...Or not.
"One must pay dearly for immorality; one has to die several times while still alive."
Friedrich Nietzsche
"Now what?" I asked Sheogorath, sighing afterwards. I sighed because I was spent. His face was still flushed from our…encounter. "We continue looking for her," he replied, in a tad bit energetic voice. He grinned at me. The smile exposed his white teeth. That grin was, to be flat honest, insane, but it was just as endearing as it was unsettling. Ah, I wished he wasn't manic right then and there. Well, it would explain why he went after me like a ravenous dog. I didn't mind it, though. He began moving towards another door. Hopefully, the room was not one we had already frequented.
While he opened the door, I began thinking. Where was Zarrexaij? Could she be found? Of course, Sheogorath entered without me, but did not close the door until I came inside. When I did step inside the foreign room, he shut the door. The room I had entered was bright with heavenly light. There was a white bed opposite of us. It was a small room, almost like a bedroom, or a jail cell. There was window from which the white light was begat. Was this the light of hope? Was this the light of heaven? "It seems that the angel is here," he commented, quite moved by the window. I didn't quite understand it. It was just a silly, out of place window. Then again, Sheogorath knew more than I did. I didn't dare ask what he meant.
He fingered the white covers of the bed. He gasped. I raised an eyebrow at him. "'Tis silk," Sheogorath remarked, "just like her covers." He was ecstatic about the discovery. I couldn't fathom a Daedroth having a bed, though. "What?" I asked. He turned towards me and informed me, "Zarrexaij was more than a Daedroth. Walter, she was my companion. She was my heaven, and my hell. Zarrexaij was quite mortal, you see?" He seemed to be just raving on. I almost tuned him out, but when he frowned, I knew not to. He was keen on my body language. There was nothing insane in what he was telling me, I realized. "Love is such a damn wretched thing. It can make the sane man insane. Yet, it could not undo my curse," he sighed, gazing at me with horrendously acrid eyes.
"Tell me. What do you mean?" I questioned. I was very perplexed by his speech. His entire pattern of conversation had changed dramatically. He wasn't making much sense. He exhaled abruptly before he replied, "It would be better to show you. Take an oath to never repeat." I stared at him with curiosity. "I take an oath then; I shan't repeat what I saw in words, or in images," I vowed to him. Now, I obviously did not stick to his well, as I am telling you what I saw, but that isn't relevant. Sheogorath was full of secrets, and I wanted to hear, well, see every one of them.
"Take my hands, since you wish to know," he implored me, holding both of them out, palm up. I looked at them, then looked at his eyes. He wished me no harm. Nonetheless, I was terrified of the consequences. The gleam in his emerald eyes became urgent. I gazed into his eyes as I laid my hands palm down on his. He tangled my fingers with his. They were longer than mine, naturally. His eyes changed color, and suddenly, my hands began smarting. The pain shot up my arms slowly. It traveled up and down my torso at the same time. I gritted my teeth and did not cry out. My eyesight blackened, albeit only for a moment.
I opened my eyes that were surging with pain. I was inside of Sheogorath's memories. I was inside his mind. I already wanted out. It was very claustrophobic, and dark, yet bright at the same time. I know, that's an oxymoron. Everything seemed much different from my perception. The walls were blackened, and the light emanating from the windows was glowing. I saw myself as shell in front of him. I wanted to shudder, but I couldn't. I no longer had form. This horrified me.
Panic not, my dearest Walter his mind echoed. I felt his mind reach out to me, and I felt my mind shudder with the cold. The voice was ethereal. I felt his mind probing my own. I relaxed, and felt my mind sweep away as he prepared to show me his shadow. He, or rather, his mind began telling me, and showing me what was going on. He started first in darkness. Even I once feared the darkness, he narrated, I still loathe it, to be sincere. I wanted to nod. I wasn't used to this yet. I don't think he was, either.
Solitude often causes it, he told my bodiless mind. It was a soft, soothing thought. Sheogorath then specified what he was talking about. Madness may have many sources, he stated in a sullen mind-voice. The mental image was now somewhere in space, him holding me close. He gazed down at my shell. He continued his monologue, It all depends on your beliefs. I suppose what happened is wrong. It does not matter much at all. Acceptance is irrelevant. Now, enough blather about that. I'll start from my literal birth. I'm Sithis' bastard child. Or, that is how I am labeled. Don't really know my origins. Don't really have a name, either. All I've is a protonymic. He paused. The mental picture changed again. He was showing me a lush forest. If I had eardrums right now, they would be shattered. My ears were filled with shrill crying. I began to wonder if this was metaphorical, or literal.
My mind's eyes caught the sight of a baby, left alone at the base of a trunk of a tree. It was wrapped up snug in a blanket. Not but an eyesight's length away was an old man, festooned in a gray robe and sandals, walking in the forest. The crying had stopped for a while. He was jumping on the roots of the giant trees. His eyes were a light, milky gray. He wasn't that tall, but he couldn't be elven. I assumed he was Atmoran. The crying started again as he neared the trunk. He stopped to look around. He caught sight of the baby and picked it up. "What kind of parent leaves an innocent babe out here, alone?" the old man asked no one in particular. He began to shuffle off, back into the direction he came from.
Okay. What does that mean? I interrogated him. I was clueless. His mind-voice replied, Just be patient and you will see. Things began to blur by. We were now in a small village. There was a well in the center of a village. Most of the houses were very small. The rich part of the village lived atop a hill not far at all from the main path. There weren't more than a thousand adults in this village. The old man gained quite a crowd as he brought in the abandoned infant. A man in crude chitin armor came striding up to him proudly from atop the hill.
"Tell me elder, where did you find him?" he asked the old man. The man in armor was probably the lord of the village. The old man replied, "I found him in the forest. His parents were no where to be seen." The man in crude armor was offered to hold the child. He took off the blanket and looked at the babe. "I've never quite seen a child like this around these parts. His skin says Nedic, but his hair says elf," he remarked in awe.
The child had remarkably pale skin. Its eyes were a soul-burning green, and its hair was bright and reddish. It was a male child. I knew what this meant and attempted to withdraw my thoughts from Sheogorath. Perhaps the Psijic Order is right: the gods are merely strong ancestral spirits, I thought. The man in armor sighed, "Give him to a willing couple of nobles. The peasants have enough grubby children." The old man look at the lord and said, "I could take care of him." The lord raised an eyebrow, but said nothing negative of it. "Then as it shall be," he replied, carefully giving the old man back the child.
The old man gazed at the orphan, and everything grew blurry again. Quite an amount of time had elapsed. It was during the morning. The same child I was shown was here now, only as a ten, maybe eleven years old. He was quite the shadow of what he would become. Unlike other children, who would play on the dirty streets, he was in a corner, practicing magic. The young "Sithis's bastard child" was sweet, almost innocent-looking as he sat, hidden by a few shrubs as he was the day his parent found him. His clothing wasn't very grand: they were simple gray rags, probably hand-me-downs. He was quite small. The young shadow of Sheogorath had glowing eyes. There was an adult fist-sized rock floating mid-air in front of him.
The peace was interrupted. A group of taller children were walking down the main path. The tallest, a mean-looking, spoiled boy, was kicking a wooden pail. Incidentally, it was kicked into the bushes and hit the small boy. The group of brats gave him a disdainful look as they climbed through the bushes. The leader grinned widely. The mental image faded out into oblivion, but I could hear animalistic screaming stemming from injury and fright. I began to understand what he said earlier. That's one of the reasons why he feels the world betrayed him, because he was a pariah from day one, I contemplated. Maybe there was a rhyme and reason to Sheogorath.
Maybe there was a why to Sheogorath.
