Cearbhail:

Oh wow, I love this chapter. Oh, hey guys. Been a while, right? Anyway, not sure what I should say about the story. so, as usual, I'll just sit back and let you read it.

Oh...and enjoy. ^^


Dear diary of shadows,

Today is the 4th of Mid Year. Yesterday, I did something so stupid and brave that it almost killed me and Talvas. I gave myself to Ildari in order to save the Vedes children from being taken by her. I had heard that she was my mother and I wanted to know from her. She confirmed that I was her daughter. And she hinted that Brand-Shei wasn't my father. She didn't quite say who it was, but when I mentioned Neloth, a guy I know she's had relations with before, she smirked and changed the subject. I think that means that Neloth is my father. But…what does that mean? Why was I raised by the man who I believed was my father? And does that not make him my father? I mean, he did raise me, not Neloth. That meant that he was as much my father as Neloth isn't. My head hurts just thinking about it.

But anyway, in order to sneak away to talk to my mother, I had to put a sleep spell in the tea that I gave to Talvas. I knocked him out and then ran as fast as I could to speak to her. Talvas woke up before I could finish my chat with her. And it led to a fight with him. He kicked my butt, but my mother almost killed him without trying. I begged her not to kill him and she knocked him out instead. And that's when it got real quiet. We walked for hours through ashy hilltops, snow-laden valleys, and then to a desolate fort buried in both snow and ash. I think she led me around the entire island to get my sense of direction confused in case I felt like running away. It worked. I have no idea where the shab I am. But the way my mother is looking at me, I think it's time for the grand tour.

Ves…

"What are you writing?" Ildari asked as she snatched my diary of shadows from my hands. I didn't dare make a scene about it. I clasped onto my hand and forced myself to stand there quietly as she started reading my diary in front of me. She didn't just read the last entry; she started at the very first page and read it silently for a few minutes. She smirked a few times before nodding. And I didn't dare make a noise the whole time. I know that Master Neloth hated it when I disturbed him, and Ildari was an insane evil version of him. Or…like me. I'm not sure which one she's like. It'd be a twisted thought that she'd be an evil version of both of us; analytical like Master, and fiery like me. She finally snapped her eyes from my diary, closing it with a snap. She held it out for me, glaring at me to take it. "Hurry up." She insisted as she shoved it into my folded hands.

I fumbled to recover and grabbed my falling diary. "So…?" I started to ask her as I grabbed the falling diary.

She looked back at me, arching an eyebrow. "Is there a question in that word?"

I shrugged. "Um…is there a problem with my diary of shadows?" I held it up to show it to her.

She shook her head. "Of course not. I merely wanted to know what you thought of your current situation. Knowing my daughter is important to me." She said matter-of-factly as she turned to the door to her lair…I mean home. Oh great… this is my new home. An abandoned fort in gods know where. And the only company I would have is a deranged psychotic mother, and her army of ash spawn that tried to kill me last month. I'm the luckiest girl ever.

Ildari pushed the door to the fort open and she looked back at me. "After you, daughter."

The door looked rusted as all hell and I could see ash raining down through the cracks in the ceiling. I sighed as I walked through the doorway. "I do have a name, you know."

"And I shall use it when it suits me." She responded, closing the door behind us. When the door slammed shut a pile of ash rained down on me through the cracks in the ceiling above us. I hurried out of the way when I heard something shuffling underneath me. The ash that had fallen through the cracks was starting to turn into a head with glowing eyes. I stepped even further back as it started pushing shoulders out. The mass of ash just kept pulling out of the ground like he was literally putting himself together. Finally legs started blasting out of the floor and the thing pushed itself up, standing a foot taller than me.

"Mistress." The ash spawn moved its head and I could see the voice bounce around inside my head.

She nodded back to him, her eyes glowing. "What is it, Vol?" Her voice started bouncing around inside my head where the other one was. It was making my head hurt.

"I have prepared the lady's room." He looked over at me. "Is this the young lady?"

Ildari nodded. "Indeed, she is. Vol, this is my daughter, Veselle 'Tenvanni'. She will be joining us as my daughter and apprentice."

"Shall I instruct Gwen to gather in the living hall?" The ash spawn turned to look at Ildari.

Ildari nodded again. "Yes, see to it that Gwen meets her new training partner. Perhaps it will give her some motivation to become more serious about her studies."

