I stared at the wall. Ninety four tally marks carved with a spoon into the hard stone. Ninety four days. I'd been stuck in a cell for over three months now with only my memories of being the best. Rolling in dirty money, traveling the countryside in clean sturdy clothes with a full belly and a horse under me, sparring with Fargoth, Bargrum, and my dad. Memories of ambushing those proud humans who refused to meet our demands. The memory of of my last kills in the arena. It was all for naught.

I had no one to spar, the magic was being drained from me by the bracer on my wrist, and the food was not enough to maintain my physique. All I could do here was die slowly.

The last few days, I'd begun to think that maybe I should have given up in the arena, but I couldn't have done that if only for Fargoths sake. The only reason I'd held out this long was out of hope that mother would find a way to get me out. Now, I didn't believe it would happen. I'd taken the largest gamble available to me and I was paying for it with everything I had.

I would say that I was thinking about giving up, but in truth, I already had. It was just a matter of how to end my life. I might be able to strangle myself with my shirt, but I didn't care for that option. I'd probably change my mind before I could manage it.

The smell of sweet smoke caught my attention. Outside my cell, my jailor sat with his pipe. A few weeks ago he'd asked if I minded him smoking in here since the rest of the cell block was still empty, keeping me confined. He asked this because rather than tobacco, he preferred a much stronger substance called skooma which was highly illegal. I needed the company, so I kept his secret, or I would if anyone else ever came in here. Mostly, we sat quietly. He didn't think much when he was on the drug and I didn't want to speak, but it helped just to have another person there.

Now, he could help me in another way too. Coming to a decision, I tried to engage in small talk. "Is the prison really so empty that they can give me my own cell block, or are they stuffing them tight on the other floors?"

With glazed eyes, the old human replied in a lazy accent, "It's fairly empty in here. The prison is huge, but with the economy the way it is, most folks make out fine doing honest work. No offense to you."

I huffed out my nose, almost a chuckle and was silent again. The man was in his fifties. No family, few friends, and frankly he was ugly to boot. Perfectly suited to tend to prisoners.

"Can I ask you something," he asked? "This has been bothering me."

"Shoot."

"I heard you blackmailed people for a living. Why kill the Emperor? What was in it for you?"

I leaned my head back against the wall. "We had some nasty dirt on the Emperor, but he found out that someone knew and had Blades agents go to work for the newspapers undercover and censor the news instead of paying our ransom. Without a way to publicize his secret, we couldn't extort him. So, the next best thing was to make an example of him, then the next target would know what we were capable of and we'd be on easy street." The jailer humphed in understanding. It took a lot to actually impress him while he was in this state.

After a long pause I spoke again. "In the past few weeks, I've been catching whiffs of that stuff you're smoking. I'm getting curious what it's like." The man looked at the pipe and shrugged.

"I don't see how it could make your situation any worse." He stood and held the pipe out through the bars. At his waist, he had a vial of the skooma. Normally, you'd pour a drop of the sappy liquid into the glass pipe and heat it up. It would smoke and you'd breath that in. I'd heard rumors that some people had died just from using that much, but those could have been wives tales. I would make no more mistakes. I took the glass pipe and held it out for him to fill it.

He took the vial from under his coat and started to pour, but I snatched the bottle away.

He slowly realized I had stolen his drug and begged, "No wait. What are you doing?"

I smiled at him with a hint of melancholy on my face. "It's called suicide. Now here's what you're going to do. Once I drink this, I'll give you the vial and the pipe back. You'll leave and you won't tell anyone what's happened. You'll find me dead tomorrow morning and report it to the guards. They won't find out about your habit."

I threw my head back and poured the sickly sweet tasting sap in my mouth. This much should be enough to kill any man. The jailer clasped his hands to his lips in shock. I swallowed the mouthful of expensive sap and held the implements out to the man. "Thank you for keeping me company."

He took the items from me and bustled out of the cell block as quickly as he could. I sat down in my cell, glad that I'd helped him avoid trouble for my death. My attention was drawn to a candle he'd left outside my cell. He'd been using it to burn the skooma. After a couple minutes, the candle seemed to burn faster and faster. In no time at all, it was burned out, the wax all spilled on the floor. Then, slowly, the whole world went dark and I never even felt myself fall to the floor.

I was completely numb. There was a distant light brightening the world around me, but it was so blurry, I couldn't tell whether it was the sun or a torch. My body lay for ages it seemed. The stone prison melted away, destroyed by time until it was sand on the wind.

After years and years, I regained my vision only to find sand flying about me. I struggled to my feet and stumbled through the storm, pushing onward grudgingly. Was I to serve an eternity here? Was this where death has brought me? But I still wore the prison bracers. Could I still be alive?

I wandered the sands for ages. Alone, confused. I dared not cry to the divines nor the daedra for fear of getting the sand in my mouth.

Eventually, I gave up again. There was no end to this storm. I fell on my back and gazed heavenward to find a shaft of clean air directly above me, allowing a view of the sky. The full moon shone down on me through the tunnel and I heard a voice. I could tell it belonged to neither man nor elf. This voice was ancient and all encompassing as if the grains of sand spoke for the omnipotent being.

