SKY HAVEN TEMPLE
Arenar
The transition from living to dead was much faster than dead to living, and as such Arenar wasn't surprised to see that the sun was only a couple of hours from setting when he finally drew breath.
He sat up, wincing as the inwardly bent parts of his steel plate armor stabbed into him, where the daggers had broken through. He threw off his gauntlets and worked at the straps to the plating. Sighing with relief as he tossed the ruined steel aside, he lifted his bloodied shirt and assessed his formerly fatal injuries. As always, his body had somehow repaired both the internal and external damage. Fresh scars on either side of his lower abdomen, sore but not unbearably so, were the only evidence of the Forsworn killing him.
The last thing he remembered before a familiar darkness had drawn him into its depths was Katjaa crying over him, telling him everything would be okay. He'd known that to be true, but not in the same way she'd been trying to convince him. That image burned at his conscience, wishing he'd been more specific when he'd told her he would be back. Choking on my own blood made that impossible.
Arenar examined his surroundings. He'd been moved away from the river, probably to keep his body from floating away like the Forsworn's had. He was instead at the base of the bridge connecting to the wooden platform camp. Trueflame and his pack were beside him, but the rest of the group was nowhere to be seen. They probably continued the search for Sky Haven Temple. Gods, I hope Katjaa isn't too torn up. Avoiding telling her his secret any longer wasn't possible, not when she saw him alive and perfectly—well, almost perfectly—fine.
He steadily got to his feet in order to see into the camp. There was still plenty of light to make out two figures on the other side of the Karth River, close to the stone structure. He could also tell that they were complete strangers. No one in the group, at least since Rimion left, wore robes, but these people did. Dark black robes with the hoods pulled over their heads, leather and steel plates covering their vitals. No sign of furs or animal hide on their persons all but confirmed they weren't Forsworn either. So that begged the question as to who they were.
Though he wanted to immediately find Katjaa, something told him these two were bad news. Better to deal with them now if that's true. Cautiously, he walked towards them, armed with Trueflame. Their backs were to him as they discussed something in hushed tones. The words became clearer as he approached them.
"... a single one left," said the Argonian, his scaly tail giving away his race. "Our targets are certainly efficient killers; that cannot be denied."
"The Dragonborn would not travel with those who cannot pull their own weight." The second one was also male, a native of Valenwood based on his short stature and accent. "Otherwise we would have long ago killed her, her brother, and the rest of their crew."
The Argonian sighed. "Why did we get stuck checking the camp for survivors? We should've gone with the others to finish off the Dragonborn."
Arenar resisted the urge to immediately turn around and race up the hill that the cave connected to Sky Haven Temple rested on. He needed to know more, and he was confident Katjaa and the Blades—as well as the little girl, who was also missing and had displayed quite an aptitude with Destruction magic—would be fine.
"Nazir wanted to make sure there was no one left that could tell the Listener that the large Imperial wasn't killed by one of us." Arenar knew they were talking about him.
"I still don't see why the Listener would care that not all of the Dragonborn's companions were killed by us. That Thalmor performed the Black Sacrament only for the Dragonborn."
"The Thalmor didn't perform a proper Black Sacrament, but he did personally tell the Listener that he wanted the Dragonborn and all sworn to her to be killed discreetly. Besides, the last time someone stole a kill that belonged to the Dark Brotherhood, Maximus Valentine almost brought about the end of the Brotherhood completely."
Arenar raised a brow at that. Valentine almost destroyed the Dark Brotherhood? Perhaps it and the Thieves Guild went to war. I suppose the thieves are the lesser of two evils. Had he told us he nearly put an end to a guild of assassins, I wouldn't have treated him so harshly.
A loud creak alerted the assassins to his presence as Arenar stepped onto the last platform between him and the eastern shore of the Karth River.
They flew at him at once, ignoring that he was dead the last time they saw him. The Argonian reached him first, aiming for Arenar's unprotected heart. Arenar caught the dagger with Trueflame and parried the attack, leaving the assassin exposed. He ran Trueflame through the Argonian's stomach and threw him into the advancing Bosmer. The Bosmer spun, avoiding his dying comrade but failing to respond with another dodge as Arenar lopped off his head.
