Cearbhail:

Sorry I've been away, guys. I've been horribly busy with classes, tests, essays, Kendo, cheese. You know...stuff. But, I'm back, and because someone requested a new chapter for this story, I started with this story first. I'm really happy with how it came out too. If I had waited to write this, I don't think I could have thought this up. Oh...and at the end statement thingy I do...I will share with you a surprise. I think some of you will like it.

Oh...and enjoy. ^^


Diary of shadows,

It's the 8th of Mid Year still. When I woke up this morning, I thought I'd summon Anari and Kyuu to keep me company. You know, because this place scares me. Well, As soon as I summoned my spirits, they tried to abduct me and rescue me from this place. Without my permission! And I had to watch as Anari was trapped in a bottle, and had to watch as Kyuu was blasted into a thousand little pieces. My mother told me that my spirits had betrayed me. And in a way…that was true. I didn't ask them to save me. I can't leave yet. If I do, my friends will suffer. And so will my mom and Gwen. They will suffer too. They need my help, and I can't just leave knowing that they're dying from ash poisoning. I wonder though. Kyuu started hating his old partner because she went from an honest mage to a necromancer. And…that's the training I'm being forced into right now. Is Kyuu mad with me because I'm going down the same path as Nrillia?

So, immediately after Kyuu was sent blown up and forced back to Aetherius, Mother told me it was time to check out my heart stone. It's been a week, so there should be some results for her to gather about how my body reacts with the heart stone. I sure hope whatever she's looking for exists inside me. I do want to leave, and I hope that I can bring both Gwen and Mom back to Tel Mithryn with me. I just hope we can be one big happy family.

Veselle Tenvanni,

I followed my Mother as she led me through the maze of her castle. Gwen followed beside me, skipping and humming a high-pitched upbeat tune. I looked over at Gwen to see her looking up at the ceiling, her eyes completely unfocused as she glared up at the cracks in ceiling above us. I would glance up too, but I still had a fear of ash dripping from the cracks and hitting me in the eye. Ash would fall through the cracks periodically, which made me wonder if we were somehow underground. I guess it would make it easier for my Mother to stay hidden from everyone in town. I wonder if they were even looking for me. I've seen Master Neloth use that location spell to find the Vedes family, but…you'd think he would have found me by now.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I crashed into my mother's back when she suddenly came to a stop. I accidently smashed my nose when I crashed into her, and jumped back just in case she lashed out at me. She turned around, still looking completely sane. She nodded to me and gestured me into the old healing room where she had wanted to operate on my chest and install a heart stone when I had first come here. I nodded to her and walked into the room. I walked up to the same stone table, jumping up on it and lying down.

Gwen glided in next. She twirled into a corner, still glaring up at the ceiling. She swayed like she was dancing to herself while she stood there, her eyes glazed over like a Khajiit on skooma. You see a lot of things in Riften, and someone currently plastered looked a lot like Gwen right now. And then finally Mother glided into the room like a serpent. The robes covered her feet perfectly, they even trailed behind her, so it made it hard to see if she was hovering or actually walking. She looking like she was gliding however.

She glided right up to me. "Are you ready, daughter?"

I nodded. "Yeah. So, what exactly are you looking for?"

She shrugged. "I don't really know. I want to see if your body can accept the heart stone's energy without the poison leaking in. I did like what your father did with the enchanted robes. You wore those heart stones all around your aura for a month and they hadn't really gotten into your head. Perhaps indirect exposure is what is needed to keep the leaking effect of the heart stones' madness, which is why I didn't implant you with a heart stone in the first place. I placed a heart stone on the surface of your skin with a silver circle to lock it in place. The silver circle acts as an enhancer, making the heart stone three times more potent than just on your robes. I need to see how your body is reacting to it."

