A thank to my betas! And a special one to Hydralisk for helping me give Sheo that extra twist.

Interlude 9

On the precipice of Madness

We purge ourselves in the duel.

Sheogorath will mend us.

We purge our friends in duel.

Sheogorath will mend them.

We purge our enemies in war.

Sheogorath will abandon them.

Speak not of the Duelists

Speak only of the duel

Speak not of the combatant

Speak only of the combat

-Liturgy of the Duelists-

Her boots echoed in the empty hallways, the impression of male shoes on the dusty floor, and the broken cobwebs on the frames of doors, guiding her way. Who was crazy enough to go into the haunted wing of Blue Palace on their own?

Room after room, the footprints stopped outside a closed door, with a golden butterfly engraved on the doorknob. Louise pushed the door open, and what she saw inside made her recoil in fear and disgust.

What she thought had been a single, palpitating organism, proved to be butterflies. Millions of them covering every single inch of that room. They rushed at her like a cloud of colorful wings. She tried to attack, "Yol…" but a butterfly ran into her mouth, turning her Shout into a cough.

As fast as they appear, the butterflies vanished in specks of light, and Louise found herself inside the chamber of what looked to be an old manor. The stone wall of… of… that place she'd been before, had been replaced by wooden ones, and in the middle of the room, there was a curtain hanging from the roof. She approached it. A lit fire on the other side cast moving shadows against the red fabric. The faint sound of animals she couldn't recognize came to her ears.

With a hand resting on the grip of her sword, she gripped the edge of the curtain and pushed it away. Her eyes widened as a groan of revulsion escaped her lips.

What were those? Daedra? Monsters? Something else?

There were three creatures seated around a table with four seats.

The first one was a grotesque mass of fat, hanging flesh, and mismatched limbs. Louise couldn't even see her feet, as they were covered in folds of yellow-green skin. The creature was naked, exposing her bloated breasts, and her slug-like face was covered in bright makeup.

The second creature was the complete opposite. It was a scrawny and unhealthily thin human child that reminded Louise of the mummies sealed in Nordic ruins. His… maybe her ribs? Protruded against her pale skin, and both her mouth and eyes were sewed shut. The only evidence that she was alive was the movement of her chest.

The last one was actually two beings, their torsos sewn together at the hip by a red thread. One body looked like a frog, with bubbling spit dripping from its mouth, and the other like a wild boar, it's hair covered in grime and mange.

The three of them were playing… something. Throwing dices with numbers Louise didn't recognize while passing cards seemingly at random. Catching a glance at the cards she realized that the figures in them were familiar to her. There was bald professor Colbert with a heavy padlock hanging from his neck. Éléonore was hunched back, as if in pain, and her green cat-like eyes were staring directly at Louise.

She tore her eyes away at the image of Cattleya, on her bed, surrounded by a funeral wreath.

"Who are you? Where am I?" She demanded.

The creatures ignored her demand. They didn't even seem to recognize her presence as they kept playing their game and talking in shrieks and barks.

She unsheathed her sword and pressed it against the face of the frog-creature, but not even that made them look in her direction.

"There's no use." A voice at her back startled her. "They don't listen. They never do. It's like we are invisible to them."

It was a girl, fourteen or even younger, seated against a corner. She was wearing a white dress and her entire head was encased in a white porcelain mask with two concentric black circles painted on the forehead. The little skin she showed suggested she was human, or at least more human than the creatures.

"This is the Playground." The girl continued, "Here they play while we suffer."

Louise tightened the grip of her blade. "Playground? What does it mean? How did you get here?"

Thinking about it… how had she gotten in there? She remembered… a mission, a request… the rest was a confusing fog of broken memories.

Maybe noticing Louise's distress, the girl cowered pressing her knees against her chest. Her dress rolled up, revealing the bruises that covered her legs.

Louise's confusion quickly turned into fury.

"Did they do this to you?"

The girl shook her head. "They didn't. They never touch me. Sometimes I wonder if that isn't worse." A chill ran up Louise's spine. "They just play there, and don't invite me."

Louise blinked twice, thrice. "They…" She threw a glance back at the creatures, "Don't invite you."

"I want to play with them!" The girl cried out, staring Louise in the eyes, "B-but… I don't understand their games, and I don't understand what they're saying. And I think they don't know I exist."

A scowl scarred Louise's face, "Are you serious?" She must have heard wrong, "Do you really want to play with them?" The girl nodded energetically, "Why would you want to do such a thing?"

"Because it looks fun, doesn't it?"

Louise looked at the creatures. They were laughing in nasal voices, passing slime-covered tokens between them. "No, it doesn't." She stated in disgust, making the girl flinch.

"But I want to be their friend!"

Louise wanted to be angry at the girl, reproach her wild fantasies. But she couldn't. There was something almost relatable there. "You should look for normal friends, and leave these ones to their own devices."

