"Sanity is not statistical."
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
I learned of her finesse quickly, his mind echoed placidly. The coldness of the mind-spoken thought chilled my mind to the core. Sheogorath was still clutching my mind as if it were a precious belonging, or his garnet, sorry, ruby ring. I knew he was courting my body with psychic, shivery kisses and esoteric, avid embraces. I wanted to return to my reality in my passion. His mind was emanating sensuality, and I knew very well he was doing unnatural things to my soulless body. Seeing as my thoughts were no longer private, and my mind was wrought with not fright or concern but lust, his disembodied voice rang angelically in my head, You can't hide what you feel inside.
I was quite vulnerable to manipulation at this point. I knew it very well. Why do you stop to fool around? I want to know more, Sheogorath. Just stop misleading me and show me. Show me what you have in your head, I demanded of him forcefully. Oh yes, Sheogorath liked distracting me very much so. He never wanted to face the truth, I suppose. It was too painful. Nonetheless, the Daedric Prince responded, Ah, but it would drive you insane. From start to finish, 'tis profane. I seethed in silence as he made his sardonic response. I requested, Please show me the memories.
I knew it was useless to try to force the mad one to give up the rest of the memories. He was rather fond of me though, in a twisted sense of the word. Then you may not turn back, Walter, he replied frigidly. His mind returned to the memories, and I began to see the images. They were blurry and dark at first. We, or shall I say, our minds returned to the past. It was the classroom the shadow of Sheogorath had. It was brightly lit. Sheogorath was kneeling in front of the sitting form of Zarrexaij. I suppose it was easier for him to speak comfortably like that. I made the conjecture that it would have made him too uneasy to sit beside her, so he simply squatted on the floor. I heard them talking.
"I'm stricken that you actually came. I told you it wasn't a requisite," Sheogorath told her. Both gingery, light eyebrows were raised, and his voice was bursting with astonishment and, to a much lesser extent, elation. He was dressed in a cobalt blue robe, while Zarrexaij was dressed in a badly-fitting white dress shirt and raggedy brown pants that looked like they also barley fit her. She replied politely, "I wanted to make a good impression on you. To be honest, I'm expecting to be treated…unfairly, so I might as well make myself look as best as I can." Sheogorath grinned, but not very widely.
"Do I appear to be that breed of person?" he asked her seriously. She giggled. "I guess not," she replied, "I'm just terribly afraid of it, is all." He stood up, and walked around, with his hands behind his back. He paced around the room slowly as he said, "I assure you, dear apprentice of mine, that I shall not treat you any worse or better than I have my previous well-behaved apprentices. That said, I'll begin the very first lecture. Don't worry about taking notes." Sheogorath returned to the front of the room and cleared his throat.
"I have a few things I did not tell you yesterday. Firstly, don't muck with magicka until I tell you to. I barely know you as a person or an apprentice, and thusly I can't make any judgments on how quite judicious you are. Magicka with unskilled hands is very dangerous and chaotic," he informed her sternly. His expression had hardened considerably, and, with his forehead wrinkled, the crow's feet conspicuous, and the lines around his mouth glaring at his apprentice. It was so peculiar to see him in such a serious state of mind.
He continued lecturing about rules. Very little of it was that interesting to me. Sheogorath seemed a little obsessive-compulsive about them, and despite having such a chaotic little psyche, required an intense amount of order from Zarrexaij. The only part I had interested was about channeling magicka and elemental magicka. Sheogorath told Zarrexaij this about it: "…And for your own life's sake, don't ever channel magicka. I've done it myself on accident, and I nearly killed myself. Don't take that as frivolous; I am incredibly skilled in magic. Channeling requires intense concentration, and an already decent supply of magicka. If you are even a bit fatigued, I wouldn't suggest it. I was extremely lucky that I wasn't negatively affected in the long run. My hair was a tad bit singed, my skin burned, I had a migraine, and I was knocked out, but at my age, my heart could have easily stopped. I channeled not just magicka, but elemental magicka from a brewing thunderstorm. If my mind was clear when it happened, I would not have attempted such stupidity. The shock that came out of my right hand was enough to kill me and the person it came in contact with. Luckily, the council wasn't entirely incompetent. It was about a year ago." I then asked Sheogorath if he could by chance show me what happened.
The imaged blurred out and floated away. He showed me a new memory. Sheogorath was standing in the middle of a tall stone building somewhere. It looked almost like a castle. There were several mages sitting around him, at least a good six paces away from him. Sheogorath was wearing a robe that was two-thirds dark blue. The very middle of the robe was a thick, long streak of pastel blue. His hair was a bit longer than it was in the previous memory. Several candles and torches were lit in this gigantic room. The ambience of the room was quite ominous. There was considerable tension between what appeared to be a council of magi and Sheogorath. One of the younger members of this "council" spoke up. He looked high elven, or at least some kind of elf.