She tugged at the collar of my robes, pulling them off enough to where the heart stone underneath my neck was exposed. I couldn't see it myself, it was too far up my chest. I felt her place her hand on the stone though, and she started feeling the silver circle that embraced it. I closed my eyes and focused on the energy around there. I could feel the silver more than I could the heart stone. I wonder if that was a good thing or not. "So?" I started to ask her. I couldn't think of a proper way to actually ask her. "Is there anything wrong with the heart stone?"

"Not at all." She replied. "It seems pretty dormant." She looked at me. "Do you even feel a slight bit…less sane?"

I shook my head. "I'm definitely as sane as I can be in a place like this. I think environmental issues are what would cause me to go crazy."

She chuckled to herself, and that was the first time I had heard her laugh. "I would agree, but we need to hide here for a bit longer." She looked down at me. "With the Redoran looking for you, and Neloth pacing around every inch of this island, we can't leave just yet."

So, Neloth was looking for me then. He was trying to find me. "How come he can't find me?"

She tapped the heart stone on my chest. "The circle and the stone were enchanted to put a barrier around you. It keeps all forms of divination and astral communication away from you."

Astral communication? "Wait…" I held up my hand. "Is that why Kyuu couldn't hear my thoughts?"

She blinked for a second before nodding. "If you communicated with him telepathically in previous settings then the answer would be 'yes.' Am I to guess that you've tried talking to him telepathically when he tried to save you?"

"And after." I replied to her, still thinking about Kyuu. So, he wasn't really mad with me. He couldn't hear my voice because of the blocking spell Mom put me under. And all so that no one would be able to find my location. That sucks. I wondered what was going on inside his head. Did he truly think I was putting myself through this training on purpose? Did he think I was blocking his communication? Would he ever believe me when I said I'm still the same me?

I felt Mom's hand travel over the stone again. "Your stone seems pretty accepting of your body in this fashion." She shook her head. "But I don't know why. There isn't even a circle of irritation outside the silver circle. It would seem that the silver is a blocker of the ash poisoning. I wonder." She grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me off my back. "Veselle, hop off the table." She turned to look at Gwen. "Gwen, come over here."

I hopped off the table as I my Mother had asked. Gwen skipped up to the table. She spun herself onto the stone slab, looking up at Mother as she lied down. "Will this hurt?" She asked.

Mother nodded. "I will knock you out first." She waved her hand over Gwen's eyes and I watched as she passed out.

Right before Gwen went out, she smiled wickedly. "I love pain." She mumbled before passing out.

Mother sighed as she pulled out a knife and started cutting open Gwen's chest. I looked away as she did so. I really didn't need to watch this. After a second or two, I found myself glancing back up to see Mother putting her hands into a large hole she cut open. I tried to look away again, but I heard Mother say, "Veselle, come see this."

I rolled my eyes and groaned but I walked up to the operation table, standing next to Mother. I looked down at Gwen's exposed chest. I could see her ribs. Right behind the ribs was what looked like a lump of gray rotting flesh that had a small glowing red and black stone inside it. I was guessing that was the implanted heart stone; the stone that was keeping Gwen alive. And Mother had a stone just like it inside her. And I almost had one put inside of me. When I looked down at it, I looked up at Mom. "What exactly am I looking at?"

"I want you to witness this process. And I want you to know this for a reason." She tapped me on the head with her bloodied hand. "I put a recording spell on you as soon as I brought you into this castle. If I get this operation correct, and Gwen's madness dissipates…you will be discharged from this tower. The tracking spell will click off as soon as you get fifty feet away from the tower. Neloth will find you, and you will tell him about the recording spell. He will take it from you…see everything that's happened here; and he will come and save me from my fate, as I will have done for Gwen."

I nodded to her and looked back down at Gwen's opened chest. "Ok, so I just have to watch, right?"

"Correct." She said as she started putting her hands back into Gwen's hole. "The operation is to put a silver circle around the heart stone. I can't really do that without killing Gwen, so I will instead put silver circles around her main chambers surrounding the heart. Any blood inside her heart will…"

"Wait, wait." I looked up at her. "This thing is an actual heart?" I was referring to the lump of gray flesh that looked withered and cracked. It didn't look like a beating heart.

