Sorry for the late upload! Like I said, with these chapters being newer and still prone to tweaking, things might be a little more sporadic now. BUT, I fully hope to see Dust's story through this time, and I'm so grateful for all the encouragement and hearing your thoughts. Thank you guys, so much.
"I need you to tell me everything."
By some small miracle, I saw no sign of the Brotherhood as I made my way out of the city. No Telaendril on her rounds, no Ocheeva on errands, not even Antoinetta seeking me out to ask why I'd rejected all she'd worked for.
I was grateful. How could I possibly explain?
Even this seemed impossible to put into words, twisting inside me as Niyaneh's lips curved into a wry smirk. "Shall I start as 'A' for the Alessian Empire, then?
"No, I mean…" Still sweaty and panting from my run through the woods I turned, soaking in the ruin once more. The glimmering azure lights of the welkynd stones, the dappling water of the centre pool, the silhouettes all around. Nura, playing with her dolls, dipping them in the water and giggling shrilly. The rabbit-woman watching her, scrabbling to scratch at an itch behind her ear with a hand curled into a claw. The other denizens I didn't know eating, talking, laughing, and Blue with Niyaneh before me looking more skeptical by the moment.
"This. All of this – all of you. How did you come to be here? Why? How did Sheogorath find you? What is He, what is His Realm, how – "
Ringing laughter from her, a scoff from Blue-Scales-Shining. His tongue flicked as he looked down on me, dismissive. "It's about time you started asking, crumb."
"Now, now. It took us years to figure out what we wanted." Niyanah's eyes crinkled at the corners and I realized she was older than I'd thought. Her wisdom came not only from her studies, but from experience. "Those aren't easy questions, you know. They're not something you can learn from a book."
Well, surely some of it could be. Still, I slumped, trying to slow the whirlpool spinning in my head. "That's why I came here. There's so much I don't understand, there's - ah! –"
I jerked back, but too late – the Argonian had lunged forward, grabbing me by the collar and hauling me close as I stared back. His nostrils flared, slit eyes narrowing. "… He spoke to you, didn't He?"
"How do you – "
"I have grown keen to the scent of the Madgod's touch and you…" Another long sniff as I craned my head away, making a face at the hot air on my cheek. "You reek of it, little morsel."
"Blue, you'll frighten the poor thing."
"Why you?" I cringed at his guttural snarl, those golden eyes flashing bright. "Why a useless little scrap of pink meat like you, when I have been pursuing His gifts for years? For decades?"
"Blue." A shudder of relief as I was deposited back on my feet, a hand from Niyaneh on his arm softening him. "You know as well as I that the Madgod rarely gives us what we want."
"That's just it." I interjected, trying not to flinch at Blue's glare. I hadn't forgotten his threat about my eyes, when we first met. "He – He came to me. He said that on this plane, I'll wither. That if I can't be myself, I'll lose His blessings." And while those gifts manifested so strangely here that I'd almost call them curses, I had to know exactly what the stakes were.
Creativity, vision, seeing the impossible. I wanted those gifts, of course. They made me, me. But what would I have to sacrifice to keep them? And more, would the sacrifice be worth it?
A beat. Then Blue threw up his hands, stalking off with a growl as Niyaneh only watched me with dark eyes, expectant. "And the alternative?"
"… To go to His realm." His realm, that I knew nothing about. I could barely begin to imagine it, a place so imbued with His gifts. It frightened me, and yet…
I needed to know. I needed to understand. I needed to learn.
"You want to know how to go to the Shivering Isles."
A shiver down my own back in turn at that name. "… Is that what it's called? I've only heard it as the Madhouse, or the Asylums…"
"It has many names, of course, as does our Lord. Blue's been trying to find his way there since we left the University." A lopsided smile, not mirthless, but tinged with sobriety.
My chest sank in. "So you don't know."
"No, I'm afraid not. But, come – let's have a walk." She took my arm as she did the first time we spoke, leading me away from the main entrance to the grand hall, instead around the outskirts and alcoves of the room. "One question at a time, hm?"
Of course, now that I was on the spot, they fled. I chewed my lip for a moment as we strolled, gaze drifting over the cultists at work, at play. "… You said you and Blue came here from the University, that you didn't – fit." And wasn't that something I knew all too well, not wanting the life Anya offered, unable to embrace what the Brotherhood would give. Unable – or perhaps simply unwilling. A path they walked, that I could never follow.
