The inside of the shrine was just as creepy as you would expect: twisted angles, colors not occurring in nature, cold, almost slimily smooth stone. I shivered a little, pulling my cloak more closely about my shoulders.

Without another word to me, Shal'ir took a seat upon a large block of stone. He folded his muscular arms across his chest, as though he expected me to begin prattling again. I decided not to give him the pleasure of being right. Instead, I looked up at the huge statue of a Daedra Prince.

Huge and terrifying, the gigantic figure sported four arms, each bearing a vicious looking weapon. His bald head gleamed dimly in the torchlight, but it was just bright enough for me to make out the malicious snarl upon the Prince of Destruction's ugly face.

'Well, it figures that it'd be a shrine to Mehrunes Dagon and there's a Dremora hanging around,' I thought. I had to wonder, though, why a race of Daedra who were known for their loyalty and strong sense of honor would serve a Prince so unpredictable and vicious.

Dagon's realm included the destructive forces of nature, the fog and uncertainty of war and battle, and other forms of destruction.

Regardless of how my companion might react, I felt that I had to know. 'He probably won't tell me,' I thought, turning away from the statue. 'I'm just a mortal, and it's not likely he'll see any reason to tell me his clan's motivations.' Still, I made up my mind to ask him.

Before I could even begin to speak, the Dremora fixed me with his vivid eyes. "Why do you go on living?" he asked. "Why do your kind not despair?"

I blinked and backed up a pace. "Um, what? What do you mean?"

Shal'ir stood up and began pacing about. "It is something that my Clan has never understood. The way of mortals. As we reckon time, your lives are small, insignificant even." He turned to face me. "Please explain this."

I shuffled my feet, one hand toying with the end of my braded white hair. "Well, I don't know, really. I don't think anyone does."

He continued to pace, his hands behind his back now. I wondered if he knew just how mortal that posture, those gestures were. It occurred to me that when you really thought it over, we were all the same. We all came from the same void of nothing. That all of us, even the gods, all came from somewhere greater than us all.

I shook my head. I didn't normally think like this; I usually left philosophy to the Temple and the outlanders who worshipped Julianos.

"Try," he demanded. "Why continue on, in the face that one will some day perish anyway?"

"You're asking questions that even the greatest minds could never find answers for," I told him. "All I can do is tell you what it is for me."

He turned to face me once more. "Then do so."

I pondered a moment. "Well, part of it's instinct, I guess. The thing that drives all creatures to do as they do."

Shal'ir nodded. "I know instinct. Even Daedra have instincts. Instinct is what causes us to hate and fear the Darkness."

"The Darkness? Is that sort of like death for mortals?"

"Yes and no. You see, when we are sent to the Darkness, we can see and hear what goes on in Oblivion, and I the mortal realms, but we cannot interact. We cannot interact with each other. In the Darkness, there is shame, at not having been able to prevent one's destruction. There is fear, for we fear that when we return, we shall be forever changed. Some of our kind return deranged and damaged. And the more powerful a Daedra is, the longer he or she remains there."

He grew silent, and the silence between us grew very large. In it, I understood something. "You were there, weren't you?" He nodded, turning away once more.

"Not long ago by our reckoning, but hundreds of years passed in this mortal world before I could return to Stormhold, where my clan dwells. Now. I believe that you were explaining the ways of your kind to me, and not the other way around."

"Oh. Right. I always did go off on tangents. Just one of my many talents, I suppose. And—" Seeing the Dremora's stern glare brought me back t the subject. "Anyway, instinct is part of it. Once, I asked my grandfather why it was so important to have children, aside from the usual reasons of the race dying out and so on. He told me that since even the elves do not live forever, our only grasp of immortality is through those who come after us, whom we have had a hand in bringing into life."

Shal'ir pondered this. "So. What you are saying is that even though your lives are so pitifully short, you have hope because in some way, you—or some part of you—will live on?"

"Yeah. And I guess if I lived until eternity I would think that a lifespan of seven hundred years is pitifully short, too. But some of, we do despair, and for some of us, there can be no consolation, and because of this we take our own lives before the time."