"Normal?" She asked, cocking her head, "How do you know I'm normal?"

"Because you look like me."

"But…" The girl fidgeted with the edge of her dress. "We're only two, and they are four. Wouldn't that mean they are the normal ones?"

Louise rubbed her temples, "If that's normal," She said throwing a thumb back at the creatures, "I'm glad to be different. Girl, you can do much better than this!"

"I… I still wished I could have been friends with them."

"Better alone than in bad company. You don't need them."

The girl raised her head to look at Louise. She was sure the girl was smiling behind the mask. "Maybe you're right."

Then the room started trembling. Louise lost her balance and fell to the ground.

"What is happening?" She asked, her voice muted by the sound of groaning wood and shattering stone.

"The Playground is falling apart!"

Louise pushed herself to her feet and tried to reach for the girl's arm to take her away. "We have to...!" But she was no longer there. Louise scanned the room in desperation, but the girl was nowhere to be seen.

The floor below her collapsed, and the last thing she saw was a fourth body seated at the table with the creatures, playing with them. It was a girl, just like the one she had met, but dressed in black and with an equally black mask.

A splashing sound. Water rushed into Louise's opened mouth that she spat out when she realized it was salty. Above her was the sky, and all around her was the infinity of the blue sea. There was nothing but water in every direction.

"What the…" Something hit her on the back of the head interrupting her curse, "What is this?" What had hit her was a floating plank of wood. A plank that had probably fallen from one of the many shipwrecks that dotted the place and hadn't been there a moment ago. There were dozens of them, posibly more. Some were big, some were small, some had the green color of rotten wood, and others the brown of rusted metal.

The wreckages floated past her, and suddenly she could no longer see the line of the horizon. She had been surrounded by them.

With a titanic rumble, two massive hulls crashed together. They were taller than the tallest tower she'd ever seen, and made of metal that bent and crumbled with the hit.

She had to swim to the side to evade the falling debris, but if she didn't get out of there she'd certainly die.

There was a chain hanging from the side of one of the hulls that she took a hold of. Pulling herself up, she started climbing. She reached a railing, climbed over it, and with an echo of hollow metal her feet landed on the main deck.

"What happened here?"

Scared by her sudden arrival, a seagull squawked at Louise before flying off with the remaining eye of the rotten skull it had been picking.

Just like the sea was covered in wreckages, the deck was covered in corpses. Men, women, old and young. Some were humans and others were not. Some were rotten carcasses covered in meat, and others were nothing more than white bones.

Stepping around them, she walked to the bow hoping to get a better view from there. What she saw took her breath away. Where had all those ships come from? Her numbers had been far off, as she realized the wrecked hulls numbered the thousands. Not two of them were the same, and just like the one she was in, they were all covered in the rotten carcasses of the crew.

She also saw some ships, far away, that had lights on them and were sailing away from that graveyard of ships. She tried to signal at them, waving her arms, but there was no use. There was no way they'd see her.

"Shit." She cursed, but not everything was lost! From her position she could also see a small patch of land, an island in the middle of the sea of dead ships. It was barely big enough to accommodate a big manor, but from what she could see, there was someone in there. "Hey, you! Can you hear me?" There was no reply, but Louise didn't give up.

There was one remaining lifeboat strapped to the side of the ship. She cut the ropes and used it to reach the island.

With her feet sinking in sand, she called again, "Hey, you…" Then she shut her mouth in surprise. The figure she'd seen, the one that was on her knees at the very center of the island, was the same girl from earlier. "What's going on here?" She muttered to herself.

Louise circled the girl to face her, and that was when the noble realized there was a difference. The girl had the same body shape, the same white clothes, but her mask was different. Instead of the concentric circles, half of the mask was painted black with a single white eye. "It's all my fault." The girl sobbed.

"What do you mean?"

"I did this. I failed them. I killed them. That's why they abandoned me."

Louise looked around. The number of shipwrecks was beyond count, and if each one was filled with corpses like the one she'd been in…

"How could you do this?"

"I was stupid. I was so stupid. I didn't know what I was doing, and I made so many stupid mistakes."

A shadow crossed over Louise's face. How many times had she heard herself speaking like that? "All mistakes are stupid. That doesn't mean it's your fault."

"It was my fault. It's always my fault."

"Not it isn't!" Louise cried out, "Look… sometimes bad things happen. We accept them, roll with them, and get better."

"I should have known better."

The taste of blood washed in her mouth and Louise realized she was biting her own lip. "Yes, and?" She tried and failed to keep her voice leveled. "The important thing… The important thing is to never give up. You make mistakes, it's too late to fix them but you can still do better."

The girl started sobbing, pressing her palms against her chest, "That's what mother used to say."