The battle was over before it truly began, and stiff as he was from the lack of blood flow for several hours, Arenar came out the victor.
The Dark Brotherhood. An organization he'd believed entirely wiped out after a slow descent into destruction after the Oblivion Crisis. This wasn't the first time he'd crossed paths with the guild of assassins. Not long after he'd killed Dagoth Ur, a Brotherhood assassin had tried to kill Arenar in his sleep. That single act led him to completing his destiny as the Nerevarine as it led him to Mournhold where he killed Almalexia—the former wife of Indoril Nerevar—and found Sotha Sil already dead. Later he'd also killed Vivec, arguably the most benevolent god on the Tribunal.
Arenar was convinced the Thalmor had hired the Dark Brotherhood, for he couldn't think of anyone else who would want Katjaa and the rest of them dead. How long have we been followed? Their longest stay in any place had been Solitude, which was also the headquarters of the Aldmeri Dominion in Skyrim. It made the most sense that the assassins found them there.
With the group being halved by Valentine's insistence to investigate the attack in Markarth, and Arenar having been killed, he could definitely see why the Dark Brotherhood chose now to make their move.
Putting his pack and damaged armor inside a tent for safe keeping, Arenar headed for the cave.
A smaller two-tiered Forsworn camp had been made inside the entrance of the cave to Sky Haven Temple. Arenar saw about fourteen bodies scattered around the camp. Some of them had melting ice spears protruding through them. Esbern had shown favor for fire-based spells—whenever he didn't just focus on calling upon Atronachs—so he guessed those particular kills belonged to that little blonde girl. Arenar didn't like the idea of someone so small and innocent having blood on their hands. The first time Arenar had ever taken a life had been at the age of twenty-three, and had been the reason behind his incarceration and subsequent voyage to Morrowind on a prison ship.
Remembering there were more assassins between him and the group, Arenar stopped gawking at the corpses and sped up his pace.
A while later, he entered a part of the cave with a ceiling that was open to the sky. A bridge spanned the gap between a natural rock platform with three rotatable pillars on the right side of the cave to the left. He climbed the staircase that led up to the pillars. The pillars were all positioned so that an incomplete circle with a 'V' shape on top and an arrow pointing downwards inside it were present on each one. The bridge probably lowered when the correct combination was made.
Arenar questioned the intelligence of the ancient Blades as he crossed the bridge. If this had been meant to keep people out, why would they rely on a system that had a one-in-nine chance of being guessed correctly?
Continuing deeper into the cave, he practiced what he would say to Katjaa when he found her. "Have you ever heard of the Nerevarine? Hero of Morrowind, reincarnation of the Chimeri warlord who defeated Dagoth Ur? Oh, you have? Well, what would you say if I told you you're dating him?"
Shaking his head, he tried a different path. "Say, do you remember that time that Rimion called me an old man, during the festival in Whiterun when the first dragon was killed? Well, truth of the matter is, I am an old man. Four years older than Rimion; I stopped aging a little after my twenty-fourth name day, though for the life of me I can't honestly recall the actual date of it."
He stopped talking to himself when he came across a room pressure plates covering the floor. Opposite of him was a pullchain attached to a pillar, and to the left of that was another tunnel entrance that he assumed proceeded towards Sky Haven Temple.
Cautiously testing the plates nearest to him, he breathed a sigh of relief to find the traps had either been disarmed or had gone defunct over time. Prepared to leap out of harm's way, he crossed the room and safely found his way into the next tunnel. Again pondering exactly how this trap had kept away Forsworn or other potential threats over the years, he went onward.
In the dirt of the cave floors Arenar discovered a dozen different footprints. He figured that meant there were seven assassins after the group. Though the assassins he'd faced in the Forsworn camp had proved to be less than lethal, he still picked up his pace through the cave tunnels.
How is Katjaa going to react? He was hoping that she would express sheer joy at his revival and nothing else, but he understood the improbability of that situation. Over the years he'd only revealed to a few people his secret, and yet the reactions had varied. Some of them, like Rimion, had either immediately accepted or had actually been rather intrigued by him. Others, like a Nordic lover he'd had seventy years earlier, had been frightened or downright hostile following the reveal. A few had been in a place somewhere in between.
