switched girl Pra'ja, and a loli assassin that has yandere levels of animosity towards anyone even remotely close to Vatu Nexa."

Nexa blushed. "Aww… such nice words. I almost don't want to kill you now."

I rolled my eyes as I looked back down to Primrose. I pulled her up on her feet. "Besides, you'll be fine. Why do you think you are going to die?"

Primrose sighed. "I used to read books about a team of adventures that go off and fight evil. Sometimes, it would be the same team and sometimes there would be a last addition to team. …It always ends with the new guy dying… and that's me. I'm the new person in your team. I'm not even wearing armor, and I'm carrying a staff that just lives off a small light. Look at me!" She waved her arms down her blood-stained witch robe. "I'm covered in red blood! RED! We all know that red shirts always die!" Well, that's just pure speculation. Correlation does not equal causation. "Even though, I'm pretty sure I knew Vatu before you or Erandur." And that's also speculation.

Pra'ja held up her hand, interrupting Primrose. "Whoa, girlfriend. I'm pretty sure I knew Vatu well before any of you."

To that, Nexa only smiled. "I'm pretty sure I'm killing all of you anyway, so… it won't matter in the end."

Primrose glanced down. "I could have sworn I met Vatu in Chorrol when we were children. We were just tiny things, probably three or four, but Bosmer have a great sense of smell. And I remember this young Khajiit, running around without a shirt, his bright tiger stripes and long hair, he looked just like Vatu. We played together for a few hours before his mom came to pick him up. I remember his mom calling him by name. Vara, but… it must just be a nickname for Vatu. Or I might have misheard it. But I'm sure of it. He smelled like Vatu, his name was just like Vatu's, and he has the exact same stripes as Vatu."

"Ok, we're done standing here like jackasses." Pra'ja said as she started walking ahead. "I want to go back to being my real form. And the sooner we find a newer memory of me, the sooner I can shift myself back to my real self."

"Me too." Nexa said, walking up to Pra'ja. "I can fight better if I'm not some child assassin. Probably."

The rest of us followed behind the two Argonians as they led us down the long corridor. I watched as we passed by doors, doors marked with names. Names of places, events, people. I saw my name come up near one of the closest doors, as well as everyone else in our battlemage program. I saw a door with Pra'ja's name, but it was scratched out with claw marks with a nailed sign saying, "See Jowinpan." Which was also scratched out. "Now called Pra'ja." I'm guessing her new door, or well, older door, was further down, since Vatu knew Pra'ja for a long time. We passed by my door, as well as Erandur's not too much later, and I was so tempted to go into my door, to see his thoughts that involved me, but after seeing how many times Hans glared at me as we passed by the door, I suspected he didn't want me to view Vatu's thoughts about me.

"So… are we walking all the way through this corridor?" I asked Pra'ja and Nexa.

Nexa shrugged. "Maybe. I mean… we're trying to find where Vatu is trapped, right? He's in the deepest part of his mind. He could be at the end of the tunnel… or he might not be. He could be in any of these doors. We could check each and every door, especially any door that's relevant to me. Oh, Vatu's first date. I think I'll check this one out." She opened the door and all we heard was Vatu screaming internally. "Huh… sounds about right." Nexa closed the door.

Hans shook his head. "We could be trapped in here forever. If Vatu was trapped somewhere, it would likely be in his unconscious mind. That's… what five miles down this hallway, right?"

Nexa looked back at me. "How would I know? That's the Unconscious. I can't know about that, right?"

This whole scenario was so meta, that I would never be able to explain this to Vatu once he wakes up. That and… well, I'm so lost right now. I have no idea what anyone's talking about. I might as well just walk behind everyone else, peek into a few doors, and see what I can learn from Vatu's mind. As we went through his mind, I saw doors for people start to vanish, and we were suddenly looking at names of places, Bravil, Imperial City, and then to forts, dungeons. And suddenly, we were at doors that were like, "That one time I slipped and fell, ripping my pants, and embarrassing myself in front of my friends in this one dream I had when I was ten."

Ok… I opened that door, just to see what it was like. All I could see was this fuzzy image on the other side of the door where Vatu was standing in the middle of a rotating circle, Vatu covering himself as lots of kids and adults were poking their fingers at him, laughing maniacally as they watched him squirm to keep himself covered. And… there weren't words… not really. I mean, you expect narration of what was going on in the dream, but… it's like all of that were mentally projected into my brain. I could feel Vatu's fear, I could feel the scrutiny of the people judging him. I could feel what he was feeling, see what he was seeing, think what he was thinking. In a brief second as the memory played out, I actually felt like I was Vatu, and… some part of me understood him better. Maybe in just within the scope of the dream, but I felt like I was more connected to him now.