A memory awoke, echoing my thoughts. That terrible night in the Night Mother's tomb so long ago, Her cold hands over mine, She told me what Bellamont's soul would have done. I hadn't understood it then, not completely. But now…
The sacrifice a mother might make, for the sake of her child, for love… A shudder crept through me at the thought of her murmur, cold and silky as spidery fingers dancing along my skin. I'd been so lost then, at a crossroads. I'd found my way through the Madgod, but not before turning away from Hers. In time, Bellamont would have shown you what it had brought him. Heartbreak, madness, death. You would have grown stronger, learned from his mistakes and walked the path you so fear.
To walk the path I feared, the same that maman and Lucien and all those I loved followed. Is that what would have happened? My breath stilled in my chest, the ruin around me fading. Would I have accepted that dagger? With Bellamont's hateful voice in my ear, twisting me, staining my mind with visions of what his desperate need for love and vengeance had wrought…
Would I have become one of them, in the end?
… But it hadn't gone that way. Dagon's forces invaded, ruining Her plans, killing my mother. Driving me mad with grief and loss, straight into the arms of…
"… But how did you find Sheogorath?" At last I finished my line of questioning, blinking back sudden tears, shaking off the cold invading me. Niyaneh only smiled gently.
"He found me, as is the case with many of us. Blue spoke of Him often – a voice, whispering secrets, equations, impossibilities. He is an unparalleled Alterationist – he can shape water, stone. He made the sunlight that tends my garden, can transmute steel into gold." Though I found the Argonian unpleasant at best, she spoke of him with deep respect. A bee flitted from the halo around her head to her nose, making her laugh aloud.
"As for myself, I was always fascinated by hallucinogenics, by prophets and seers. It was an escape from what I knew…" Her brow furrowed, and mine in turn. Whatever painful memories moved behind her eyes, she dismissed them with a shake of her head. "They showed me futures when I felt I had none. They showed me possibilities, answers I needed so dearly. While for many they were a poison, for me they held secrets that could make the world – my world – a better place."
I mulled on this as we walked, careful to step over the scribbles someone was drawing on the floor of the ruin – handprints, the fingers as petals, melding together into a field of flowers. Artistry, or madness? The two-sided coin again. I knew skooma's dangers, but I also intimately knew the mercy the burnt offerings at the shrine had offered, the answers Niyaneh's honey provided.
"We were drawn to each other. Through him I learned of the Madgod, that such substances were His domain. We became friends, and when Blue left to create a place to study in peace, it seemed only right to come with him, and others joined us in time." A gentle smile as we moved outside of the main hall, now strolling through the smaller series of chambers and corridors surrounding it.
"Why don't I introduce you, hm?"
And so she did. Some, I recognized, if not from their faces then by the voices I'd heard in a drugged haze. Vaughn, the man who'd so worried about Luke carrying disease or tics, whose narrow face went wide with terror at hearing my name. A pair of Bosmeri twins who fled slavery, hardly more than teenagers, trading quips as they examined me head to toe and wondering what secrets I might still hide. An Imperial they spoke of who patrolled the woods as their guardian 'knight', an Orc who'd escaped her unwanted fate as a chief's third bride and come here following a voice in her head –
So many stories, so many I could have never imagined. Nonsensical, impossible, wondrous or terrifying, and all with a common theme. Freedom. Whether from literal chains, or obligation, or simply from what society expected of them. My breath shivered out, a distantly familiar sound drawing me out of my thoughts - a taut, sharp slap of hand on hide in rhythm.
As we circled back to the main hall, we found the source – Nura, cross-legged on the floor with a drum in her lap, gleefully smacking it in peals that echoed through the room. I couldn't help myself, grinning as she punctuated slaps with squeals of delight.
"A fan of music, are you?"
"I love music. Drums, especially." Only half aware of it I tapped my fingers together in the same rhythm, bringing forth a fragment of a memory, faded by time. "It was how I learned my first spell." The light spell Falrung taught me, measured in beats.
Niyaneh laughed, a hand on my shoulder. "You said you need to know everything?" At my nod she lowered her voice, intense, eyes glittering. "Know that. You've loved Sheogorath's gift of music since you were small. What else does He offer you? What do you want?"
Her question struck me dumb, a hand to my lips. "I…"
"Play with me!" I turned my attention to Nura, still seated but leaning over to tug on my skirt, giving big, pleading eyes. "We've got lots of drums! We like to sing!"
"It's one of our ways of paying tribute. And having a little fun, of course." The Redguard ruffled Nura's hair as she giggled before gently extracting the drum, offering it to me. "Well?"
What do I want?
I skimmed my fingers over the surface, feeling the smooth, velvety tension of the skin stretched tight, the potential in the emptiness and solid wood beneath. A gentle tap, then another, summoned up with flickers of my spell as Nura clapped along.
