"Namira, whose sphere is the ancient Darkness; known as the Spirit Daedra, ruler of sundry dark and shadowy spirits; associated with spiders, insects, slugs, and other repulsive creatures which inspire mortals with an instinctive revulsion." - The Book of Daedra
The steam seeping from the thermal vents reminded Eola of home. She held her hand over one of the cracks in the rock, watching her skin redden, waiting until the last possible moment before moving it away. The others stood waiting, silent in their reverence. Lanterns of the Dwemer illuminated the cave, treasures the coven had taken from Markarth. The mysteries of their operation were beyond even her understanding, but something in Vvardenfell seemed to hearken to the forgotten tools of the lost race. The lamps had suddenly activated upon being brought to the shore. This expedition had taken years of research on her part, and it was all paying off in execution.
"Banning," Eola whispered, still examining her burned hand. "You will go west, to Balmora. Become a local. Wear the chitin armor we brought; Bretons stand out on this isle of elves. Bring everything else you need to make our dreams into reality. Pack well: the journey will be arduous. You'll know when the time has come."
The old houndmaster nodded and left them, his soft footsteps echoing down the stone passageway. His role in her plans was simple but essential. She had confidence in his abilities, but well understood the limits of his intelligence. The men of the coven were loyal, simple beasts. Sanyon, one of the two worshipers left behind on Solstheim, was the exception.
"And me?" Hogni Red-Arm looked up at her with wide, eager eyes. Like a dim puppy. How adorable. "I wanta serve our lady too, Eola."
"You will, my love. Do not fret. I need you to go east, to the Telvanni outposts across the shore. They once employed slaves quite extensively, and won't question a Breton chef pledging to serve them without promise of payment or power. This arrogance will be their undoing. Take only what you need to survive the journey."
Hogni hesitated, perhaps unwilling to throw himself so willingly into servitude. But Eola's gaze, one eye an empty socket and the other a poison green, bore into him without warmth. We all have our parts to play for the Lady of Decay. Finally the greasy simpleton nodded, and followed in the footsteps of Banning.
Lisbet, lovely and loyal Lisbet, stepped forward and waited for instruction. Eola smiled and moved closer, holding out her burned hand. Lisbet held the damaged flesh to her nose and inhaled deeply.
"When you ate your brother, my dear, I knew you were one of us." Eola circled the Nord, rubbing her shoulders. "When your husband joined him, and you blamed his death on the Forsworn, I knew you were one of our best and brightest. We're going to do wonderful things together, Lisbet."
"But we're so few." Lines of worry creased her pretty face. "After the men have gone, we'll stand alone. Will Sanyon and Nimphaneth be coming from Solstheim?"
"I don't think so," Eola murmured. "But we never stand alone. Our god is with us, and others will come."
"Others?"
"Yes." Near the lanterns, a staff was leaning against the cave wall. A long shaft of yellow bone led up to a grim skull ornament, small wicked horns sprouting out the sides. Eola inclined her chin towards it. "Our repressed brothers and sisters will feel the true hunger, and rise up to join our ranks. When our feasting blades cut into the rare meat of prophecy, Vvardenfell will become an island of Namira. And someday, all of Tamriel."
"I've been thinking about the promised meat," Lisbet admitted. "Sometimes I dream of that day. I wake up so ravenous."
"My poor sister." Eola shifted closer, putting her hands on Lisbet's waist. "Your wait will come to an end soon enough. Even now, the meat walks the foreseen path towards us. Until then, we have some planning to do while the boys are away."
Lisbet groaned appreciatively, and grabbed Eola's burned hand to move it higher. Eola hissed sharply, tears of agony running down her cheeks, and then started laughing. Soon enough, they forgot about foolish Banning and Hogni entirely, and about planning, and surrendered themselves to pleasure and pain under the hungry eyes of Namira.
"So you guarded this amazing bow for centuries, and never learned how to fire the blasted thing?"
Gelebor delicately salted his eggs, tapping the bottom of the shaker with a fingernail. They sat on the tower porch, the morning sunlight passing through the trees above like flour through a sieve. Below them, the two guars wrestled in the tall grasses.
"It wasn't mine to fire," he said simply. "What if I'd accidentally broken Auriel's relic before someone earned the right to wield it? That would've been terribly awkward for me and the Dragonborn both."
"Jaxius Amaton is the one who snatched up your little treasure?" She chewed her own eggs thoughtfully.
"Yes. With the help of a kind woman he traveled with. Have you ever met?"
"When that whole Miraak mess was occurring, I found boredom pushing me towards stupidity. I heard the Dragonborn was on the island, and went looking for him."
"I recall having some remarkable conversations, on the occasions that he visited the Vale." The guars were now racing up and down the stairs, panting excitedly.
"We never spoke. I could hear him from leagues away, and from there it was just a matter of following the trail of corpses. I found him raising a racket with some other fool Dunmer, knocking down trees with his voice. They were trying to kill a dragon, and making a right mess of it."
"Did you intervene?"
"No." Nadene crossed her legs. "I try not to interact with idiots when I can avoid it. The day he left Solstheim was the day I stopped fearing my tower would be accidentally knocked over in the night. Besides, he was as much Dunmer as you are. He was raised in Cyrodiil, and chose to live in Skyrim. The former I can barely stand, and the latter I loathe. We had nothing in common."
"Understandable." He finished the last of his meal, and watched the dancing guars. "The day is young, miss Othryn. I'm ready to accomplish any task you put before me."
