Part 5 - Hearts
Chapter 36
A Typical Mess
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4E 201, 3rd Frostfall - Blacklight, Morrowind
It was taking everything Veleth had in him to not jump up and start pacing. He had been pacing earlier but then had been sternly rebuked by his increasingly aggravated mother by way of some flying object aimed at his head. Now he was sitting, tapping his foot impatiently, while he watched her work over Nevano's still body, his father standing silently nearby. He was still trying to make sense of what happened. One moment they were walking and the next thing he knew, there was a scream like a dying animal behind him. He had spun around in time to see Nevano hit the ground, gasping for air and clawing at himself, going so far as to scratching the skin at his neck bloody. By the time Veleth managed to find his voice and run to the small mer, Nevano had gone still. For terrifying moment he had thought Nevano was dead. The flood of relief at feeling the puff of warm air was short-lived. Something was horribly wrong but he just didn't know what. He had slung Nevano over his shoulders and had run the rest of the way to Blacklight, throwing all caution to the wind.
He was still trying to process it all. None of it made sense. The small mer had been fine when they left Mournhold. For the last several hours he had been wracking his memory trying to recall something, anything, that could possibly explain this bizarre episode, but he kept coming up empty.
"I can't see anything particularly wrong with him." Drelasa finally sat back. "His heart is strong and even, his lungs are clear and his eyes are reacting to light. There's no doubt something happened but I can't figure out what it is."
"Those burns..." Veleth started.
Drelasa held up Nevano's left arm, where blackened burns followed along the network of veins on his wrist. Just looking at them sent an ominous shiver down Veleth's spine. "The burns on his left hand, while very unsightly, did nothing to cause such a reaction, at least not like you described." His mother sighed and put Nevano's arm back down. "I can rule out any sort of disease, since he can't get sick, and I don't see any other sort of injury that would cause him to have a hard time breathing and clawing at his chest and throat...it would have to be some sort of external force."
"An external force?"
"Something, or someone, else is acting on his body." Drelasa said. "Either a curse or a...a weapon of some sort. I just don't see any obvious signs of curses or injuries. Whatever it is is either quiet for now or well hidden."
"So now what?"
"For now, we wait." Drelasa pulled a blanket up to Nevano's chin. "Let him rest. When he wakes up, he can perhaps shed some light on all this."
Veleth opened his mouth to argue but a hand dropped heavily on his shoulder, instantly killing the impatient rebuttal on his tongue. He looked up to see his father giving him a look that told him to just go along with it. He looked closer and saw the tight lines on Jorun's face and realized that the order to wait was just agonizing for him but there was no other choice. Only one person had an idea what was going on and he was currently unconscious on the floor. They could only be patient and wait. Not his finest talent.
"Modyn, you've been awake for the past few days." Drelasa turned her attention to her son, frowning at the still rather obvious injuries from Mournhold. "Try to get some sleep."
Veleth grunted in annoyance but he had to admit the sense in it. He was absolutely exhausted. They had gotten maybe one full night's sleep in the past...two weeks? Three? He had completely lost track at this point. That was on the low end of sleep, even for him. Right now, all he was doing was making himself even more irritable than he already was and drive everyone crazy. It was helping no one. Sleep was, for now, the best option.
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Dust billowed up from the dry ground as a hot wind blew, withered grasses buckled beneath the force of it, disintegrating into dust one dry flake at a time.. Even with the breeze, there was no relief from the intense heat. The wind merely made the heat hit Veleth all the harder, making even his heat tolerant skin feel like it was trying to wither into ash. The sky burned red above him, churning in the heat. In the distance he could see what looked to be black towers twisting towards the red sky but the very air shimmered like water, making it difficult to tell exactly what they were. Beneath the wind, Veleth could hear whispers of voices but so soft he couldn't make out what they were saying. Every instinct in his body was screaming at him to be alert, as if the environment he found himself in wasn't foreboding enough.