"They have taken you from the Imperial cities prison, first by carriage and now by boat."

"But I was supposed to die," I rasped. "How did I survive?"

"Fear not. I am watchful. You have been chosen."

Lightning arced across the sky, shaking the world. Clouds gathered and rain fought with the flying sand. I watched as the water slowly forced the sand to the ground. It washed me clean. It washed away the sand under me and I was laying on a cot. The walls of sand peeled away around me to reveal the hull of a ship. The water falling on my forehead was dripping from a rag. An older dark elf was standing over me. He had a scar across one of his eyes. The eye itself had been sewn shut after he'd received the wound, but it had grown together and healed a long time ago.

My body felt atrophied. I twitched my bony fingers and was surprised to find they'd shrunk as if I were starving. The dark elf noticed my movement and deliberately looked me over. "Are you finally awake?"

"Where am I?"

He answered calmly, putting the rag away. "We're on a ship. We'll arrive in Vvardenfell soon."

Vvardenfell, the land of my ancestors. That couldn't be a coincidence. What was the Emperor up to? "How long have I been out?"

"Well, we've been at sea for two days. I don't know about before then."

"What's today's date?"

He shrugged. "I lost count. Somewhere near the middle of last seed."

I struggled to sit up and counted on my fingers. The Emperor's birthday had been the 30th of Frostfall. I'd been in prison for the months of sun's dusk, evening star, and I drank the skooma in morning star. That left suns dawn, first seed, rains hand, second seed, mid year, and suns height. I was missing half a year. That is, if I'm being told the truth, I thought.

"Who are you," I asked?

The other dark elf sat against the hull of the ship. He wore no shirt, just a pair of dark pants and worn shoes. I noticed a single brass earring in his pointed left ear. "My name is Jiub. I used to be a mercenary, but I tangled with the wrong nobleman in Cyrodiil. I've been in prison for years when suddenly I'm carted off to this ship and told to care for you during the crossing. I didn't argue. I'll trade my cell for this ship any day. What about you?"

After a moment of thought, I replied, "My story is a lot like yours, just less jail time."

"What happened to you? They never said what caused your coma."

"Uh, skooma overdose." He nodded and looked toward the door of our little room. We had two cots and little else. What really caught my attention was that there was no door. No bars to hold us in. I stared in disbelief, peeled my blanket off and realized that there was no bracer on my arm. Hardly daring to believe it, I twisted and fell out of my cot. Jiub looked at me oddly.

"What did you do that for?"

"I have to get on deck. I have to see."

Jiub shook his head. "See what? We're at sea."

My legs barely supported me and with the tipping and rolling of the ship, I couldn't stand at all. Unswayed, I crawled down the hallway. Jiub didn't seem to care. He let me leave. I struggled all the way across the hall to some stairs and up into a second level below deck. This was a trade ship, but there was very little in the way of cargo. More hammocks hung on this level along with some supplies. A handful of imperial legionnaires turned to look at me as I crawled up the steps.

The men laughed at the sad sight and one of them stood to help me. "What are you doing?"

"I want to get on deck."

He rolled his eyes, but put my arm around his shoulder and hauled me to my feet. His decorative armor felt good against my feverish body. I soaked up the cold from the metal in a lecherous way, while we climbed another set of stairs. Another soldier went ahead of us to open the hatch. We broke out into the air and I soaked in the sensations. Salt in the air, the sun on my face. After my prison stay and however long I'd been asleep, even the gusting wind was ecstasy.

The kind soldier propped me up against the rail of the ship and after I assured him I wouldn't fall, he stepped back. My weak arms supported me enough to see the coast in the distance. Curious gulls hovered over our sails. I couldn't make out any details of the land.

"Is that Vvardenfell," I asked?

The soldier nodded with a grunt. "I don't know what makes you and that other elf so special, but our orders to bring you here come from the Emperor himself."

I turned around so he could see my face. "You mean you don't know who I am?"

He took a moment and thoughtfully studied me. "No, should I?"

Realizing the amount of time that had passed, I shook my head. "Probably better that you don't. Why don't I have a prison bracer on?"

The soldier removed a glove so he could curl his heavily waxed mustache. "Our orders are to release you." He shrugged. "Why would you be a danger to us?"

"Well in that case, why Morrowind? What's waiting for us on the island?"

"Beats me elf. It must be important. The island's been quarantined for long over a year due to the blight. The Empires afraid of even providing mail services."

I remembered my father telling me about the blight. Growing up in the ashlands, they'd sometimes encounter wild animals with a hideous deforming disease. They were slain on sight and the arrows used to kill them were abandoned. Afterward, the corpses were avoided like the plague they were. Some people even burned them. Mother said that on the coast, they rarely saw any blighted creatures, but that there were lots of stories from travelers. I guess the disease had become more prevalent.

"So here's how this will work," the soldier explained. "We'll arrive in Seyda neen in a couple hours. We'll lower a plank to the dock and the local guards will retrieve it once you've crossed over so we don't risk contaminating the ship. If that happens, none of us get to return home. We'd have to start new lives reassigned here in Vvardenfell. Once you cross the plank, for Talos' sake, don't come back." I nodded my understanding. "Good, now let's get you something to eat. You look like a skeleton."