The ash spawn nodded and started dissolving into the floor. I looked up at my mo…at Ildari. Her eyes had stopped glowing and she was looking down at me. I was still rubbing the back of head where I had heard those two voices bouncing around. It had grown pretty painful listening to them. For a second, Ildari's eyes softened and she managed a weak concerned smile at me before she smirked. "I already know you can hear the language of ash, but I thought the pain of hearing it would have passed by now." She placed her hand on top of my head. She paused and snapped her eyes open. "There is no heart stone inside you?" She almost growled. Then she grabbed my robe's collar. She yanked it so that she could look at it closely. "I see…tiny heart stones imbedded into the robes. That would give you enough energy to hear the voices of the ash…but not the dangerous poisoning that almost killed me. Made me become who I am…" She looked up at me. I don't know why, but I suddenly felt very scared. I don't know what it was, but her crazy eyes had kicked back in and she was giving me a certain look that meant a lot of things to me. Mostly punishment by now.

She started dragging me by the arm and I fought hard not to resist. That's right… I was fighting to not fight. "What's going on?" I asked her.

"We're going to pull out your heart and replace it with a heart stone." She said simply.

"WHAT?" I screamed to her, loud enough to shatter any frequency level of glass. That's when I actually started fighting her. I let flames surround my body and I fueled them with as much fear of having her slice open my body and pull out my heart as I could. I directed the flames right at the hand clasping my arm. I put as much heat on that hand as possible.

Ildari didn't even bother fighting the flames. They didn't seem to faze her. She just pulled me along like nothing out of the ordinary was going on. Her robes looked just as unfazed as her. They floated in the flames like air was throwing the sleeves around but other than that, her entire demeanor was blank. She finally looked back at me to see me covered in flames. "What is the matter, daughter?" She asked me with a slight concern, like I was pouting or something.

"You're going to carve out my heart and throw a rock in its place! And it's going to hurt! That's what the matter." I screamed to her.

She huffed and started pulling me along again. "Honestly, it's just an organ. I don't see what all the fuss is about." I tried to feed more flames to attack her with but it got me nowhere and I felt my energy fruitlessly being drained out of me. She pulled me along as she walked through the abandoned fort. Piles of ash with red glowing eyes watched us as we walked passed. I pushed a sigh out as the last of my flames died down. I was so dizzy that I almost stumbled a bit as Ildari pulled on me harder as we rounded a corner.

Next thing I knew, I was in a larger room with a flat table. The room looked like it had been an infirmary in an older age, and the stone table looked like a classic operating table ancient healers had used to surgically remove arrow tips and other forms of shrapnel. A couple torches overlooked the table and I felt a rock form in the pit of my stomach. No, I don't think Ildari was shoving a heart stone in my stomach, but it sure felt like one had just developed there. Oh gods…I'm going to have a rock for a heart. I could see a bloody knife sitting on the table, as well as a jar of hearts sitting on a nearby shelves. I started pulling my arm out of her grip again, but it was just as locked as before. "Let me go!" I screamed as I fought against her.

I was suddenly lifted off my feet by the same levitation spell that she had used against me last time. She spun me around in the air, slamming me on the table. Her spell continued to hold me down as she glided up to me. The bloody knife launched off the table, flying right to her hand. She brought the knife close to my chest and I felt so scared that I would have cried if I had been able to breathe. She glared at me and she snaked her hand out. I felt a heavy drowsiness overcome me and I fought as hard as I could to stay awake. "Mom, please don't do this! I'm…I'm.."

My head was spinning pretty badly. Between the headache thumping in my head and the pain in my chest, I was pretty sure that my mother had ignored me and gone ahead and implanted the heart stone. I guess there was no stopping it after all. I sighed as I opened my eyes. I was in a dimly lit room with a dresser, a mirror, and a bowl of water sitting on the dresser. I looked around, seeing another bed against the other wall. An older girl, I'm guessing like 15 or something, was sitting comfortably on the bed, looking at me with curious eyes. She looked nice, a little smug perhaps, but nice.

When she saw me looking at her, she smiled and stuck out her hand. "Hi, I'm Gwen. You must be Ildari's new apprentice." Another roommate? Jeez…I needed to win the "most new roommates in a year" award or something. Oh well, she seemed nicer than my current roommate. Go figure. A necromancer girl is nicer than an OCD Alteration expert.