With Katjaa, Arenar was hoping more for the former.
The cave had shown signs of Akaviri architecture in the form of the traps and the bridges, but the large chamber Arenar stepped into seemed to have been entirely molded by the ancient Blades, excluding the collapsed ceiling. At the opposite end of the chamber was an opened entrance—which he suspected was the true entrance to Sky Haven Temple—and in front of that a ring on the ground. A couple drops of blood were drying in the center of the ring. There wasn't enough to suggest the assassins had killed anyone there, so he assumed the blood had been purposely spilled by someone in one of the two groups he was lagging behind.
Hearing shouts erupting from inside the temple and then the clashing of metal against metal and the crackling of lightning, Arenar unsheathed Truelflame and ran inside, forgetting the blood.
Emerging inside the temple with the assassins' backs to him, Arenar quickly assessed the battle.
Katjaa was locked in a one-on-one duel far from the main battle against a Redguard in Hammerfell garb rather than the black robes of his guild. Neither seemed capable of getting an edge on the other, Katjaa wielding her daggers with fast reflexes yet the Redguard's scimitar deflecting all her attacks without landing any of its own. She'd seemed to have recovered entirely from her Shouting several hours earlier, else she'd have moved much slower.
The main battle took place near what Arenar could only guess was Alduin's Wall. Two of the six other assassins were dead, one from a sword wound in the gut and another from several lightning strikes. Delphine and Sven put themselves between the three assassins using swords and daggers—the fourth being a mage that dropped behind his fellows into a support role. Esbern was much the same, healing Delphine and Sven's wounds and keeping them on their feet. The little girl, however, was solely focused on casting one Destruction spell after another.
Running Trueflame through the Dark Brotherhood mage to give the Blades and kid an edge on the assassins, Arenar left them to help Katjaa. A couple braziers had been lit near Alduin's Wall, but the large room was still in relative darkness; Arenar wasn't sure if this meant his identity was possibly in question. Killing the mage should at least let them know I'm an ally.
He ran around the long stone dining table that separated him from the dueling rogues. The clatter of his steel boots alerted them both to him. Apparently the lighting in the large room had been plenty based on the gasp that escaped Katjaa's lips and the wide-eyed, confused expression on her face.
The Redguard was less impressed. He parried Arenar's swipe at his chest then stabbed at the Imperial's exposed torso using an off-hand dagger. Arenar sidestepped the knife but couldn't capitalize before the assassin backed off.
Distracted by Arenar, however, the Redguard forgot all about Katjaa until she sunk both daggers into his back. He cried out and lashed at her, repeating his mistake of facing away from an enemy. With a loud roar, Arenar impaled the Redguard, killing him almost instantly.
Katjaa stared at Arenar, the momentary glow of his sword's special enchantment illuminating his face completely and denying any doubt that it was him. He looked back at her, unsure what to do or say.
"How?" she choked, shaking as tears began to fall.
"Katjaa, I—"
Another crack of lightning broke his attention away from Katjaa. A Khajiit assassin fell to the little girl's magic just as Delphine swept the feet from under what looked like a Nord and killed him while he was down. With that, the Dark Brotherhood assassins were all dead.
Arenar tensed up when he felt someone grab him until he looked down to see Katjaa wrapped around him, weeping into his chest. He laid Trueflame on the table and returned the hug, resting his chin on her head and rubbing her back. The Blades were clearly shocked by the sight of him as well, but decided to go about lighting the other braziers in the room and moving the bodies. The little girl followed Delphine around, watching the reunited couple all the while.
Minutes passed before Katjaa was able to look up at Arenar. "You were dead," she whispered, barely loud enough for even Arenar to hear. "You weren't breathing. You didn't have a pulse. You... you were dead."
"I know," Arenar said. He smiled faintly. "Thank you for not burying my body."
She pushed him away, her grief suddenly replaced by anger. A dangerous combination of love, hate, joy, and fear blazed fiercely in her wet eyes. "You knew it would happen?!" she hollered.
The Blades and the girl stopped dead in their tracks, more interested in the scene than brightening Sky Haven Temple.
"I told you I'd explain when I came back," Arenar reminded her gently.