She looked down at me. "Her real heart is still in operation, Veselle. The heart stone was implanted inside her heart so that she wouldn't die. Her heart was destroyed when an arrow pierced it. The heart stone I implanted kept the heart pumping regardless of the heart's condition." She gestured to the gray lump. "That's her heart. And as you can see, it's completely transformed because of the ash leaking effect. If I do not slow this process, she will eventually become nothing more than a flesh atronach made up of ash. She will go completely insane and will become nothing more than a tool for the Red Mountain's hive mind."

"The what?" I looked back up at Mom.

She twisted my head to keep looking down at Gwen's chest. "Red Mountain has a working mind. And it wants to spread ash all over the world. The ash spawn are a linked to the mind of the Red Mountain. As am I…and Gwen. We will eventually lose our elvenity and will completely submit ourselves to the mountain's dream of a world owned by ash." She looked at me. "If this works, it will stop the Mountain from talking to us. Just like your enchantments to block out astral communication, I will be able to block out communication with the Red Mountain. And then…our insanity should start to dissipate." She went back to work.

I watched as she started bringing a needle filled with melted silver into her heart. It looked more like a tattoo gun than a needle. She started stabbing the heart, injecting the silver into the actual heart. I heard Mother mumble some spell and then waved her hand around. The silver floating inside the heart started spinning around, forming silver runes on the heart itself with two lines that ran on top of the runes and underneath. Silver rings started forming on the exiting valves of the heart, three in total. "There, it is done." She replied.

She jerked me away as she started closing Gwen's chest. With some heavy duty Restoration magic, the chest practically zipped right up without a single scar forming. When she was finished with the process, she waved her hands over Gwen's eyes. She snapped her eyes open and her chest practically jumped as she took her first gulping breath that sounded more like a drowning person talking his last breath than it did anything else. Gwen sat there, coughing up blood for a few seconds before smacking her lips. "Why do I taste coconut?"

"I injected you with silver. There may be some aftertaste." Mother replied.

Gwen looked up at her. "Why coconut?"

My Mother shrugged at the question and turned to look at me. "So, we have all that recorded. Once we can confirm that the silver is stopping the ash poisoning, I will release you from this castle and you should go look for Neloth. He will do the rest."

I nodded. "Ok. How long will it take to see if there is a change?"

Mother shrugged. "A month, a week. I can't really say." She looked at Gwen. "How are you feeling?"

Gwen looked down at her fingers. "Umm…" She looked around for a few seconds. "Umm…" She closed her eyes in concentration. When she couldn't think up whatever it was she was trying to think, she started grabbing her head in frustration. I watched as her nails started digging into her scalp. I jumped up to grab her hands, but Mother reached out to stop me. "I…I-I…umm…" She started shaking her head, ripping skin through her fingernails as she threw her hands down. "I…" She blanked out, her eyes completely dilated. They sharpened for a second and that's when her face pulled into that twisted smile. "I feel fine." That was all she could say before her eyes rolled into the back of her head. She stumbled and fell back onto the slab, completely out cold.

I felt so scared that Gwen was going to wake up and try to kill me. I mean…she went full crazy. I had never seen her so gone, so twisted. I looked back up at Mother, saying, "So…it's didn't work?"

She looked back down at me. "What do you mean?"

"You saw her. She was tearing her skin out and she had that evil smile." I looked back at Gwen. "She's fully lost it now."