Shal'ir frowned. "Most interesting. Tragic, as well. It is rare for a Daedra to seek such a thing, and then only if it comes to the good of her clan. It is said that during the siege of the Battlespire, one of Nocturnal's Oathchildren took her own life for just this reason. Her reason was an honorable one." He shook his head. "Even amongst my own kind, it is rare that you would find such courage or loyalty."

"Why did she do it?" I asked, fascinated by the idea that an immortal creature would do this.

"No one is quite sure. The best we can tell is that by doing so, she hoped to shake her lover from the deep despair that losing Shade Perilous to Dagon's forces had caused. Apparently it worked, and Jaciel Morgen emerged from the pits of her own gloom to force us out."

We talked on for several hours as the storm continued to wail with the voices of a thousand spirits. Occasionally, Shal'ir would lapse into silence, gazing off into space. I left him to his thoughts.

I sighed. I had no real satisfactory reasons to share with him, not really. "I don't know if it really answers your questions. We still don't have any answers for ourselves. We like to think we do. My grandfather always referred to philosophy as the 'Art of making up answers to things that we have no answers for in the hopes that it will make us feel better.'"

To my surprise, the ghost of a smile appeared on his lips. "Your grandfather sounds quite wise for a mortal."

I smiled back. "Yeah, he can be. Some days, though, he can be very annoying. He says I'm too young for just about everything. If he knew that I was here, talking to you, I think he'd soil his—um, he'd be very upset."

"As I said, he is very wise. You are foolish, mortal. You trust me so readily."

"Who says that I trust you? For all I know, you're trying to lead me into a false sense of security so you can eat my heart for lunch."

"Hmm, no. I think not. You're much too young. I prefer my mortal hearts well-seasoned with the passing years."

I eyed him, backing up a little. Maybe it was time to go and deal with the ash storm instead. But then I saw that the smile was still there, along with a glint in his eyes that I had seen earlier. I laughed. "I don't believe it! You're teasing me!"

"You're not so dumb as most of your kind can be, then."

I stuck my tongue out at him, and then clapped a hand over my mouth. "Oh. Damn. I didn't mean to—"

He waved a dismissive hand. That hand alone could wrap itself around my throat and squeeze the life form me. "You've nothing to fear from me, mortal. Even if I wished it, I cannot harm you except in self-defense. You see, I am under the compulsion of a summoning."

"Oh. And here I thought you were being nice because you liked me."

"Don't flatter yourself, little mortal. As I said, I am under a compulsion. I was summoned to this spot by an aging Bosmer. He looked barely strong enough to wipe the drool from breakfast off his chin, and yet within that frail form was great power. He summoned me, and I might have not come except that he held my protonymic, or true name.

"I was compelled to obey his orders, which were that I was to offer shelter and succor to all who seek shelter here, that I was to show all mortals the same courtesy and respect that I would my own kind, that I was to defend the weak." He sighed deeply. "And so here I have been for hundreds, if not a thousand, of your mortal years."

"Why did he do this?"

Shal'ir shrugged his massive shoulders. "This I do not know. Perhaps it amused him to bend someone such as myself to his will. Perhaps someone in my clan had offended him in some way. I will never know. I have not seen him set foot here in hundreds of years, so I would presume that he is long dead. Like as not, I will be here forever, or until someone slays me in honorable combat."

I didn't quite know what to say to that.

He chuckled, startling me. "I see that I have rendered you at a loss for words."

"Yeah. I can't imagine what it must be like, to be trapped somewhere I don't want to be forever. But if you were killed, would you not go back into the Darkness?"

Shal'ir shook his head. "No. I would merely leave my physical form here, and my spirit would flee to Oblivion, and within a short time I would reform there."

"How is that you have not yet been able to do so? I mean, if you just stood really still, someone should be able to conk you on the head with a rock or something, right?"

The Dremora sniffed. "Hardly. Were you not listening, then, when I said that it must be honorable combat? Meaning that the one would do me the favor of sending me to Oblivion must needs face me in true battle, and that I must fight back to the best of my own ability."

"So…everyone who's ever tried to help you has been killed in the battle with you."

"This is so. And so here I remain."