"People don't just come back to life, Arenar! You die and you stay dead—end of story!"
Arenar frowned. "I'd hoped you would have been a little happier that for once that wasn't the case."
Katjaa sighed, slumping her shoulders. "Of course I'm happy," she said. "I shouldn't be upset that the man I love is standing right in front of me, but I am." She wiped at her eyes though the tears hadn't yet stopped. "This isn't possible."
"Take a seat," Arenar said, gesturing towards the long table. "I'll tell you everything." He looked over at the Blades, shrugging. "You three might as well stick around. I'm sure you have questions of your own." Then he looked at the little girl. "Um..."
"Saria can hear it, too," Katjaa said in defense of the girl.
Though not entirely sure that was a good idea, Arenar didn't want to put off telling his secret any longer. Besides, where else could she go? We don't know the other dangers that might be lurking inside the temple. "Okay."
The Blades sat down in chairs on the opposite side of the table. Saria, however, ran around the table and found a place beside Katjaa. Arenar, finding a spot on the other side of her, wondered exactly what had resulted in another kid joining the group.
He took Katjaa's hand in his and took a deep breath. "For starters, I do not know exactly how I come back to life, only that I always do. The severity of the injury I sustained determines how long it takes before I wake up. Today, I needed just a couple of hours. The last time I died, which was shortly before I met you in Helgen, I'd had my head kicked in by a captain in the Legion. That's where the scar on my nose came from. She must've done some serious damage to my brain as it was about twelve hours before I... resurrected."
"So how many times have you... died?"
Arenar needed a minute to think about that. There's the most recent two, the times I've died in Skyrim. Then of course the first time I died, back on that ship in Cyrodiil in the Third Era. Ondolemar stopping my heart with a lightning spell. The thirty years between then and now I died three... no, four times. Another two between the start of the Fourth Era and the Great War makes the total—
"Ten times," he answered.
Katjaa shook her head, clearly struggling to believe him. That I'm sitting here is evidence enough that I'm not lying.
"There must be some reason behind your... ability," Delphine said, managing to be pragmatic in spite of the conversation.
Arenar nodded, acknowledging her without taking his attention away from Katjaa. "There is. When I said that I was an Operative of the Morrowind chapter of the Blades, I was telling the truth. I was born and raised in Cyrdoiil, but when I was twenty-three, I was forced to go to Vvardenfell under the Emperor's orders and deliver a package to the Grand Spymaster." Subconsciously he left out that the Emperor who'd given him his orders was Uriel Septim VII.
"Arenar," Esbern spoke up, "the Morrowind chapter of the Blades was destroyed along with most of Vvardenfell when Red Mountain erupted in the fifth year of this era. You'd have to be more than two hundred years of age for your story to hold any weight."
"That's right," Arenar said coolly.
"You're claiming that you're two hundred-years-old?"
Breaking eye contact with Katjaa, he glanced at and corrected Esbern. "Two hundred thirty-one."
Silence filled Sky Haven Temple. Arenar could understand their collective disbelief. The four human races were, in general, considered lucky to reach Esbern's age. Bretons usually had the longest natural lifespan thanks to their elven roots, but even they rarely reached a hundred. The oldest recorded human in history was Tiber Septim, who died at the age of a hundred and eight. Yet here was Arenar, bearing the face of a young man and telling them that he was more than double that number. That's without mentioning that I'm the reincarnation of an elf that lived in the First Era.
As if reading his mind, Esbern broke the silence when he muttered, "The Nerevarine."
When Arenar didn't say anything, the archivist continued. "You're telling us that you are the Nerevarine?"
"The Nerevarine?" Katjaa repeated. "Wasn't the Hero of Morrowind a Dark Elf?"
"No, but somehow everyone thinks that," Arenar grumbled. He couldn't count how many times over the years he'd had to make that correction. "And yes, Esbern, I am telling you that I am the Nerevarine."
"The last anyone heard of the Nerevarine, he went on a solo expedition to Akavir," Esbern said. "He—or, according to you, you—never returned. Where have you been all this time, Arenar?"
"I've been practically everywhere. Cyrodiil mostly, as it was my first home, but other than the Summerset Isles and, up until recently, Skyrim, I've stepped foot into every country in Tamriel. I couldn't stay in one place for too long, else people would begin to question why I didn't seem to age or, in more extreme cases, why I didn't stay dead."