I closed the door behind me and resumed following behind Hans and Primrose. Hans cast me a small glance. "And what did you learn?"

The feelings pulsed through my mind, forcing me an answer even without me knowing. "Vatu has an innate fear of what people think of him, and how his outward appearance is a constant reminder that everything he is is on display for everyone to judge him for. Khajiits face the constant judgment from the other races as being nothing more than feral savage beasts, referred to as common trash or thugs, and are constantly being judged as nothing more than petty criminals and drug abusers. I…" I shook the thought out of my head. I was suddenly reminded of how I felt back when I lived in Morrowind… back home with Mom. I used to be in that umbrella… exactly how Vatu imagined. I used to be that child that would point my finger at him and laugh… just like everyone else.

Hans nodded. "And congrats… you see underneath the surface iceberg that is Vatu. One whole snowflake captured within a massive, immeasurable mountain of ice. You could spend years, eons traveling down this entire corridor, examining every thought… every dream, and at the end of those years, at the end of your natural life… you'd still only see a fraction of what makes Vatu, Vatu. You do realize that you have a whole new corridor dedicated to this part of Vatu's mind in your own mind… your own mind is expanding, your iceberg growing. Your mind just expanded due to your one interaction with Vatu's memory. Not saying this is a bad thing, but you will reflect what you take. We are all collections of experiences, ever changing due to the smallest of instances, interactions, dreams… whatever we encounter, forms us to who we are. Some of it's genetic, but the majority of it is our experiences. Something happened to Vatu to make him the way he is. And you just described it. His experiences with people have revealed a small portion of his fears to you. His fears of being seen for who he really is, and fearing that who he really is… is the same beast everyone already sees."

Man, Hans was getting deep on me. I know I should expect this from him, but for him to really drive this home… it was really messing with me. And I'm guessing that's his point. "And I'm in here… messing around."

He nodded. "Everything he is… is in here. Anything you distort, corrupt, change… forces Vatu to change too. However slightly. And you can never know if what you're changing is good… bad… or if it will break apart his iceberg, whether a small piece, or a huge crack that rips the whole thing apart will change him. Cracks will form, they will spread, and then… one day… Vatu will never be the same. He'll be a husk. He'll break." Hans clasped his hands around my arms, squeezing me tightly as he nodded to me. "I know because I was like you. I wanted to fix someone; I wanted to see how they saw me. And… I broke them. It wasn't obvious at first, but… I caused damage to their mind space. Now she won't be the same. I'll never see her again… not as she was. And I don't want that to happen to you. I don't want you to live with the guilt of killing your friend."

I nodded to Hans. "I get it, sir. I'll try to keep anything I see out of my hands."

"That's for the best." Hans replied. "We might have to go through Vatu's memories and thoughts. You can't change these, so I won't have to worry… but for each memory you witness, you will expand your own iceberg, growing it bigger… and if your iceberg grows too big, you might find more of your own memories ending up in the Unconscious. You might lose yourself to what you've experienced in here, just remember that. Playing in someone's mind is a lot like playing with your own. Keep in mind that you are who you are. You're not Vatu, no matter what you see, feel, or experience." He looked over to Primrose. "I want to make sure you both understand that. When we exit, you will probably know Vatu better than he knows himself… and you must never tell him. You can't share what we've uncovered in here. You must never tell him any secrets we uncover. We're already in his Subconscious… soon we'll be in his Unconscious… thoughts and feelings he cannot perceive unless he pulls them up forcefully. And it's best left behind if anything's in there. Otherwise… the iceberg might shatter. Remember that."

Primrose and I nodded.

And with that, we began our descent into Vatu's mind. Hans took the front of the formation. "Ok, we'll be heading into Vatu's Unconscious any second now. Vatu's mind is somewhere in here, I wager. So, we'll be checking every major door. If you see something strange, let me know."

The first door I walked up to was labeled 'first successful potty lesson.' I looked over to Hans. "Sir… do I really have to?"

Nexa shoved me away from the door. "I'll look." She opened the door, shoving her head inside. "Ok… it's not his." She shut the door. "Stupid younger sister." Nexa stomped her feet as she walked away. "Who remembers this crap?"

Hans chuckled. "Kind of the point, Nexa. We're in the Unconscious. This is where repressed memories end up. I think… I'm not really sure how it works. Our psychology department is underdeveloped due to the Illusionist Protection Laws of 3e 130."