He stepped to the edge of the ridge he found himself on and looked down into the valley below. Lava moved sluggishly along the bottom, bright red bubbles popping lazily on the surface. It reminded him of the stories he had heard from Vvardenfell, of the foyadas that tracked along the island, directing the lava flows from the temperamental volcano away from towns and cities. Until they were completely overwhelmed in the great eruption, that is.
He stepped back from the edge and looked towards the towers in the distance. In the dancing heat, they seemed to be beckoning to him to come closer. He turned towards them and the world upended.
'If your blood boils in your veins. If your mind blazons with fire.'
Veleth nearly fell to his knees as the voice boomed within and without his head like a thousand pealing bells, his fingers pressed hard into his ears, each word cutting deep in his mind. It was hundreds of voices all at once, young, old, male and female. The ground shuddered beneath his feet, the grass tumbled to dust. Even the heat seemed to quail from the voice.
'Know that battle is a blessing. Know that death is an eventuality. Know that you are dust.'
He jerked up when he sensed something moving around him, pushing aside the pain throbbing in his head. What was left of the brittle, dried grasses were still vibrating from that booming voice but there was a subtle ripple to them that wasn't part of their earlier movement. Something was stalking him, trying to take advantage of his weakened state. He reached over his shoulder for his weapon but his hand grasped at air. Quickly, he grabbed at his boot, but the familiar feel of the knife hilt wasn't there. He was totally unarmed.
'Long is the arm and swift is the blade.'
As the grasses bent under the unrelenting force of the voice, his assailants leaped out at him. Emaciated frames with skin stretched taunt over jutting bones moved as fast as a whip strike with claws as long as his forearm reaching for vulnerable points. He dodged the hunger's initial strike but gave it a kick on its bony haunch as it passed by, sending it tumbling headlong back into the dead weeds. Before he could catch his breath, something slithered around his arm and yanked him backwards off his feet. He glanced behind him to see another hunger, its long tongue wrapped around his arm, dragging him back towards the maw that covered most of its face. A maw filled with far too many razor-sharp teeth.
He moved to jerk his arm free, and possibly remove the damned daedra's tongue in the process, but suddenly there were tongues coming from all directions, winding around his limbs and holding him immobile. One hunger by itself was a nuisance but a whole pack of them spelled certain death.
'Deep is the cut and subtle is the poison.'
"Shut up!" Veleth yelled in frustration, desperately pulling at the tongues that held him, cringing when several licked at his face. Every time he broke free from a tongue, another was quick to take its place.
'You will come. You cannot deny me. You will not deny me.'
"Watch me." He allowed his frustration to boil over into a red rage, letting the boost in strength that came with it to flow through him. It was just enough for him to surge to his feet, ripping the hungers' tongues out of their mouths. A few made a halfhearted attempt to charge him but daedra, especially the lower minions of the daedra lords, were notorious for their cowardice. Sending just a few of them sailing was enough to send the remaining hunger skittering into the dry weeds. He grinned, pleased with the results but then a jolt from his gut wiped the smile from his face. Instead of anger, there was a feeling of amusement in the air. By giving in to the rage boiling just below the surface, he had somehow pleased the presence around him instead of defying it.
It began to laugh. Hundreds, thousands of pitches and tones howled in glee, making the air vibrate worse than ever. Veleth fell to his knees, hands pressed hard to his ears but he couldn't stop the pain of it echoing in his very bones. He screamed out, trying to drown out the noise with his own voice but it was swept away in the cacophony of maniacal wailing. Blood spilled from his ears, dripping onto the dry ground. The severed tongues from the hunger twitched towards the dark red drops.
'You will not deny me.'
Veleth sat bolt upright, gasping for breath as if he had just run for miles, a cold sweat coating his body. His head still throbbed from that booming voice echoing in his head. He frantically swiped at his ears, calming down some when his fingers came back clean. He dropped back to the sweat-soaked sheets, trying to control his breathing until it resembled something normal. These dreams...they were becoming ridiculous. He didn't know exactly what was going on but they were becomingly increasingly violent, to the point it was affecting his waking moments too. He needed to do something about this, he just wasn't sure how. He certainly wasn't going to give in to it.