"Yeah… mine too." Louise sat at her side and gave her a one-armed hug, "I miss her."

"I wonder if she isn't better without me. Do you think I'll ever see her again?"

Louise felt her eyes getting misty, "I don't know." She took a deep breath, "And you know what? I don't care, and you shouldn't either!"

"But…"

"But nothing! Yeah, life's hard, it's unfair, and it hates us. But do you know something? We're harder, and we… we will kill life itself if she dares to keep messing with us!"

The girl giggled, "That… does sound nice."

"Now come, no one's going to save us so we'll have to save ourselves." She took her hand and lead her towards the lifeboat, "It's not much, but my boat will take us out."

"Where will we go?"

"We'll pick one direction and follow it."

"That sounds dangerous."

"It is! But it's better than staying here, doubting and paralyzed in fear. We'll keep moving and find a way to survive along the way. That has served me so…"

Her words were violently interrupted by a lightning strike that hit the island. Dazed, and with her ears ringing, Louise shook her head to bring her eyes back into focus. She was alone.

"Girl? Where are you!?"

The island cracked and trembled in fury as if a volcano had erupted underneath. Louise's body was hurled back into the sea, and as the furious waves clashed against her, the last thing she saw was that black figure with the black mask staring at her from the deck of a departing ship.

Up and down had lost their meaning. Louise found herself underwater, with no reference to where she was. She saw a light and swam towards it. Her lungs were burning when she broke through the surface and discovered that the deep sea had turned into a fountain, and her feet were now touching its shallow floor.

"This is getting ridiculous." She grunted as she climbed out. The fountain was in the middle of a courtyard… wait a minute! That was the Vestry Court! She was at the Academy of Magic!

Or, at least, the Academy of Magic if Mehrunes Dagon had taken over and twisted it to his liking.

The courtyard was surrounded by tall walls, the sky above was painted in shades of reds and blacks, and on the roofs there were fire pits spitting dark smoke.

The only way out from there was a single pair of tall doors, each one with a door knocker in the shape of a furious lion. Or was it a Manticore?

Accepting the challenge, Louise walked to the doors that she proceeded to push open. On the other side there was a hall, bigger than some villages she'd seen. In the middle of it was a ring of fire surrounding an iron cage, and connected to the cage were three chains, each one leading to the hands of three statues, more than three meters tall, stationed around the ring.

Inside the cage, there was a still figure.

Checking her surroundings, Louise approached cage only to be stopped by a disembodied voice.

"Stay back, child! Save yourself from the Beast's fury!"

She looked up at the statues, her eyebrows knitted together. She recognized them as the statues of women, even if their faces were hidden behind masks. The middle one had the crown of a queen, and a featureless mask. The one to the right was dressed in heavy armor, and her mask was of frozen scorn. The final one was a hunched crone, and her mask was beak-like, with glass eye-openings.

"Who are you?" Louise demanded, darting her eyes from the statues to the cage. Her hands curled into fists when she realized that the one inside was the same girl she'd already met two times before, this time with fangs painted on her own white mask. "And what's the meaning of this? Why is she caged?"

"We are the judges!" The eyes of the Queen shone.

"We guard over the Beast." The Knight followed.

"We are her caretakers. We protect her from the world, and the world from her." The Crone finished.

Louise pulled her lips back, revealing her clenched teeth. "Who is she? What was her crime?"

"She is Anger!" They replied in unison, "And so is her crime!"

Ignoring the statues' previous warning, Louise walked past them towards the cage. The ring of fire that surrounded it grew in fury and Louise was forced to back away.

"Don't be a fool, child! The Beast belongs inside its cage!"

The girl threw Louise what might have been a sad look. The noble noticed the red burn scars that deformed her hands. "Don't you dare to tell me what to do! And why would you chain her like that?"

"Because she suffers from the deadly sin of Wrath!"

"She desires for harm and appreciates violence. She's a danger to herself and others."

"Would you be so foolish as to release Fury to the waking world?"

With her hands trembling in barely controlled fury, Louise walked back to the front of the statues. "Is that your reason? Her great crime is being angry?"

"You would claim that's not enough of a sin?"

She ground her teeth together. "And what about injustice? What about corruption and abuse? If those things don't make your blood boil, you have no soul!"

"You understand nothing, child. If this Beast were to be set free, the damage she could cause to the world…"

"Has she done anything? Has she actually hurt anyone?"

Silenced followed, if only for a moment. "The risk she represents…"

"And what if she doesn't? What about the good she could bring?"

"The danger is too great!"

"No, it isn't! Only your cowardice!" She didn't bother to hold back the poison in her voice. "It is your job as her caretakers to lead her to the right path. If you can't, then it's your fucking fault! She doesn't deserve to be punished because of your own failures!"

"You don't know what we know. You don't see what we see!"