Oh yeah, I remember hearing about that in my Beginner's Illusion handbook, in the history section that went into all the laws placed on our ability to do things like astral projection and mind alterations. One guy went into his patient's mind and basically wiped his whole memory of his ex-wife. He accidentally took more than that and the man ended up believing his was a dog for some reason. Then the Illusionist was shredded when the man turned into a werewolf before his eyes. Not a good day for that clinic. The IPL was passed to not only protect Illusionist from accidents like the one performed, but to also protect the client from ending up a situation where a part of their mind was taken away from them. Gone were the days of Illusionists manipulating minds to anyone not a coma patient, or a husk.

We continued down the hallway, coming up to more and more doors that sounded even more complex and confusing. "Breathing." "Seeing colors." "Everything 'important'." "Where I lost that one gods' damned toy that I loved as a three-year-old."

I opened each and every one of them, and they were all fuzzy memories. I guess Vatu was young in most of them, because I would see and think in limited ways. Things just blurring past me as I focused on anything else but the active memory, almost like I didn't/couldn't recall what was really going on. The 'breathing' section was… odd. I was just Vatu looking at a picture he drew and he was hyperventilating. Such an odd thing to be lost in the furthest recesses of his mind. There were also the times he walked in on his parents bathing. Or bathed with his sister. Or was pushed in mud by other kids for being a beast. There was also a time when Vatu was muzzled by older kids. Just… really messed up memories.

But there was one door that caused me to stop. It was simply labeled… 'Mommy'. It was a really old door, almost completely weathered away. That's… odd. I saw one labeled "Mom" further back. Was it a… different person? Someone Vatu thought of as a mother at some point in his life? It looked really old, like probably the oldest door around. I pulled the door open, glancing inside. There was just… a memory. The Khajiit woman holding onto a bundled baby, had to be Vatu. She was mumbling something to another Khajiit woman. And she shoved the baby into her arms. As the lady walked away, the baby held out their furry arm, and I watched as the woman stepped away, carrying another Khajiit cub in her arms. The woman was crying, and she waved goodbye to the baby as they left the area. The woman turned around, running as fast as she could to leave, the other baby clutched tightly in her arms.

There was a brief moment of sheer panic in Vatu's memory. All I could feel was this tremendous scream for 'mommy' in his mind. And I heard him scream, cry for her. The new woman pulled the baby up to her face, trying her best to comfort him. She hugged him close. And that's all this memory held. That how it ended.

I found myself just… standing there, watching a blurred frozen image. What did I just see? I'm not sure but… it looked like Vatu witnessed his mother abandoning him to… some other Khajiit. Is that… is that what happened?

Right beside the 'mommy door' was another door that looked old and ruined. It was labeled 'Vara'.

Curiosity was too strong. I opened the door and I saw the baby again. He was crawling on all fours, pawing his way up to another Khajiit cub. The cub giggled as he pawed his way up to them, and the two of them snuggled against each other, both purring. The image of a known scent entered my mind, a scent that inherently said, 'sister'.

"Vatu, Vara. Play nicely." I heard in the memory of Vatu's mind. The same Khajiit from earlier, the one that gave Vatu up was kneeling over the two kittens, smiling down at both of them. She reached down, rubbing them both behind their ears. "Don't worry… mommy's here."

The memory quickly faded away, and I found myself just… standing there. I was crying. Why was I crying?

I don't know, but I walked away from the door almost in a trance. I couldn't believe it. Vatu… he had a sister. And another mother. I had to tell him this!

But that's when I remembered… I'm not allowed to tell him anything we found in here. I know something about Vatu that will change his world forever… and I can't tell him it. Oh my gods, if this is payback for implanting the idea that I'm a subtle racist… it's very cleverly planted payback.

Hans glanced at me, at my mind-blown expressionless face stricken with tears. He smirked, practically laughing as he said, "Had your fill of curiosity kills the cat yet?"

I nodded. "Vatu has a sister. And a mother."

Nexa and Pra'ja laughed, Pra'ja more snorting than laughing.

"Well, of course. Duh!" Pra'ja laughed through her beak. "Her name is Nisha. She's always following him around."

My hand drifted up to the door I just walked out of. "No… Vara. He has a sister named Vara. And… his birth mother abandoned him to some other woman."

"What?" Primrose said, walking up to the doorway. "Vara?" She opened the door and witnessed the same memory I did. She exited almost in the same state I did, tears running down her face just like they were mine. "That's them… that's who I played with. Vara was their name… only… Vara's a girl, not a boy!" Primrose grabbed her head in dismay. "I've been crushing on a girl this whole time thinking it was Vatu ever since I smelled him during lunch hour!"

Nexa instantly stopped laughing. "Huh? Did I hear you're crushing on my boyfriend?"