After a few fruitless hours of tossing and turning, Veleth gave up on trying to get more sleep altogether. Instead he wandered back downstairs where he found his father keeping vigil over his unconscious friend. It was more than a little disturbing to see Nevano so still. Even while asleep he usually found a way to be suitable obnoxious. This deathly stillness did not suit him at all. Funny how a few short weeks ago, Veleth swore to Nevano he would do anything to shut him up...and now he was willing to do whatever needed for him to be obnoxious again.
"Can't sleep?" Jorun asked as he sat down.
"I just spent a month listening to his nonstop nonsense, which included evasive joking, deliberate antagonizing and, for some odd reason I have yet to discern, a fork." Veleth said. "Silence bothers me now. Usually means something has gone wrong."
"It grows on you pretty quick." Jorun smirked.
"The silence or his chatter?" Veleth shook his head. "This whole thing is…disturbing."
"It is." Jorun nodded. "Something about all this...it's not sitting right with me. It's keeping me awake just as much as it is you."
"You're thinking everything we're doing and this situation is all connected." It wasn't a question. It was a niggling feeling he had had since Nevano first hit the ground. As fidgety as he was, it was a bit of a relief to know that someone else shared the same concerns and suspicions as he did.
"Unfortunately I'm getting that feeling but there's nothing I can say for sure." Jorun sighed. "For that we're going to have to wait for Nevano to wake up. He's hiding something and I'm highly tempted to shake him awake and make him talk but your mother would skin me alive. So, until then, patience. However hard that is."
"Patience…right." His father gave him a sidelong look before pulling the chess board out. Veleth gave a small amused huff. "We haven't played in a long time. Used to all the time."
"You never were a sound sleeper." Jorun smiled. "Even as an infant, you used to stay awake all night. Aren't you lucky I don't sleep very much either. Gave your poor mother a much needed break from a bratty child who never slept."
"I think ma got so frustrated she tried to drug me at one point." Veleth set the pieces up. His father always took the black pieces. He remembered Nevano had once groused that he swore Jorun had cursed the pieces. Idly he wondered if that had any merit. Nothing his father did would really surprise him anymore.
"Tried?" Jorun smirked a little. "I told her not to worry but sleeplessness is not something she's familiar with. It runs in the family though."
"Some people drink, some train..." Veleth shrugged. "Others don't sleep because they need to keep watch on those who tend to wander off at midnight."
"I did warn you about that."
They played in silence for a while, though Veleth was so distracted that he couldn't think straight, making several blunders that, ultimately, cost him the game. His father said nothing about his obvious lack of concentration, he simply reset the board and patiently waited for his son to make the opening move.
"So, I take it that all went well in Mournhold, this current incident aside." He said, pushing a pawn forward.
"Da, you probably have a clearer idea of what happened than I do, despite me sitting right in the middle of it." Veleth snorted.
Jorun smiled. "There's a few gaps in the reports, what with that barrier and a few underground ventures, and one very confused report about a temple blowing up, but I can't tell you how proud I am of you kicking Andas' ass. They will not soon forget that...or what you and Nevano did for them."
Veleth felt his ears burn. "Almost didn't go that way. I got carried away at first. If it hadn't been for Nevusa..."
"Ah, yes, the Churl."
Veleth's hand froze over a knight, his ears picking out the barely-there tone of recognition. "You knew about her."
"I knew of her, yes." Jorun admitted, though he didn't sound the least bit ashamed of it. "Not right away, though. It wasn't until years later, well after Nevano took off, that word started to trickle in about a girl with sunburst eyes in a city where I knew the old flame of the Nerevarine lived. So I paid a visit to an old acquaintance there and looked in on Sorosi while I was at it. Wasn't real hard to figure out. Sorosi swore me to secrecy though."