Esbern scoffed, looking around the table. "Surely none of you believe him? This is outright impossible."
"I once thought you were crazy, what with your obsession with any lore or text related to dragons," Delphine said to him slowly. "And yet here we are, sitting in a temple abandoned thousands of years ago by our predecessors, trying to find the means to stop Alduin and the other dragons. The first time I saw Katjaa Shout, and then absorb a dragon's soul... I stopped believing anything could be impossible."
Sven nodded in agreement, his first reaction to anything said thus far at the table.
Delphine inspected Arenar, as if seeing him in a whole new light. "I never truly believed your story of being the son of a Blade."
Arenar smiled sadly, recalling what little information he could of his life before Morrowind. "My father was a farmer—my whole family, for that matter. He didn't much care for the Empire or any sort of politics; he'd have made a terrible Blade, much like me. His only priorities were providing for my mother, my siblings, and me."
"I have a hard time imaging you as a farmer," Katjaa said, her voice being not quite as shaky as before.
"Yes, well, I wasn't very good at that either." Wanting a change in subject before he could think more about his family, he said to Esbern: "You're a scholar of sorts, yes? Know a thing or two about history?"
Esbern shifted around in his chair. "Dragons weren't the only subject I ever studied, regardless of what Delphine may have told you. Why?"
"Then perhaps you have heard of this ring," Arenar said. He removed Moon-and-Star from his finger and set it on the table, halfway between himself and Esbern. "This ring belonged to Indoril Nerevar. It was forged by a Dwemer under the service of the sorcerer Kagrenac and blessed by the Daedric Prince of Dusk and Dawn, Azura. Enchanted so that anyone besides Nerevar would die if they were to wear it, it indisputably proved that I am his reincarnation. Without it I'd have never reunited the Great Houses and the Ashlander clans of Morrowind to battle Dagoth Ur's forces.
"Most texts refer to it as 'Moon-and-Star', though its full name is One-Clan-Under-Moon-And-Star."
Esbern's eyes were fixed to the ring. The others were looking at it, too, but only he seemed to have any sense of recognition of its legacy.
"You have heard of it." Arenar said a moment later, not asking a question.
"I have," Esbern replied. "Though there is nothing preventing me from obtaining a fancy ring and saying that it is the real Moon-and-Star."
Figuring that Esbern was more of a show not tell sort of Nord, Arenar pushed the Moon-and-Star closer to him. "Put it on then."
"What?"
"If you really think that I'm lying and that this isn't the real Moon-and-Star, then you'll be in no danger if you put it on."
Esbern wrung his hands together. "I..."
"Don't do it," Delphine said, nervously eying the elder Blade.
He heeded her words, drawing his hands off the table and into his lap.
Arenar returned the Moon-and-Star to his right hand. "I wouldn't have allowed you to do it," he told Esbern. "It was just a test. You can't imagine how reluctant I was the first time I had to wear it."
"I can't say I'm completely convinced. Not yet, anyway." Esbern sighed. "But I suppose if you really are more than two hundred-years-old, then perhaps you've witnessed many great things. Did... did you actually make it to Akavir?"
"I did. Shipwrecked for ten years, and lost almost all of my two hundred man crew."
"Perhaps later, if we find the time, I could ask you more of what you saw there."
Arenar didn't like the idea of that. He'd rather forget all of his time on the lost continent than reminisce about it. But he would indulge Esbern if he had to. "It's been nearly two hundred years since I was there, but I'd be willing to impart whatever I can." He yawned. "Though I think I'm ready to retire for the night. There has to be beds somewhere in here, though I'm not sure how likely it is that they'd be comfortable after all this time."
"We can study Alduin's Wall tomorrow," Delphine announced, "when we're all a little less exhausted."
The Blades and Arenar began to get up, but Katjaa grabbed Arenar's hand. "I want to ask you something. In private."
Arenar nodded, sitting back down. The Blades took their leave and journeyed deeper into Sky Haven Temple. Saria, who hadn't responded at all to Arenar's reveal, remained in her seat. Katjaa turned to her. "Go with Delphine, Saria. I'll be right behind soon enough."