"All I see here are three worthless wastes of space."

"Insolent wretch! You have no right to judge us!"

"Neither do you!"

"We are older and wiser. You can clearly see that, can't you? Obey us, and do the right thing."

Louise's heart was beating furiously, and she was sure that if her nails had been just a bit longer they'd have cut into the skin of her palms. She blinked, and at her feet there was a sledgehammer. Her anger vanished, the only thing left being clarity of purpose.

"Very well."

She picked the hammer up and walked up to the first statue.

"Wait, no! What are you doing?"

"I'm getting her out."

"You're committing a grave mistake!"

"Maybe. But I'm doing what's right and that's all I need."

The hammer came down. One time. Two times. Three times. They shattered as if they were made of porcelain, their remains scattering over the ground. The only thing left of them were three broken bases.

The fires died out. Louise walked to the cage, broke the chains and pried it open. "Come, give me your hand."

The girl looked at the hand Louise was offering her. She raised her own, paused, doubted, but finally reached out and accepted it.

Outside her cage, the girl threw herself at Louise and hugged her. "Why are you doing this? What if I hurt somebody?" She asked between sobs.

"If you do, then I'll punish you. But never before. The fact that you can take the wrong decisions doesn't mean you shouldn't have the freedom to do so."

"Thank you." The girl said strengthening her grip.

Louise placed a hand on her shoulder. "Now you're going to disappear, aren't you?" She hadn't finished saying that, as the walls surrounding them collapsed in a sea of flames. Louise managed to see the black figure, standing on a pedestal and holding the three chains, just before her body was reduced to ashes.

Louise opened her eyes. She was bruised, with her face against grass, and with a shiver running up her spine caused by the cold wind.

"Now what?" She groaned.

Pushing herself up, she looked around and realized she was in a prairie, a vast extension of nothing but grass as far as her eyes could see. She was standing on a paved road that turned and twisted until it crossed above the horizon, together with dozens other roads that joined and separated like the branches of a river.

By the corner of her eye, she saw a dim light. It was a statue standing on a small hill, a demon of stone with a crooked staff in its hand, and a lantern hanging from it.

Standing next to it was a dark shape, a person dressed in a black cloak under a great tree, its leaves brown and dry. She unsheathed her sword when she noticed that the person was holding a scythe.

"What do you want?" She shouted, but the figure remained quiet.

The roads she'd seen converged at the foot of the hill, reaching up to the summit as a single straight line. With the stiff eyes of the demon statue following her every move, she followed it to face the figure. Standing at arm's reach, the soft wind made the cloak flutter, revealing a white skull.

Louise's lips curled upwards into a mocking grin, "The Grim Reaper? Really?" No reply came to her.

Searching his tunics with a bony hand, Death pulled out a smoking pipe. He placed it between his lipless teeth and took a drag, forcing the smoke through every crack of his skeletal body. He pulled the pipe out and turned it around in his fingers, offering it to Louise.

"I…" She blinked, trying to understand the meaning behind that action, "No, thank you?"

If he was offended, it didn't show in his inexpressive face as he put the pipe away. Then he spoke, "How many times have you danced with me? Yet you never look at me in the eyes." He sounded almost… nostalgic? Hurt? And so very tired.

"If you're here to take me, I'm not going without a fight."

Death shook his head, "All roads lead to me. And I don't like confrontations." The hand went once again into his robes, but this time he pulled out a bottle. Louise saw the liquid going down his exposed throat as he took a sip, yet not a single drop fell to the ground.

Like with the pipe, he offered it to Louise. She eyed the offered treat with a raised eyebrow, but this time she accepted it after taking a sniff, "Apple juice?".

"Ten twenty-two was a good year."

With a shrug, Louise sat next to him under the shade of the tree, the fallen leaves cracking under her weight. She placed the sword to her side and took a sip. Once the bottle was empty she gave it back.

"You don't fear me." Death's voice rumbled as he put the bottle away.

"I could say the same," She replied with a cheeky smile, "And what's there to fear? You… just do your job." She sighed, rubbing her own shoulder, "If anything, I'm more scared of other human beings. We're good at killing each other. And I was already on this lands' Heaven! They promised me a spot there after I saved them."

"Even Heaven is a sell-out."

Louise couldn't stop herself and threw her head back as she released a laugh. "That sounds so bad when you put it like that!" She caught her breath, "But I refuse to go there anyway. That's not my heaven." She had just noticed that the sun was going down, painting the field in multiple shades of reds and yellows. "I sent… a lot of people your way, didn't I? Do they… do they always arrive to the right place? Do good people always go to heaven and evildoers to hell?" Death remained quiet, "Say something!"

"I'm the ferryman. The Et'Ada are the judges."