"Why?"
"To prevent a small eruption." Jorun motioned for him to make a move. "Think about it. If Nevano knew he had a child, he would have moved the planes of oblivion to get to her. Sorosi, smart woman, saw the fallout it would have caused. He would have challenged the man she's married to, as was within his right to, caused a massive uproar, split a rift within House Redoran...it would have been messy, to say the least. For the sake of her child, Sorosi chose to remain silent about the girl's true sire. She neither claimed it nor denied it. By doing so she wasn't outright lying, therefore saving face publicly and allowing people to simply look the other way."
"Save face? What the hell does that mean?"
Jorun tutted at his slowness. "She was already married to the other man when Nevusa came along, son. Nevano stole a Redoran councilor's wife out from under his nose and begot a child with her. By staying silent, she won't have to be branded a liar and a cheater, the girl a bastard and them both landed in exile."
"This is..."
"A rather typical Nevano mess." Jorun smiled. "Half the time I wonder what he did to Mephala to make her hate him so. He trips over one thing and a whole web unravels around him. Sometimes I think that whole saying about the best laid plans was brought about because of him. I let it play out on it's own. Usually things come together nicely, though in strange ways;"
"Is that why you haven't given us a clear idea of what we're doing? Just a series of vague errands that will somehow come together in the end?" Veleth's ears twitched slightly at his own snippy tone. "I understand the end goal but the getting there..."
"This particular errand I simply didn't know anything beyond what I told you." Jorun didn't seem perturbed at his son's irritation. "I wasn't sure what was going on and Garil isn't known for willingly sharing information, as I'm sure you found out. Making a plan ahead of time would have proved detrimental. Besides, it worked out. You both performed admirably. Unless you are complaining just to complain."
Again his ears twitched, this time at the quiet rebuke. He knew better. He of all people should know better. He was letting his irritation get the better of him.
"You are used to more direct measures. Hell, it was required in Solstheim." Jorun went on. "Generally, most military groups don't teach you how to be patient or how to settle down and take things one step at a time. It's a common problem when you have the sheer numbers to overwhelm something. Besides, why would they? Those in power want you to obey, not think. In our case? We are a very small group in the face of an enemy that outnumbers us. If we are to have a glimmer of a chance, we must do things one small step at a time before we have built up enough to strike. They might outfight us, but we can outsmart them. Just be patient. It will come."
Veleth opened his mouth to respond but was abruptly interrupted by Nevano suddenly screaming out. The world seemed to both halt and speed up at the same time. Adrenaline hit Veleth like a bolt of lightning. He found himself sliding in next to Nevano without any recollection of ever getting up from where he was sitting, his heart slamming against his rib cage in the same panicked rhythm that it had the first time he had seen Nevano hit the ground. 'Not again...' he mentally repeated to himself over and over.
Nevano was jerking and twisting, his limbs getting tangled in his blanket, making the same horrible choking noise as before. It was a noise that set every nerve on fire with alarm. He had no idea what to do, no idea how to make it stop. Next to him, Jorun wore the same look of horrified helplessness.
"Is this what happened earlier?" His mother appeared next to them, seemingly out of thin air.
"Yes...exactly this." Veleth said.
"Do you feel that?" Drelasa's eyes narrowed. "Magic. There's magic in here that wasn't before. It's coming from him."
She stripped back the blanket. Nevano's skin was a map of old scars from past fights and other incidences that would be classified under 'total disaster'. Veleth knew those well enough. He had plenty of his own souvenir scars that stood as a stark reminder of how deadly their chosen life was...or how stupid some of their choices were. Nothing really stood out as maybe being the cause of this mysterious ailment, not even the jagged crater in the nook where Nevano's left shoulder met his neck. Veleth knew exactly where that wound came from even without seeing the distinctive curved shape of a mouth. He would have suspected Dagoth Ur's parting gift to Nevano as the source of these fits but his mother shook her head.