Saria nodded, though she took her time following the instruction. A minute later she was gone.
"So, what's her story?" Arenar asked once he was sure Saria was out of earshot.
"She's not been very forthcoming, but I've gathered that she and her aunt were attacked by the Forsworn. Her aunt was killed and she was kidnapped. I'm worried what else the Forsworn might have done to her." The foreboding glint in her eyes showed exactly what terrible things Katjaa was thinking.
"Let's hope for the best, then. They could've kidnapped her with the intention to ransom her for a sum of gold instead of... the alternative."
"The lesser of two evils," Katjaa said. She looked at Arenar and managed a weak grin, one that didn't reach her eyes. "You look really good for two hundred thirty-one, but you didn't really explain that part."
"I was infected with a disease created by Dagoth Ur known as Corpus. It has several negative effects, such as dementia and cancerous growths all over the body." Katjaa's eyes widened, making Arenar involuntarily chuckle. "Don't worry; none of that is ever going to happen to me. I was given a potion that would prevent any of that, made by a powerful Dunmer known as Divaryth Fyr. He was unable, however, to completely rid me of the infection. I was left with its two positive traits: immunity to aging and all other diseases." He gestured to his face. "I've looked twenty-four nearly all my life, and I always will."
He took her hand again, glad that this time she squeezed back, if only a little. "I can understand if you haven't believed a single thing I've said—"
"No," she said firmly. "I believe you. I agree with Esbern that this is impossible but... I believe you. But there's still one thing I have a question about."
"Well then, I'm impressed; when Rimion found out, he didn't stop pestering me for three weeks."
"Don't get me wrong—I'm going to pester you to death," she said, her smile now a bit more sincere. "I'm not going to miss out on my first chance to finally get to know my boyfriend."
Arenar brought her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. "Whatever you want to know, I will tell you, my love."
"All right." She paused, as if considering whether or not to go on. "How... how long has it been since Lielle died?"
Arenar released her hand.
"I'm sorry," she spouted immediately. "If you don't want to tell me, it's fine. That's too personal a question."
"You just surprised me, is all," Arenar said. "I wasn't expecting a question like that."
Katjaa opened her mouth to speak but Arenar cut her off. "It was thirty years ago. We were in Leyawiin and rented a room at an inn. The next morning was the Thalmor invasion of Cyrodiil—the beginning of the Great War. We woke up to someone shouting, and I told Lielle to stay behind in the room. I went to investigate just in time to watch three Thalmor strike down the innkeeper. I killed the agent leading them, but I was distracted by one Justiciar then subdued by another, who ended up being Ondolemar.
"He put his hand over my heart and shocked it, killing me instantly. That's how I got the scar you're infatuated with. Don't give me that look—I know you've been wondering.
"I came back a couple hours later. The inn was burning around me, and part of me had to know what I'd find, but I still had to check on her, on Lielle. I entered our room..." Arenar rubbed his eyes, trying to get rid of the tears before Katjaa could see them. "And... she was there, dead on the floor. Her throat had been slit, and she was lying in a pool of her own blood."
Katjaa's fingers found their way to her neck, running the length of her own scar. "Her throat?"
"In the exact same place as you," Arenar said, answering a question he was sure she was going to ask.
"That's... that's..."
"The word 'impossible' has been said enough today. Let's not use it again."
"How much do I look like her?" Katjaa asked. "I mean, I know me and her are close, but how close?"
"Honestly? Time may have fogged my memory, but in my mind you two are practically twins. The only real differences are that she was a full-blooded Breton and she was able to cast spells. And, of course, she wasn't Dragonborn."
Katjaa didn't say anything else for the rest of the night, and Arenar couldn't blame her.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to RaptorZeroOne, DynturaDJ, Nuclearwullfs, Rhagar, AmongUsAll, Unslaad Grohiik, Someone, Productive faffer, JM38LACK, Dragonbornwanderer, ****frog, Miraak ****born, Kenway, PhantomX0990, Bellmak, Montigo66, Lord rage quit, Winter's Sentinel, Arcane48, THaaatMAAAAN, and anonymousdude. Special thanks to Gairi for beta-reading.