Louise spat a curse. "Why them? Why should they get to decide who's good and who's evil?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because I want to know if there's someone out there that actually cares about our mistakes!" She yelled, "My mistakes. I… I'm the only one that still brings flowers to Ulfric's tomb, you know? The only one that still dares. The Empire doesn't want me to but…" She left the phrase incomplete, the words lingering on her lips. "And they… the Aedra and Daedra… they're just as messed up as we humans are. What about my God? The God?" She clenched her fists in anger. "When people pray here their gods answer! But not Him. He never answered me, even when I have the power of the fucking Founder!" She cleaned the tears that had started forming in her eyes. "I'm so fucking tired. Of all this."

"You could always come with me. It's called the eternal rest for a reason."

Louise pressed her lips together into a thin line as she stretched her arms, her eyes staring at her wrists. "They taught me that suicide was a sin, that it was reneging against the life God gave me. Well, they did the same about 'not killing' and see how that turned out!" She chuckled, "To die on my own terms, only when I decide it's time to go… that doesn't sound so bad, does it?" She shook her head pulling her arms back against her chest, "But no. If anything, I'm too stubborn to take my own life. I'll see this to the end. Is Cattleya… no. Forget I asked about that." She released a long, sad sigh, "Why are you here anyway?"

"I was invited."

Louise looked up at the cloaked figure, "Invited? By whom?" As reply, he took a step back to reveal the statue that had been hidden behind him. The grey stone had been replaced by flesh dressed in red and purple, and the demonic face was now a bearded one with white, pupilless eyes.

"By me!"

Controlled by pure instinct, her sword flashed reflecting the dimming light of the sun, aimed straight at the man's head. The hit never landed, as the blade got locked in mid-air, stuck in a wheel of cheese. The wheel was so heavy that Louise couldn't keep her sword up.

"Haha! That would have been dangerous!"

She tried to pull it out, but the sword refused to budge. "How are you doing this?" She was channeling Void through the blade, nothing should have been able to stand to it.

"Do you really want to know?" The man asked with a smile that revealed pearl-white teeth. "My turn."

"Fus! Ro…!"

The cheese wheel turned into a wild boar that rammed its tusks against Louise's legs, dropping her to the ground before turning into a horse that kicked her in the chest. Her ribs cracked as all air was forced out of her lungs, and her body was hurled back. She made a backflip in the air before being stopped by a cushioned surface. It was a chair that leaned back before snapping back into position, revealing to Louise that now she was seated at the head of a long table.

"Do you want some tea?" The man was seated opposite to Louise, and to the left and right were the three girls that she had helped, accompanied by the black-clad one and the cloaked form of Death. He was mixing sugar in a teapot with a fork, and was serving seven cups.

Louise threw him a murderous look, "Sheogorath," She spat, every breath she took sending jolts of pain.

The Daedric Prince grinned from ear to ear. "Lord of Madness at your service, miss Vallière! But you can call me Ann Marie!"

Everything came back to her in flashes of still images. She remembered Solitude, the rumors of the haunted wing of the Blue Palace, the beggar that told her about his missing master, and the door that sent her to that place in a cloud of butterflies.

"Was all this your doing?" She forced the air through her teeth, "I read the books. I know Martin Septim rekindled the Dragonfires." She looked left and right. She had met several of the other Princes, but none of them had displayed this degree of power. Even Herma Mora needed Miraak to open a portal to his realm, and neither he nor his creatures could exist in the material realm for long. "You shouldn't be this powerful! It makes no sense!"

"Sense?" The Prince gasped, spilling tea, "I'll let you know that I'm the Emperor of Unreason, Baron of Senseless, and Ex-Husband of Silliness! I should call her one of these days, now that I think about it," He muttered under his breath, "Ask how she and the kids are doing, Insanity's birthday is in a few weeks. And in any case, Martin and I are pals! He won't mind if I break one or two rules." He finished preparing the tea, placing the last cup on its corresponding plate, and then a human leg sprung from underneath each one. It was hairy, and the nails were painted a bright pink. Without spilling a single drop, each cup went jumping to their corresponding owners. "That's the good stuff!" Sheogorath gasped, taking a sip, "Water directly from the Fountain of Madness!"

Louise threw an uneasy glance at her cup. "I'll pass."

"Me too," The deep voice of Death rumbled, "I must leave anyway."

"Of course, thank you for your visit!" There wasn't a flash of light, smoke, or even a shimmering of light. One moment the dark figure was there, and the next he was not, "So many people dying all the time. I don't envy his job, I tell you." With a wide grin, Sheogorath poured himself more tea.

None of the other girls had started drinking yet, but Louise doubted it was because they distrusted the water but because of the masks.

"Oh, yes! I forgot about that," Sheogorath snapped his fingers and the three white masks crumbled.

"What is the meaning of this?" Louise tried to stand up, but if the pain of her broken ribs wasn't enough, she found thick ropes tied around her wrists.