"Nothing there. I suspected that too at first. You should have seen it when he first got it." His mother said. "I thought he was going to lose most of his range of motion in his shoulder. He simply decided that that wasn't going to happen. I really shouldn't have been as surprised as I was that it actually worked but...what is that?"
Nevano gasped again as a small spot about the size of Veleth's thumb nail began glowing under the skin on his chest chest, right over his heart. The muscles surrounding it were contracting and twitching as if lightning were running through them. After a few moments the glow sputtered out and Nevano's muscles relaxed, allowing him to drag in a ragged breath.
"Whatever it is, it's right there." Drelasa held her finger over the spot, marking it while pulling a small leather kit over. "There is something here. I can feel it. I need to get it out."
"Hold him." Jorun said grimly. "And don't let go. He's going to fight like a wildcat."
Drelasa waited patiently for them to get a good hold on the small mer before carefully sliced the skin just below the glowing spot. As she did so, Nevano cried out and exploded in their grip, nearly knocking Veleth completely onto his back with an astonishing show of strength.
"Hold him, hold him. I see what it is. It's a…shard of some sort." Drelasa dug into the muscle with a set of tiny tongs. "Almost got it...hold him still."
Veleth gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the bucking, bellowing mer. It was like holding onto a wild guar. Who knew that Nevano was so damned strong? He was throwing nearly his entire weight on a mer who was easily half his size and he might as well have been trying to hold up a mountain on his own. He glanced up and saw that his father was having every bit as difficult a time as he was.
"Got it!" His mother held up a tiny shard triumphantly.
All at once the fight drained out of Nevano. His muscles relaxed and he went limp in their arms. Veleth gladly dropped him down, sitting back and rubbing at a his jaw. It was still tender from his fight with Autarch Andas and none-too-pleased about being hit again. If he ever had a choice between holding down a delirious, flailing Nevano and fighting a group of possessed Ordinators, he would choose the Ordinators every time. He could hit back then and not feel so bad about it afterwards.
"There. It's a small cut and should heal nicely." Drelasa said, pressing a cloth to the small wound. "What is this though?"
It was a small red, crystalline fragment that Veleth could see was red in color all the way through and not just stained by Nevano's blood. Every now and then it would glow brighter, emitting a magical pulse that even he could detect despite his minimal magical prowess. It was not a pleasant energy either. No wonder Nevano had completely seized up. Every time it pulsed, he felt his skin crawl and had to fight the impulse to cringe back.
Jorun frowned. "That's nothing I have ever seen before but there's no telling what Nevano could have gotten into."
"That blood color is unnerving, isn't it?" Drelasa said. "Not like a ruby. This is like heart's blood."
"Didn't run into anything like that in Mournhold, did you?" Jorun asked.
Veleth shook his head. That shard matched nothing they had seen in Mournhold. Besides, there was no fresh wound over the shard's resting place. Whatever it was, it had been there for a long while.
"Shit. I was afraid of that." Jorun sat back and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Once again, we're going to have to wait for Nevano to wake up to get some answers. At least this time we know what to ask so he can't worm his way out of it." Veleth narrowed his eyes, his earlier irritation bubbling back up with a vengeance. "Look, son, you are twitchier than a wet cat right now. Go out. Go find something to do. Just stay out of trouble. I usually don't have to say that but you've been around Nevano. It tends to rub off."
That did nothing to ease his temper but getting out of the house did at least keep it from getting any worse. The winds were giving way from the warmer summer breeze to the more frigid winter winds from Skyrim. It wouldn't be long before the cold would drive even the hardiest Dunmer indoors but for now the cool nip was pleasant enough that people were still out and about. Veleth almost wished for the harsh cold of Solstheim to slap him in the face to distract him. Between the shard, the Thalmor and the increasingly persistent dreams he was having, he had more questions than answers and it was driving him mad.
He was so lost in his brooding thoughts that he didn't hear footsteps coming up behind him until something dropped around his neck. He flinched and nearly lashed out until familiar laughter stopped him before he could lay his supposed attacker out flat.