"Master Sheogorath, it has come to my attention, as well as some the rest of this splendid council, that you do not seem…competent enough to continue being considered a master trainer as far as magic goes," he said. His voice echoed on in the room. Sheogorath blinked his eyes. He looked like he had just been hit hard with a rock slab. "What did you say?" Sheogorath asked defensively, his countenance becoming perturbed. The elf hesitated. He then replied, "I'm not saying you're stupid. What I'm saying, is that you aren't fit to do it because of your…well…inconvenience." The other members of council weren't getting involved. Sheogorath was slowly becoming an eye-jarring red. His green eyes were squinting in anger. Thunder clapped outside.
"Oh," Sheogorath riposted in a composed voice, though it was obvious he was hardly calm, "Please do enlighten me about this 'inconvenience' you are speaking about." Even though this was simply a memory, it quieted me. Thunder rolled again. The old shadow of the Mad God just stood there with his fist clenched. They were turning a fish-belly white. After a few moments, the elf had the nerve to respond. In a whiny, obnoxious little voice, he spoke, "Sheogorath, I don't know if you haven't notice, but your disregard to the safety of others with your temper is a grave concern. Now, if you will, please resign."
I began to notice that Sheogorath's long hair began to stand on its end. It was frizzing up. His eyes seemed to obtain that eerie glow I saw frequently while in the present. The candles and torches blew out abruptly, and the room was darkened. "What are you saying?" the much older Sheogorath instigated. I heard the elf stutter on words. "W-W-W-What I am saying is, is that you are a danger to us. Now, please resign, so we can all feel comfortable again…" he stammered nervously. It was hard to tell in the dark, but the elf looked like he was fidgeting with his hands. In the dark, I could see electric discharge flirt amongst Sheogorath's hair and goatee. Briskly, he erupted with, "NO!" The thunder grumbled mercurially. I could barely make out him pointing at the elf.
Not a split second later, I saw a bolt of lightning begotten from the pointer finger of Sheogorath's right hand. It was aimed at and hit the elf. He was flung back in his seat, and his the wall. The entire room was illuminated by that single bolt. Suddenly, light from outside poured into the room. The council members were shrieking and dashing to the aid of the fallen elf. Sheogorath looked quite horrified. He was sickeningly ashy. He looked at the limp body of the elf, and his eyes rolled in his sockets. "What have I done?" he asked himself quietly. I watched him faint, and the memory blacked out as well.
The memory returned into focus. A figure was leaning into Sheogorath's line of sight. It was a young man with cropped brown hair dressed in a holey dirty brown robe. Sheogorath stared at him with a dull expression for a few moments before the image seemed to sink into his head. "Sire, you've been out for a while. The rest of the council are gone. Do you know where you are?" the man asked Sheogorath in an alarmed manner. Sheogorath rubbed his eyes, and sat up.
He replied groggily, "Yes. Yes, I know where I am. I'm in our council seating." Sheogorath held his head. "Ugh," he remarked, "my head aches." Slowly, Sheogorath stood up. The young man, who couldn't be more than eighteen years of age, looked much smaller compared to the mage who was in his fall years of his life. The young man fidgeted with his feet. His boots were scraping against each other. "Well, sire, you did something I haven't heard or seen of except in books. You, uh, channeled magicka, or at least it appeared that way. Would explain why you were knocked out," the older-teenaged boy told him.
Sheogorath brushed himself off, and mumbled "Thanks" before he ran off into oblivion.
The burned-in memory transferred me back to Sheogorath and Zarrexaij in the class room. Zarrexaij was now standing up, right in front of him. They were close, and I could tell this made Sheogorath uncomfortable. He was tensed up. "Tomorrow is Loredas. If you manage to show up like you did today, well, I won't have class for you. I'll treat you like the very elusive visitor I get," he informed her shakily. Zarrexaij smiled at this. "I'll come then, for you," she replied blissfully. I could see Sheogorath tense up even more, and he began to blush.
"That's indubitably kind of you," he said in a grateful, albeit nervous voice. Zarrexaij didn't seem to mind Sheogorath's apprehension towards her. She touched his arm in a friendly gesture. I could tell Sheogorath was beyond mortified at this point. Either she took this as a cue to leave, or she was through. Either way, she said, "Goodbye, master," to which Sheogorath maundered, "Goodbye, Zarrexaij."
When Zarrexaij made it out the door and completely out of his house, Sheogorath said to himself, "She needs more than a father figure. She needs a beau, which she obviously does not have, if she spends so much time on the pursuits of a scholar. Oh, and how wretched I am for saying such a thing. It shan't ever happened, so why would I think such a thing? Why would such beauty want to deal with something so repulsive? Never mind that. I have such an idle mind, and idle minds are bound to destruction. It seems as if women are not the fragile creatures, but the men." He toyed with his robe a bit, before he wandered into the hallway, went inside his room, and closed the door.
And thusly, the memory fainted away quietly. He had been enamored with her. Obviously, there was some success to his courting of her that must have gone on sometime.