"What? I thought you liked smart company."

The three girls shared the same face. With long pink hair, and rosy cheeks devoid of any imperfections. The last time she'd seen a face like that she had been staring into a mirror at the Tristain Academy of Magic. It was her own.

Only the black-masked girl remained a mystery.

Louise narrowed her eyes at him, "What kind of sick joke is this?"

"Sick joke? I love those! But this isn't one." He stood up, cleared his throat, and opened his arms as if he was addressing a crowd. "Welcome, welcome! To the deceptively colorful mind of Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière!" Her eyes widened, "That's right! We're inside your mind! I found it quite cozy myself."

Her heart skipped a beat, "Lies!" She struggled against her bonds. "You… I refuse to believe you!"

"I don't lie, honey! I distort the truth, twist words, and every now and again I proclaim a false statement, but lie? Never!"

"What did you do to me?!"

Sheogorath sniffed dismissively, "Oh, please, I recognize a work of art when I see one. The only thing I did was to allow you to appreciate it as I do, and maybe make some adjustments to your own liking!" He walked to the first girl, the one whose mask had been concentric circles. He put his hands on her shoulders. "Like Loneliness here. Always so afraid of talking to new people. Of facing their judgment. Well, people can't reject you if you never interact with them, am I right?"

The girl stood up, walked up to Louise, and when she was next to her chair she vanished in butterflies of light.

Louise threw her head back and released a cry on anguish. Deep melancholy clenched around her chest and she felt tears running down her cheeks.

She remembered the first day at the Academy, so many years ago. She had been so happy and full of hopes for the knowledge she'd find and the friends she'd make. Then the mockery started. She cried, but her tears made her stronger.

Her classmates had been nothing more than immature idiots. She didn't need them, she was perfectly fine on her own.

"What… did you do?"

"Nothing! I already told you, I just help you be more honest with yourself." The Prince walked to the next girl, the one whose mask had been half white and half black. "Guilt, doubt, fear of failure. Here you have Hesitation! Well, you won't hesitate so much if you don't fear the consequences."

So many opportunities, so many calls missed. It was always the same. The jump looked too risky, or the conditions weren't ideal. If only she was more certain, if she had more facts, if she had more knowledge…

But now she saw with clarity. No one knew the future, it was ever-changing and mutable. Mistakes had been made, but there was no point to linger in them.

Inaction was death.

"You... tricked me."

"Maybe just a tad! But I didn't force you to make a decision, like when you set Indignation free." He walked to the third girl, the one with painted fangs. "I would tip my hat to you if I had one... oh, wait!" He grabbed his own ear and pulled, detaching his head from the neck and tipping it to Louise before returning it to its place. "Because, being angry? That is easy! Anyone could do that! But to be angry at the right person at the right time, and for the right reasons? Now that takes skill! I wonder if you'll be able to control her powers."

For a third time one of the girls rose from her position, and vanished when she got close to Louise. When she did, Louise felt her blood boiling. With the pain of her chest forgotten, she cried in rage, pushing against her bonds.

"Now, now. You already should know that…" The ropes snapped, "Oh dear…"

Louise jumped ar Sheogorath, and her mouth curled into a feral smile when she felt his jaw shattering under her fist.

He tried to speak, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a gurgle of blood and spite.

She punched him again. And again. He tripped and fell to the floor, and even when he was down Louise kept punching him. She didn't stop until his face was a malformed mess of bone and meat.

Catching her breath, Louise got back to her feet.

"Bravo, bravo!" She heard a voice at her back, and found Sheogorath, safe and sound, seated at the table clapping at her. The black dressed girl was next to him, as quiet and mysterious as ever.

"You…" Louise fell to her knees clenching her throbbing chest, "But…" She looked at the corpse of the person she'd hit, "How?"

"Oh, don't worry about him! That's just a hobo I picked from the streets. I think his name was Jack."

The dead man was still dressed as Sheogorath, but no longer shared his face. "The mad beggar who led me here."

"Oh, yes, Dervenin. Quite the loyal fellow." Louise turned to face him, with her eyebrows knitted together into a frown and her fist clenched. "Oh, do you want to go on another round?" The Prince replied raising his fists into a pantomime of boxing.

"I hate you."

"But I'm adorable!"

"I hate you all!" She tried to rise, but the pain proved unbearable and she spat blood, "I hate the bloody Princes, the bloody Nine, the stupid Founder, and my Stupid. Useless. Mute of a God!" She released a cry of anguish as she broke down in tears.

"Hey, I find that offensive! I am a god! Sometimes..."

"No, you're not!" She rolled on her back, "You and your bunch of daedra and aedra are nothing more than spirits with a superiority complex!" She grimaced, releasing a whine of pain, "I just want to know: Why fucking me?"