"What is this? Did I catch our famously alert commander off guard?" R'is grinned widely, his arm still thrown around Veleth's neck. "I'm going to have to remember this. I don't think I've ever caught you by surprise before. Well...at least I haven't and not gotten a dislocated jaw for my trouble."
"You damn near got it this time, too."
"Whew, you are bitchier than jilted whore tonight." R'is made a face at him. "Let's go drinking like we used to. Might put you in a better mood."
Veleth merely grunted. After the initial stinging reception he had gotten, he really wasn't all that interested in getting a second helping.
"C'mon, Vel! I made an ass of myself when you first got here." R'is said, slapping him on the back. "Let me make it up to you?"
Veleth eyed him. "Hope you got plenty of drakes then. Drinks are on you."
The tavern that R'is chose was definitely one that Veleth would mentally label a 'health hazard'. It was dark and dingy inside, too dark to even see the ground but judging by the feel of his boot scraping the floor, he really didn't want to look too close. There was just enough light to be able to tell there were other people in the tavern but their general features were murky in the dim light. He could pick out a few different accents in the low murmur, mostly local accents but a few from the surrounding provinces. He thought he heard the low, rumbling growl of an orc but he couldn't be so sure. Again he wasn't about to look too closely. The whole tavern carried the impression of wanting to stay as hidden as possible. Looking too close would only cause more trouble than it was worth.
A drink was shoved into his hands. The smell of it was so strong it made him turn his head to the side. Even the heaviest of drinkers would have to admit this was strong and Veleth knew plenty of hard, heavy drinkers.
"Don't chicken out on me!" R'is slapped his shoulder.
"Stuff hits you in the face like acid."
"It's strong stuff here. Want to know why it's so dark in here? Because if that drunk orc in the back there farts with that many lit candles around here this place will turn into an inferno."
Veleth snorted in spite of himself and bravely took a generous swallow of the strange brew. Instantly his tongue started twitching and curling uncontrollably. It took all of his considerable willpower to keep from coughing it back up again.
"What is this?" He sputtered.
"Something foreign." R'is shrugged. "Was the special of the night. Figured why not. Sometimes they're pretty good. This is strong enough for me to think it came from Orsinium. That's why that orc is laughing for the first time ever...anyway, we didn't get a good chance to talk last time. What really brings you back home?"
Veleth took another swallow of the caustic drink. He didn't like lying to his old friend but in a shadowy tavern where he couldn't even see the other patrons? He didn't need a spymaster or an old hero with thief-like tendencies to tell him he needed to lie. He just hated to do it.
"Simply put, my contract there ended and approval for extension wasn't granted. Still not quite sure what I'm supposed to do around here. I guess I'm just waiting for them to decide what to do with me." That wasn't so bad and wasn't too far from the truth.
"How is Solstheim, really?"
Veleth nearly sighed in relief. This he didn't have to lie about. "Dangerous. Desolate. The stories really aren't all that far from the truth. The reavers are annoying and thick as ticks on a bear's ass. Speaking of bears, the local fauna is even more bad-tempered than what we've seen here. Nothing like being chased by a giant tusked bristleback being ridden by rieklings to pop your ego."
"The hell is a riekling?"
"Evil-tempered midget goblins that likes to throw poisoned twigs at you. Don't laugh! When a hundred of them pop out of the snow it's no longer funny."
"Why did you stay so long?"
"The island was horrible. It was difficult, it was hard, it was an uphill battle the whole time for mere survival, especially after the mine closed." Veleth admitted, stopping to take another swallow. "But...I liked the people. No one shied from hard work and no one questioned what I did to keep them safe. I was sent the worst of the recruits but it became a challenge turning the messes they gave me into something to be proud of. While it was an aggravation, I actually looked forward to it. Wasn't long before I felt personally responsible for everyone's well being..."
"Ah, there it is." R'is poked at him. "You could indulge those noble tendencies."