Then, an answering call, deeper, harder. A muscular Altmer pounded on a massive drum on the floor, reverberating through the hall. A higher voice, a flute, from somewhere out of sight. Laughter, clapping.
I felt light. Tingling, from my still-stinging hand to the ends of my hair, biting my lip before beginning a new rhythm on the drum, pulsing with the shadows and glowing flashes I sent playing across white stone. The harder I drummed, the further I let my spell fly, sending scattering motes of light refracting across the surface of the pool.
I caught my breath. "… Right now?"
A nod from Niyaneh, the ruin becoming noisy with footsteps, cheers, music, life.
"I want to dance."
"Then what's stopping you?"
Here, now? It seemed like everything that weighed me down was locked outside. And with those chains lifted…
Nothing. Nothing at all.
I let my feet lead me, passing off the drum and mimicking the sparkles of fading light, a whisper of a spell on my lips, slipping out of my shoes and barefoot onto the water of the pool. Skimming like I had on the Nibenay, but this time I felt impossibly light, lifted as the other denizens of the ruin came forth, drawn out by the noise with drums and clapping and dancing of their own.
A little voice scolded, shrill and impatient in the back of my head. And what, exactly, are you going to learn dancing like a fool with a bunch of mad folk?
Well, I suppose I'm about to find out.
I knew, immediately, that this was more than a game. This was more than a bunch of madmen making noise. There was something almost spiritual here, beyond what I could grasp, but I could feel the power of it sweeping up and through these people. Somehow, the voices of these outcasts and misfits wove together into something beautiful. Was that one of the gifts they'd been given from their patron, passed on through a woman ripped asunder in the time of legends?
I let myself get swept up in it, too, like I was a single wave in the rolling dance of the ocean we made together. I danced like I hadn't since the autumn festival, feeling as though the music itself was swelling under my feet –
Realizing then it wasn't the music at all but the surface of the pool, warbling and waving under Blue's magic. I slowed mid-twirl, blinking, seeing him watch me with a smug grin before one of the waves splashed and lapped at my skirt, my legs, making me shriek and laugh aloud. I wasn't the only victim – the surface of the water rolled and tossed now like we'd awoken it, others on the sidelines getting pelted and cackling, splashing each other, playing.
Playing, laughing and somehow through all the death and terror, somehow, I still wanted that.
Inspiration struck in the bone-humming peals of the drums many seem to have found – I clapped my hands and stamped my feet, summoning up my magicka and sending flashes of light rippling in time with the beat, making the water glow. It seemed to light up my mind, too, thoughts trickling in like the cool water down my legs, the sweat down the nape of my neck.
This is exactly what He meant. Hard to dance with a chain around your ankle. I laughed breathlessly, the spell-driven water rolling higher, lifting me for just a moment as I turned. He offered me, as He had so many others, a reason to carve my own path. A reason not to give up and give in, evenone so frivolous and wonderful as song and dance and –
And…
Once more I slowed, getting splashed hard for my trouble but unable to stop myself. I licked the water off my lips, cool and fresh and sweet.
Clean.
The party had just barely begun, for them, but I made my slip-footed way off the pool and towards Niyaneh and Blue, panting.
"How?"
"Still full of questions, are we?"
"It's a simple enough alteration spell - "
"No, no." I cut him off, too full of wonder to even recoil as Blue glared. "The pool. It's clean. It must be – eras old, sitting here. You all bathe here, play here and somehow it's still – "
"Pure." Niyaneh finished my thought, giving a lopsided smirk and reaching to brush away a lock of hair slicked to my brow. "It was even when we came here. We've never known why. An underground spring cycling it through, or some ancient Ayleid enchantment on the stonework…"
A shrug from Blue. "A blessing, perhaps, from the Madgod himself. What does it matter?"
"It does." All in a rush I explained it to them, my much loved and much neglected, lofty ambition. Niyaneh listened indulgently, nodding as I came to a breathless halt. Blue made a face.
"That's ridiculous."
I grinned so wide my jaw hurt, blinking back tears. "Exactly."
"You see now, don't you?" Her eyes lidded. I nodded slowly, peeling the soaken layers of my skirt from my legs, slowly catching my breath now, catching up with my own thoughts. Sheogorath had given me a colourless taste of what I'd be without this, and here, I felt so richly how much his gifts – and the freedom to embrace them – meant to me.
… How hard I was willing to fight for it. How far I'd be willing to flee. Hell, I'd been ready and willing to let Sheogorath take me then and there. It was never that easy – hadn't they said themselves, He never simply gave someone what they wanted, but…
"You may not know the how…"
I met her eyes, chin raised. "But I know the why."