Sheogorath was trying to balance a fork on the edge of a finger. "I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Could you repeat that?"

"Why did all of this have to happen to me? Why do I have the Void? Why am I the Dragonborn? Why does God hate me?"

Sheogorath pressed his lips, tapping the fork against his chin. He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. Suddenly Louise was seated back at the table, and the pain was gone.

"Because those are the rules of the game, I'd say."

"Game?" She asked in incredulity as she tentatively pressed a finger against her chest to confirm that, yes, it had healed. "What game?"

"This wonderful game that we call life, of course! It's a very delicate balance to maintain, you see. If it gets too easy it gets boring and people stop playing it. If it gets too hard it gets frustrating, and they abandon it. You have to aim for that sweet spot where it's challengingly rewarding!"

"No, no…" She shook her head, "Life is not a game! And if it is, I don't want to play it anymore!" There was suddenly a rope in her hands.

"There! Just tie it around your neck and pull. That's how you quit." Louise tossed it aside as if it was poison. "See? Admit it, you still like to play it."

"Are you saying that God sees us as nothing more than playthings? That he enjoys seeing us suffering?"

"You have to admit, the suffering of others is delicious! It tastes like chicken."

A groan of frustration escaped Louise's lips, "I refuse to believe that! And that still doesn't answer my question! Why fucking me? Why not… Kirche? Why not Dorte? Why not anyone else?"

"It had to be someone." He shrugged dismissively, "He probably threw a dart and it happened to land on you."

"There has to be a purpose! There has to be a reason behind it all!"

"Behind what?"

"Behind my fucking mess of a life!"

"Why is it that hard to believe that everything is just a huge coincidence?"

"Because where's the justice in it? Where is the good? God has to be fair and good!"

"Says who?"

"Says me! Otherwise… why should I bother? If God isn't there there's no point to anything! There's no great justice or great good to aspire to!"

Sheogorath stared back at her, took a sip of his cup and rolled it in his tongue as if pondering his reply. Then he threw his head back and started laughing. It was a loud and terrible laugh.

"No! You got it wrong. It's the other way around, don't you see? It's beautiful!" He put his cup down, grabbed the teapot, and with his free hand he hurled the table aside as if it weighed less than a feather. "You have no gods and no demons!" He stood up, "Your only master is you! Your only aspirations are your own, and the only good is the one you make with your own hands!"

"What hands? Mine are scarred and bloody. And I know I don't know nearly enough of the world to say what is right or wrong. To claim otherwise would be…" She stopped, not wanting to finish the phrase, "Would be…"

"Say it." He stared at her, his eyes burning with fury, "SAY IT!"

"It would be madness!"

"Yes!" He walked to Louise and pulled her into a hug "Yes, you're beginning to understand! Madness refuses labeling and constraints! Laws and reason! Madness defines and obeys only itself. Just as you do, Louise."

"No… no, no, I refuse…"

"Why?" He grabbed Louise by the hand and made her twist as if they were dancing, "Because you want to be like everyone else?" When Louise stopped spinning she fell… and she kept falling. When she finally landed she found herself in a line of people, all looking just like her and marching in perfect synchronicity. "A boring blob of grey that can be used, discarded, and replaced?" The line marched forwards towards a massive set of knives that cut to ribbons all those that approached. She tried to leave the line but her feet were encased in heavy iron boots that moved on their own, "That only follows orders of creatures she doesn't know or understand?" In the last moment, just before the blades fell on her, she managed to unlock the boots and escape, "That is dreadfully boring!"

She was back with Sheogorath, her heart beating and her hands shaking. There was a mirror in front of her, and with horror she saw how her hair fell and the color of her skin melted away. She punched the mirror, shattering it into pieces. The tears in her eyes weren't just because of the pain in her hand. "It would make things easier. Obey the rules, obey the codes, and don't think too hard about the righteousness of your actions."

"But we are mad!" He grabbed her by the shoulders, "Rules don't apply to us, and every action is the right one!" Sheogorath let go of Louise, grabbed the teapot between his hands and hurled it upwards. From the spilled liquid, a sea of stars was born.

It was massive, uncountable stars surrounded her, each one of a different color and moving at their own rhythm.

"What is this?" Louise's voice trembled in fear and wonder.

"This... is Madness!"

Louise's eyes opened wide, and what she saw made her fall to her knees.

She felt the crushing realization of emptiness. She saw the eons pass, people die one after the other in a never-ending cycle of pointless existence. Death was final and total. Inevitable and relentless. Even the immortals knew about it. They feared the darkness that followed in its wake. Not all souls traveled to the planes of Oblivion or Aetherius. Some vanished, to places unknown. The Princes feared what lie beyond the night sky.

And yet, why? Men woke up every day, doomed to failure and loss. Why didn't they despair? Why did they insist on challenging what was inevitable?