I groaned as I sat up. My chest thumped and I reached for it. I didn't feel where the heart stone was… I didn't even feel any pain when I touched my chest. I looked down to see that I was wearing black necromancer robes that looked a lot like my mom's. My hands were trembling but I was guessing that was more for the shock and fear of being stabbed by a knife than any other reason.

"Are you ok?" Gwen asked. "You look pretty young. How old are you? What's your name?"

I finally looked over at her. She looked so kind. Why was she here learning from a crazy old woman? "My name's Veselle Tenvanni. I'm 13." I told her. I tried feeling for any abnormal bumps where my heart should have been, but I felt nothing. I only felt a steady heartbeat. I reached for my neck, feeling for a pulse. And there was one. It matched the heavy thumping behind my eyes. Ok… this was odd. What happened to me?

Gwen started chuckling. "Don't worry. She says she'll take the heart, but she never does. She just implants a heart stone into it. It will sting for a couple days but you'll get used to it. After a while, it'll just morph into the body itself and you'll just…you know…feel it."

"Feel what?" I looked back up at her.

"It." She replied. She shrugged. "It's hard to explain but…everything. The Red Mountain, the flowers, the ash, everything." She sat up from her bed and I could see that she was wearing the same black and red robes that I was wearing. "Well, anyway. I was told to bring you to Master Ildari when you woke up. So…come with me." She waved at me to follow her.

I pushed off my bed and my legs quickly told me they weren't ready to stand up. I fell straight to the floor and my head started spinning again. That thumping in my brain only intensified. My hands nearly gave up on me, and I heard Gwen chuckle as she bent down to look at me. "I'm sorry, I'm forbidden from helping you. In fact…I might have to kill you later. Sorry in advance if it comes to that."

"Kill me? Why?" I looked up at her.

She shrugged. "She keeps bringing more apprentices to train. Their heart stones don't work and then… Master Ildari orders me to dispose of them. Failures aren't to be tolerated here." She walked up to the doorway. "And the way you're behaving…I don't think your heart stone will adjust to you. I may have to kill you like the rest." She exited the room, calling back to me as she walked away. "Better get up and hurry. She'll only get angry if we keep her waiting."

I sighed as I started pushing myself up onto my feet. Ok…I thought my first day at Tel Mithryn was bad. I might be killed for something I didn't even want to do? That was just sick. I fought the near blackout I was having and pushed myself back onto my feet. My head spun and my vision turned green for a few seconds. The loud pulsing in my head only blasted my vision with more green light and the room spun some more, but the longer I continued standing the better I felt. The only reason I pushed so hard to get up was that I wanted to talk to Ildari. There was something I needed to know; I wanted to know. And I wouldn't get answers just sitting here like an idiot.

I stumbled out of the room, seeing Gwen standing by the door, smug look on her face. "Knew you'd catch up." She turned around and started trotting off, skipping as she walked down the hallway. "Good, I kinda like you. I'd hate to snap your neck like the other boys and girls I've had to kill the past few months."

"Gwen." I called after her as I leaned against the wall, pretty much using the wall to help me scuttle across the hallway to catch up to her.

"Yes, Vessy?" She called back at me.

Vessy? Ok, that's a new one. "You were Talvas's girlfriend, right?" The smile that vanished from her lips told me everything. She dropped the happy act, and it was replaced by pure shock. She looked like a deer caught in a flash spell.

"Yeah…" She said uncertainly. "Why?" She was acting so paranoid now…it was like a complete personality shift. Her stance had changed too. Like she was expecting me to use this information as leverage against her or something.

I shrugged. "No reason. I just heard about you earlier today from him. He said you died…"

She huffed and turned around. "Yeah, that's what he thought." She started walking down the hall again, this time slower, more deliberate, each step like a snake. It was easier for me to keep up with her with my near useless legs and lack of equilibrium. "He was nice, and I did love our three years together. He is an amazing boy, I'll say that. And one day we were out on our anniversary. Ash spawn and reavers popped up all around us and…well, he fought them off. I wasn't a mage at the time so I stayed right behind him, hugging him closely to me. I was a farmer; there wasn't much I could do to fight. And then Master Ildari popped up. While Talvas held off the reavers and ash spawn, she grabbed me with her magicka. Threw me away from him." She shook her head in pain. "I…I just can't. Not right now." She looked back at me and I could see the tears in her eyes.