Mother smiled, looking back at Gwen. "It is nice to see the real Gwen, I guess." That froze me in place. Mother looked down at me, shrugging. "Veselle…Gwen has a mental illness. She's manic depressive. She goes into these fits very easily. And the heart stone has only made her condition worse. She's become self-abusive, masochistic, and angry at the world for what the reavers did to her…and how her boyfriend could abandon her in her time of need." Mother shook her head. "The ash poisoning in Gwen's mind was quickened by her already abusive nature and deteriorated mind. The ash poisoning in my mind is slower because I have magical discipline. Gwen is further along than I am when it comes to succumbing to the mental deterioration, but only barely just. I will soon lose it for good. I feel that I am in my final days of control. I am unable to examine my own body, so I know little of how much my body has been poisoned by the ash leaking effect." She shook her head, showing me her left arm. It looked pale and lumpy with blisters and cracks forming in her hand. "My legs have stopped working a while ago, so I started levitating to get around. And soon my left hand will be gone as well. This is how much I have lost to this disease. And yet I still hold onto the majority of my mind. I must stay strong, so that we can live peacefully again."

That threw it back into perspective for me. This was what was happening to my Mother. And to Gwen as well. From what I was able to see, it was only Gwen's heart that looked cracked and broken. But my Mom…her whole body was starting to look like it. She must have fought hard to have lasted this long. "Can you reverse this?"

She nodded. "If I can stop the leaking effect…I can heal my cells one cell at a time until it all clears up. And if I can block the mental deterioration, I can slowly reclaim my own sanity." She looked down at Gwen. "Gwen, however…" She shook her head. "I fear that her trauma will keep her mind locked up forever. She won't let herself forget her past…and because of that, her mind will never rest, never heal. I fear this heart stone has only worsened what was already a bad situation. She may be lost for good."

"So…Gwen will never be the same?" I looked down at her.

"Healing can only be done by the one that wants it. And Gwen wants nothing but more pain. She believes she deserves it for some reason or another." Mother looked at me, frowning. "You must have believed that the nasty Gwen was the Gwen created from the heart stone. In fact…it's backwards. The happy skipping Gwen was the product of the heart stone's insanity. She's stuck in the middle now, forever caught between forced happiness and accepted depression."

"Whoa…" I said. I had thought that the happy Gwen was the real her, but to know that it was her other side that was the real one…that threw me off. And it scared me. She was crazier than I had thought.

Mother turned to look at me. "Veselle. I want you to spend the rest of the day studying a book in my library called 'Ash Summoning.' While you read this book, remember we're working on getting you a new summon spirit, an Ash Guardian. Tomorrow, we will begin your construction. We will see if you can truly use your heart stone. It is essential for me to know if my silver circle is blocking any access to the heart stone's energy." She looked down at Gwen. "However, since Gwen is still alive, I am assuming that you will have no problems learning the element: Ash."

"Ash is an element?" I asked her.

She nodded. "It's an older element, but one that Dunmer such as us depended on back in the old days. Ashlanders depended on this element to survive the harsh realities of Morrowind. The element Ash is best thought up as a combination of Wind and Fire magicka. They act about the same." She nodded to me and turned me away. "You should go study now. I will put Gwen back into her bed."

I started to walk away, but I found myself looking back at Mom. "I have a question."

"Yes, daughter?" She glanced back at me.

"Neloth…he is my father, right?"

She looked back at me. "I've already told you 'yes' maybe six times already. Is it truly hard to believe?"

I nodded. "I don't remember him at all. I try to think back to my life…and I remember being with Brand-Shei when I was two…" And I tried to recall that memory. I was walking, I remember that. Brand-Shei was cooking something for us to eat. And then he picked me up to put me in my chair. He sort of fed me, but let me do some of the work myself. I was so young, but I could remember the scene. Although I couldn't recall what I was thinking or how I felt. It was just a running picture with no words.

She looked at me. "You were at least with Neloth and me until you were three…" She mumbled to herself. She glided up to me, placing her hand on my head. I felt the same image again, and more that followed. "These are Illusion casted spells." She said. "Let me do something here."

I kept seeing the same memory of me with Brand-Shei. It suddenly popped, turning blank white. More of those memories with Brand-Shei started flowing in my head, moving so quickly that I almost couldn't believe how fast they could move. And each time they flew past me, the memory faded away. And I couldn't really recall them either. They just melted away from my mind and disappeared. I had the knowledge that they existed, but no way of recalling them back. And then, there was a popping feeling in my head, like something had just shattered.