Pra'ja only slapped Nexa across the back, still snorting. "Oh man… this is important. Too bad I can't tell Vatu about his sis. He'd be excited to find out."

"No." Hans said, walking over to us. "He can't know about this. Now… we can arrange an… accidental meeting between the two, and get them to meet. And… that way, it's revealed to him in a more… controlled natural way. To both of them."

That sounded more like a plan I could get behind. Vatu… has a twin sister. I never would have expected this. I don't think anyone could have. Did that mean that Nisha wasn't really his sister then?

"Primrose, you said you played with this Vara. Where was this?" Hans turned to the doorway, opening it up and witnessing the memory for himself. When he was done with the memory, he walked out with his eyes filled with tears just like me and Primrose.

Primrose looked at Hans, saying, "I played with her in Chorrol. Right outside the Great Oak."

"Chorrol. Ok then. We plan for Vatu to go to Chorrol at some point. We get him to meet his sister and then… we'll figure it out from there." Hans looked at both of us.

"Um… my dad lives in Chorrol. I could bring Vatu and Erandur to meet my dad. You know… Vatu makes a great third wheel friend and all that." I shrugged as I offered it as a suggestion. Vatu's always good for a third wheel between me and Erandur. I want Erandur to meet my dad anyway. I think the two of them would spend hours sparring with each other.

Hans nodded. "Good suggestion. We'll plan for that then."

Primrose held up her hand. "I also live right outside Chorrol so… wow. It seems like Chorrol is a pretty cool place for almost all of us to have personal ties to. Too bad it's right outside the war bubble."

Hans grunted at the comment. "Yeah… there is that. Perhaps we need to go visit Chorrol sooner rather than later. Talk to Erandur about it. And see if there can't be a detour to Chorrol at some point in time. If I plan for a scheduled mission between our current location and Chorrol, you'll probably end up at the town at some point. And then… detour. Sounds like a plan to me."

Nexa and Pra'ja started coming up with other plans, each one more convoluted than the next. Nexa's always routed back to some form of killing this surprise sister before Vatu could ever meet her. And Pra'ja just wanted to dress Vatu's sister up and see what Vatu might look like if he ever changed his form. I had to remember that the current mental Pra'ja had no idea what the real Vatu looked like as a girl.

I felt a chill come over my shoulder. And it drew my eyes to the very last door. One that I couldn't really see until now. It was labeled, "Daedra Attack." And that gave me chills.

Vatu always mentioned this to me and Erandur. He always recalled it in vivid detail. So… why? Why would it be in the Unconscious mind? He actively remembered this very memory. It has no place in the Unconscious. At least… I think that's the rules. Isn't it?

"Sir…" I pointed to the door. It was sealed off with red warning tape, black mist surrounding the whole thing. "I think this is what we're looking for."

Hans turned to look at me. "Well, I didn't see that. Odd…" He walked over, reading the title of the door. "The Oblivion Crisis. Hmm… that's well…" He looked over to me. "Girls, all four of you. You should stay here. Let me go in here."

Primrose stepped forward. "Sir… we came here to heal Vatu. If he's in there, we all need to go."

"You were all too young to remember this. It was… it was a massacre." Hans replied. "We lost a lot of good men and women. And if what Vatu told me is true… his family was right there, in the middle of it."

"More reason for us to go." I replied back. "We're the future battlemages. We need this experience. And our friend needs us."

Hans glanced at us, only nodding. "Ok then. But remember… we're not just wading through his memories… we're looking for where he's hiding. Things will be different. This could be something entirely different. This could be an alternate memory. Maybe even a dream. We'll never know until we enter."

"Then what are waiting for!" Pra'ja threw the door open, throwing herself inside. "The only way we're going to find out is to… crap, I'm still in this stupid body, and now I'm even younger!"

"Well, not a good sign then." Hans replied with a grunt. He turned to look back at us. "Well, girls. It's now or never."

I took a deep breath and jumped into the doorway, following behind Hans and Primrose. Well, here we go. Into the unknown… to and for Vatu.

Cearbhail:

So, obviously we need to address the new Khajiit sister thing. Yeah... Vara. She's a thing now. It came to me while I was working three nights ago. And I was like... I know what to do with this chapter now! And then I wrote this in two days' time. I had to find a way to connect her to Vatu's mother somehow and then realized... what if Vatu's mother isn't really... his mother. If you read the flashback in Rogue Shadowscale, called 'Slaves Rebel' you meet a Khajiit that lives in Chorrol. This is... Vatu's grandmother. Before the events of Morrowind by 40 years. So... yeah. Both her and her two daughers lived in Chorrol. And... that's where Vatu's mother and sister still live. With Grandma. In Chorrol. Either way... enjoy.