"Ok…" I said, nodding. It was very obvious that she was in physical pain reliving the past like that. "We don't need to talk about it if you don't want to."

All that pain in her face instantly disappeared, replaced with the upbeat smile that I'd seen since I first saw her. "Thanks, Vessy." She turned around and started skipping as she continued trotting down the hallway. "The dining hall is right up here. Once we get some dinner, I'm sure Master Ildari will let us go to bed early." She turned around, smiling at me. "We can have a sleepover party! We can stay up late, and talk about cute animated corpses, and have a pillow fight… and eat s'mores."

I didn't need to respond to her. She was lost in her own world now, happily plotting our party tonight. Wow… so this was the type of girl Talvas was into? She looked so happy that it almost made me sick. Not because she annoyed me, but because of what she was and where she was. She was the apprentice of the greatest evil necromancer in this area; a necromancer that is causing countless death on the entire island. And she seemed happy to be here. And all the talk of killing people, of how ok she was talking about some boy she killed last month because he didn't cut it as a proper apprentice. Did she even care that she was here? Did she even want to be free?

"Don't you miss your life?" I called back to her. "Don't you miss Talvas?"

She paused, sighing as she dipped her head to the floor. She slowly turned around, looking at me. "Of course I miss him. On several occasions I miss him. Just a few weeks ago, he was walking around and I threw a poisoned dart at him. It missed him by several feet. I was very saddened by it." She turned around. "If you mean…do I still love him… then no. He left me to die. He ran away when Ildari attacked him. I lied there, watching as he ran away. He abandoned me." Black fire started pouring off her, building like my flames did whenever I got emotional. "You want to know why I love it here? Ildari hasn't abandoned me. She took me in…taught me magic, and has proven to be a better mother than my own ever was." She turned back around. "You're new, so I bet you feel like you're with some evil woman hell-bent on destroying Raven Rock. Stay here a couple days and you'll see that I'm right when I say…she's a hellova lot better than your Master Neloth."

I limped behind her and we walked the rest of the way in silence. I seemed to have pissed her off now. She still skipped each step she took, but the skipping seemed heavier and forced. I had to stop and catch my breath a few times before I could catch up to her. The hallway still shifted all around me but I guess it was getting easier for me to walk through. My legs slowly started getting their strength back and I was able to keep up with her as she sped up her skipping. Within a minute I found Gwen finishing her skip over by a door. I sighed my relief as I pushed myself off my wall and over to the other side, nearly smashing my head on it when I reached out to stop. I pulled myself along the wall, happy to see that the doorway opened up to a grand room with a large table. Ildari sat at the head of the table, two other chairs prepared with plates of food and what I thought was wine or something.

Gwen skipped into the room, sitting down at the closer chair. I pushed off the wall and was barely able to stand as I tried to limp across the room over to the opposite chair. It almost felt like I was floating on air, being rocked side-to-side by waves crashing into me. I wondered how long this would last. It might have been blood loss, but I wasn't sure. I finally found myself crashing into one of the chairs, almost doubling over top of it as I did so. I grabbed onto it and used it as a cane as I limped from it over to the next one. I kept the process up until I was at my chair. I was so happy that I practically fell on top of it instead of in it.

"Glad to see you survived, daughter." Ildari stated.

"Daughter?" Gwen whined, looking over at me with pleading eyes. "You never call me 'daughter'." She looked over at Ildari, pleading her with her eyes.

Ildari held back a chuckle as she looked over at her. "I call you daughter all the time, Gwen. But…she is my real daughter. Veselle… Tenvanni I think her surname is…" She held back a laugh as she started digging into a bowl of … you know what… I don't know what it was. Slop, I'm going to call it brown slop.

I nodded at her. "Yeah, Tenvanni. That was my father's last name." There, I opened her up to talk about it. Let's hope she bit. I turned to properly sit in my chair and started picking up the spoon. I started digging into the brown slop, hoping that it tasted good. And then I found out that it tasted like death and I started choking on it. I coughed it up, nearly vomiting as I did so.

"Oh yes…" She mused. "That's right. That's the man your father gave you to."

I stopped trying to chew my food and looked up at her. "What does that mean?" I asked her. I had her right where I wanted her. She hinted that my dad wasn't really my dad, but didn't even bother to hint who might be my dad. It only made sense that it was Neloth. She was already with him one and they already had one other daughter.