My vision of my Mother standing in front of me started to blur and suddenly, my vision gave out. My body felt weak and I fell straight down. I think I passed out, but it didn't feel like it.

"Veselle, wake up." I heard Father's voice call from over top of me. When I opened my eyes, I was in my room in the tower of Tel Mithryn. Father looked more or less how he always did: angry. He reached down to pick me up. When he did, he wrapped me up in a hug. It was then that I could see the black charred walls surrounding me. My bed was also burnt to a crisp.

"Father." I heard Brelyna say as she ran into the room. She looked a lot younger, perhaps a preteen. She looked as old as I was. And she had the same haircut I liked to have. "I heard the screaming from my room, what…." She looked around. "What happened in here?"

Father looked over at Brelyna. "Veselle has awakened her abilities."

"Already?" Brelyna asked. "She's only five."

"You started when you were seven, Brelyna." He said. "And your magicka aura was small, barely there. Veselle almost burned down her whole room."

"Wh-how?" She asked as she looked at my room. I looked from her over to my burnt bed. I couldn't believe that I had caused all that to happen. I didn't really know what was going on, and it scared me.

"Ouch." Neloth said as he quickly tossed me from his arms. I fell pretty quickly and landed on my back. It hurt, and it scared me. So, I started crying. I looked up at Daddy to see him brushing fire off his robes. I looked down at my own body to see that I was covered in fire. And that scared me even more. I screamed and the fire grew stronger.

Daddy jumped away, running towards the exit of my room. He rushed as he placed an arm over Brelyna, pushing her back. "Stay back, Brelyna. I do not daresay what will happen." He glared at me. "It would seem that our Veselle is quite adept at Fire magicka…and her temper is only fueling its destruction power."

She looked up at him with wide terrified eyes. "Why is this happening?"

"I don't know." He mumbled. "Something must have set it off.."

And then…I spoke. "I miss Mommy!" I screamed and fire roared off my tiny body, completely enveloping my room and the doorway. Daddy pushed Brelyna away, bringing up a white warding shield to protect himself.

"Dad!" Brelyna cried. "What are we going to do? If she keeps this up, she'll burn down the whole tower."

"I know…I know…" He said with a hint of tension. "I don't want to do this…but Shock can drain magicka from another's body by numbing the meridians. If I hit her with a Shock spell, she'll stop spewing fire…but it would hurt her."

"You have to do something." Brelyna replied.

"Ok then." Daddy said. The last thing I saw was a white orb growing in Daddy's hand. Then a white flash over me and then…the memory faded.


Cearbhail:

Coming soon to a fan fiction site near you..

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[Bloodstain]

Fairy tales would have you believe that when a story ends, everyone lives in peace. The princess gets her prince and then the kingdom just rolls over to accept their new happy lives. Stories of war, oppression, enslavement just cease. Our story is just like their story. We fought to take our kingdom back. And we killed Fiirnar the Great. The Dominion pushed out of Solitude; pushed out of Skyrim. Their factories burnt to the ground, their inventions destroyed, their magicka taken away. You know what we did and you know how it ended. But that's the thing... stories don't end. They just begin a new chapter. And now...someone's tried to kill my wife, and pockets of resistance are forming across Skyrim. Discrimination against the elves is strong, dead bodies of Altmer in the streets, families killed and displayed in public masses, even open beatings of elves through Solitude.

My name is Bloodstain, and I'm a Shoutman. I live to protect those who need protected. And now, I have to do the one thing I never thought I'd have to do. I have to protect the citizens of Solitude against the Nordic invaders. I have to protect the elves that live here, elves that just want to get on with their lives. And I have to do it while keeping what remains of the Aldermeri Dominion away from my pregnant wife. And most importantly of all...I have to do it without the use of magicka, for I am silenced as is the rest of the world.