"I could." Veleth swatted his hand away. "But how many werewolves have you killed in the past seventy years? There were some really good fights in there...and some really bad ones. There were assassins, some Argonians that thought they could get away with attacking Solstheim, some strange creatures my men called ash spawn that apparently was the Telvanni wizard's fault...a dragon, once."
"A dragon?!"
"Keep your voice down, yes." Veleth scowled at him. "All connected to the Dragonborn. Thing was ugly but we didn't have to fight it, fortunately. That would have ended in a certain death..."
"You sound like you wish you were back there."
"...There was a girl."
"Now we are getting to the good part."
"Shut up." Veleth scowled at him. "Pretty girl. I liked her a lot. Made being there...bearable."
"And she's not here why?"
Veleth gave him a dirty look that was felt perfectly even in the dim light. R'is didn't seem to be the least bit perturbed but at least he didn't push it. He instead got more drinks. The talk turned more banal, something Veleth was relieved over. The acrid orc brew was replaced by the more familiar Dunmeri beverage of mazte, which they were able to put back at a faster rate. The talk turned from catching up to complaining about work, an old topic that had very little to do with actual grievances and more to do with comparing who had it worse. Slowly Veleth relaxed as they conversed the familiar arguments of everything unimportant. Despite the shady bar they were in, he was finally starting to feel more at home again.
"You know…before I left Solstheim there was something I was told…by the girl I liked." Veleth paused, taking a swing of his drink. "I didn't think anything of it at first. Now I wonder if what she said had merit. She really wasn't the one who usually said the weird things. Not sure why I remember it. The whole damn island said weird things all the time."
"I told you that ashy water does strange shit to you."
"Shut up." Veleth shoved R'is when he snickered. "Anyway, her father is the strange one. Actually, he's more than strange. He was a complete pain in my ass. Made being with her very difficult. Most of what he said was nonsense but one thing he told her stuck with me."
"What's that?"
"She was saying how Thalmor were trying to crawl around Vvardenfell. That they're digging around the volcano." He shook his head. "Pure nonsense. There's nothing left there."
"It's a ruined land of ash and dust." R'is smirked in agreement. "Kinda like what you were running around in in Solstheim. How did that ash taste?"
"The next time the wind changes and brings ash to our shore, I'll be laughing while the rest of you cough and whine about it like the spoiled city mer you are. I've met reavers who whine less."
"Is this how you treat your subordinates? Amazing they still allowed you to be a captain."
"Ah, you're just jealous that I outrank you and will always outrank you." Veleth smirked at R'is. "Don't worry. No matter how high up I get, I'll always make sure you remain my favorite little grunt. Special privileges. Make you the star of the underlings. They will love you."
He laughed when R'is snorted his drink out of his nose. It felt good to cut loose, to have a moment where he didn't have to worry about every small movement he made, who saw him or what was going on outside the building he was in. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he was able to not worry. It was temporary though. As soon as he walked out the door, the sense of urgency and frustration would come crashing down on him again. For now, however, he was determined to push it aside.
The sun was beginning to rise by the time he managed to stumble back home. He was drunk but not so drunk that he could justify sleeping it off on the filthy tavern floor like many of the others he had been with, R'is included. He was drunkenly proud of himself; he only needed to stop to vomit once. He was able to walk a bit straighter after that.
"There you are..." His father said, mercifully not mentioning his slightly unsteady stance or anything else really. Veleth could have sworn there was a slight twinkle of amusement there. Either that or it was inebriated wishful thinking. He stank like stale beer. He needed a bath and soon but, at this particular moment he did not care. He would care later. Then his father spoke again. It took a moment or two for what he said to sink in but the moment it did, all inebriated fuzziness was dashed away.
"Nevano is waking up."
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A/N: Summer is upon the great land of Texas again, my dear readers! This means late spring storms, construction projects, and hiding from the increasing heat. Oh, and writing time. Can't forget that.