Ildari placed her spoon down and looked at me. She had a look of amusement playing across her eyes. "You can't play these types of games with me, daughter. I'm too much like you for them to work." She went back to eating. "If you can't eat your food, you must learn to alter its taste with Alteration. This is a test of basic Alteration. The paste in front of you is oatmeal. Oatmeal is very susceptible to Alteration magicka. To make it work, just form a basic magicka ball in your hands and then visualize what you want it to taste like. Then throw the ball at the oatmeal and will it to take that taste. Then…enjoy."

I held back a groan as I turned back to my bowl. I started gathering magicka into my left hand and visualized it tasting like a bowl of honey and oats. I threw the ball into the oatmeal and let it sit for a few seconds before trying another taste. I was welcomed to the sweet taste of honey and I thought I was in heaven for a second. After a few bites, I looked back up at Ildari. "Ok, I'll get right to the point. Who's my dad if Brand-Shei isn't?"

She stopped eating and looked at me. "Isn't that obvious? Neloth is your father." She put down her spoon and turned all her attention at me. "We had you right before things went bad. Your sister was happy to have a little sister to play with. For three years we were a happy family and then… well, you should know. Your father wanted to expand his research into the heart stones. With the ash spawn starting to pop up, he wanted to keep our family safe. Being the last Telvanni household left…he wanted every added safety measure possible. He wanted to experiment on himself; I wouldn't let him. I told him it had to be me and no one else. He wouldn't go for it. So… I did it to myself. Well, started to. When he saw that I was already using one of my spirits to pull out my heart, the bond started to break. So, he intervened, and since the heart was pierced, he finished the operation. And it worked for a couple weeks. Then it got to me… the illusions…the voices. I admit, I still fight the insanity, but I'm winning."

Gwen looked at me. "The insanity gets me too." Her eyes glazed over. "I feel myself slipping away some days…like I won't be the same ever again…" She grabbed her head, laughing whole-heartedly as she glanced around the room. "It's like…it's like the whole world is up here, trying to tell me something, and I just can't hear it. One day I'll wake up and see everything and then… the world will just claim me, claim my mind."

Mother looked away from Gwen and over to me. "And that's why I wanted more test subjects. To end this curse. To successfully integrate a heart stone into a body. To see that we can still have lives and not be claimed by this insanity."

"And…" I looked down at my chest. "I'm implanted too…"

She shook her head. "No…I snapped out of it at the last few seconds. I didn't implant you with a heart stone." She pointed to my neck. "I made you a necklace that connects to your body. It's vaguely attached to you, but it can be removed. That way, if the experiment fails, I won't lose my daughter the same way Gwen and I are lost."

I found myself nodding. Ok, so my mother wasn't completely bat shit crazy after all. She was still elvish. That made me feel better. And I knew for certain that Neloth was my father after all. But…why did he give me away? "So…why did Ne…Dad give me away?"

"I do not know." She looked at me. "I believe it has something to do with the dangers of being in Solstheim. You'll have to ask your father when you see him next."

"Next?" I looked around the table. "You mean I get to see him again?"

She shrugged. "If we live through this experiment." She put her spoon down again, sighing. "If I don't lose my sanity first. I can't guarantee we'll make it through this but…if you don't feel safe here; I want you to take Gwen and leave, find Neloth, and see if he'll take care of you. I wish we could talk more, but… I can feel it already claiming me." I wanted to ask her what she meant but I could see the sparkle in her eyes disappear, replaced by the pure hatred I usually saw in her eyes. She sat up straighter and went back to eating.

"So…" I looked at Gwen. "What are we doing later?"

Evil Ildari looked right at me. "Tonight you will show me that you belong here. I have some bodies I want you to play with. It's time you learn necromancy."

Necromancy? What, really? Eww….


Cearbhail:

So, this is Veselle's life for now on. Well, for a few chapters at least, maybe a whole arc like what I did with her time in Tel Mithryn. And when I started, I was hell bent on having Ildari being the epic half boss of the story, you know because there are still a couple other bosses for her to face. But now, I actually kinda like Ildari. Maybe I can save her? I don't know yet. But I do like the thought that Ildari will come back with Veselle, completely cured of her insanity and in love with Neloth. And then well...the part of thinking of right now will happen regardless, but the interactions between Gwen and Talvas...and Veselle in the middle of it. But it's sure what I'm going to do, but I know that it's going to be a fun arc to be sure.