She saw the clashing currents of past and future, of action and reaction. The universe was an uncaring, cold, and chaotic place where there was no place for justice or fairness. The natural laws were a lie, nothing more than an illusion, a cold and empty comfort of those that refused to confront the truth.

Yet humans didn't bow. They desperately tried to tame invincible chaos. With every fiber of their beings, they tried to find reason where there was none to be found, fitting the immensity of existence into simple lines of numbers.

Why? Shouldn't it be more logical to surrender and accept? To accept that men would never succeed? Would never defeat time and fate?

But mankind was not a logical creature. They rejected it as it implied reason and measure, and they were hyperbolic and disproportionated. They were prone to anger and delusions. Their souls lived in the impregnable realm of duality, drinking from the same cup of joy and bitterness. They never gave up their illusion nor learned from their disillusions. They believed themselves to be invincible, greater than nature and gods themselves, and the overwhelming evidence against such claims was simply dismissed and ignored. Humans were the chosen people... by no others than themselves.

Humanity…

Humanity was insane. What other explanation could there be for such irrationality?

And yet, was that truly so bad?

Was it foolish to not be scared? Was it so foolish to stand one's ground and scream 'I am here'?

Each star was a soul! Each one was unique, each one was powerful, and filled with so many ideas and possibilities!

A soul, yellow, so curious and energetic. It dared to question what old books said, and under the hateful gaze of colleagues performed its own researches and experiments. Medicine would be revolutionized, and thousands of lives would be saved.

A musician, his soul furious red, burning with the fire of anger. He found himself deaf, how could he perform ever again? He rejected his reality. He was relentless and shattered his limitations, and his music would be remembered across the ages.

Louise couldn't keep a smile from forming in her face. Visionaries and geniuses them all, they refused to surrender and had the strength to reshape the world.

The cosmos pulsed and the image shifted.

A man, his mother recently deceased. He skinned her and was now wearing her skin as a coat.

'Wait, no…'

A girl, of just eight, giggled as she boiled alive her sister's rabbit.

'Don't…'

A boy, a teenager, wondered what it would feel to smash his grandma's skull with a brick.

"Stop it!"

Her scream dispelled the illusion, and Louise fell to the ground, gasping for air. There was cold sweat covering her face.

"So, did you enjoy it?"

She raised her eyes, and found Sheogorath seated on a rocking chair, stroking the back of a skinned rabbit, excitedly going back and forth.

"You…" She tried to rise up, only to fall once again to the ground, her legs shaking too much to support her weight.

"Me, what?" Louise looked at him, her scowl of anger confronted by a cheerful smile

She grimaces. Was this the power of a Prince? She felt so small and insignificant, a sensation she knew all too well. "That was… horrible. But also so beautiful."

"That's how it's supposed to be." He placed the skinless rabbit on the ground, "Madness is, after all, what you want it to be, what no other even dares to consider." The rabbit grew into the black-masked girl. "What is different!" She walked up to Louise, grabbed her by the throat and raised her up to the air. "What others reject!" Louise punched her in the face and the girl fell on her back. Her body melted into a pool of oily black liquid that crawled on the ground, fusing with Louise's shadow.

Rubbing her neck, Louise straightened up, "You talk about chaos! It's wrong! There has to be order. Someone has to direct people so they can do something good."

"You still don't understand, Louise! Madness simply is! If you want it to be good, then take it, reshape it, and make it your own! You go out, and put things right your way!"

A groan of frustration escaped her lips, "Why… why do you care? Why are you doing this?"

"Because I'm the Mad God! I don't distinguish between right and wrong, truth or lie. I simply don't care about your choices! But if there's one eternal constant in this mad realm of mine, its that I will forever love you, despite your imperfection." He sat next to Louise and gently held her shoulder as he slid the fork he'd been carrying around into one of her pockets, "You know? This reminds me of a joke! If religiosity comes from religions, does that mean that morality comes from morons?"

Staring at Sheogorath's wide grin, Louise's lower lip trembled. A giggle escaped her throat, which quickly turned into a powerful laugh. They both laughed for what felt like hours, and when dawn broke, the morning sun revealed that Louise was back in the Blue Palace of Solitude. The only thing left to remind her of that encounter was the fork in her pocket.

...

A/N: That was far more exhausting than I anticipated. After all I made Louise go through, from wars to dragons, an afternoon with Sheogorath feels like the cruelest thing I ever did to her. It honestly got hard at times. I knew how I wanted this to go for a while, but when I started tipping the words I realized how… personal, and even uncomfortable, much of this felt. A sentiment shared by many of my betas. In this regard, I consider this chapter a resounding success, and I hope you liked it.

Next chapter, Henrietta has a talk with the Veteran. And after that, all steam ahead into part four!