"Terrific." She clicked her tongue, and tossed a bit of egg to Ur. He caught it deftly as the other guar watched in awe. "No reproductive shenanigans this time. Come with me."
Gelebor penned up the guars and followed after Nadene back into the tower. The hearth was still dead, but soon after waking Nadene had asked him to throw back the curtains on all the round windows. Dim forest sunlight filled the mushroom tower, reminding Gelebor of what a glorious and living dwelling it was. She led them to one of the hanging weapon racks and floated down an ancient Dwemer mace. As the weapon descended, intruding sunlight glinted across the metal and revealed the presence of enchantment.
"This mace belonged to Ane Teria, a powerful crusader," Nadene said. Gelebor wrapped his hand around the cold golden hilt. "The enchantment wears out any enemy you strike. Helps to end fights more quickly."
Gelebor marveled at the mace. "I'm unworthy of such a gift."
"It's more for my sake than yours," she replied, glancing away. "I don't want the cutthroat you let escape to murder me in my sleep because my bodyguard was ill equipped."
"Nevertheless." He clipped the mace to his belt, glad to feel the weight of protection once more. "You put thought into your selection. You care about more than you let on. Thank you."
"You don't know me, Gelebor. And you don't want to know me."
"I know you've lived here for a long time. I know you once helped your people in some way, but now they disappoint you."
She shook her head, dismissing him. "You need to know how to use a bow if you want to be any use. A hundred maces won't do you any good from across a field." He followed her outside and around to the back of the tower, passing the sleeping guars. Hanging chimes jingled gently in the breeze. She pointed to a dead pine near the edge of the forest, pocked with old arrow wounds.
"There's your target. The first tree I ever planted in this wasteland."
The first tree. Gelebor suddenly saw the forest around them in a new light. "What did this area look like when you got here?"
"Tree stumps and ash. Fortunately, the second is a wonderful fertilizer." Nadene handed him her glass bow and a quiver full of iron arrows. "We're going to stay here until you hit the dead pine."
"Just once? Should be easy enough."
It was not easy enough. Gelebor sent projectiles in nearly every direction, into the thick mycelial walls of the mushroom tower and soaring precariously over the guar pen. He shot arrows north, south, east, and west. Branches fell and birds chirped in anger and confusion. The sun itself, his sovereign, seemed unsure how to proceed, hiding behind clouds as if afraid of being struck. Nadene watched, eyes wide in shock or terror. An hour passed in this way, until sweat dripped from his pale face and a single arrow remained in the quiver.
"Put the weapon down," Nadene said, approaching with her arms held high. She'd been hiding behind the edge of the tower since his tenth attempt. "You have dangerous hands. Auriel was really playing with fire, letting you hold on to his bow for so long. It's a miracle you didn't plunge the world into darkness by accident."
"Perhaps you're right." Gelebor looked around at the devastation he'd wrought, disappointed. It would take hours to clean up all the arrows and debris.
Small hands gripped his arms from behind, and Gelebor stiffened.
"Relax, endling. I'm trying to show you how to hold the damned bow, not jump your bones."
"Ah, yes. Apologies. Please continue."
He relaxed the best he could while she adjusted his elbows and forearms. Soon enough, he was holding the bow in what he felt was a very awkward position, but at least it was pointing towards the tree this time. Gelebor almost lost his concentration when she grabbed hold of his leg and started shifting it around.
"You need to have the right stance," Nadene said, manhandling his lower limbs into her desired places. "All of your power, pointed in one direction."
"As you say," Gelebor replied. He'd not felt another being's benevolent touch since before the genesis of the Cyrodiilic Empire. Nadene was nearly as rough as Mogrul had been, back in the Retching Netch, but he preferred her hands by far.
"There you go." Nadene stood up. Gelebor felt as stiff and tightly wound as an automaton of the Dwemer. The memory of her touch on his skin. "Now shoot the tree."
Gelebor breathed deeply, closed one eye, and released the bow string. The arrow flew forward, straight and true, but not quite right. He saw even as the projectile was released that it would fly just right of the target. Oh, well. But then the arrow changed direction at the last second, and plunged deeply into the gray bark of the dead pine.
Nadene lowered her hand quickly. "Wow. You've finally done it."
He smiled wearily. "You don't need to coddle me, you know. I'm not some temple novice who'll collapse every time I fail at a task."
She shrugged. "I was tired of standing out here. Besides, how do you know it wasn't Auriel who moved the arrow? He has to be good for something besides magical bow production."
"Silence," he said, and was surprised at the sharpness of his voice. This woman awakens feelings in me I thought to be lost long ago. "You can make light of me until the oceans dry up and the moons set on a dying world, Nadene. But I would ask you to not to mock my god in the light of day."
She bristled, hands clenching into fists. "I'll mock your blighted god all I want. No deity has anything to say to me, especially in Morrowind, and I'll be damned if I'm going to bow to the sun because your feelings got hurt."
His own anger rushed to the surface, eager to be released after the long dormancy. Gelebor felt beneath his feet the cliff he was standing on, and knew well the consequences of stepping over: solitude, exile, a return to form. But oh well. He was tired of Nadene playing with him like a cat with a new toy. He turned, well aware of how he towered over her petite form, and glared fiercely.
"So there's more to this lost little elf than it seems," she said, challenge in her eyes. "And at first I thought there was nothing past your polite priest facade."
"You're wrong. I don't hide behind masks," Gelebor replied. "Not like you. I'm beginning to see why you live alone out here, Nadene. Living with yourself is easy enough, I've discovered. Too easy. You're afraid of someone seeing past your mask, aren't you?"
"You know nothing about me, fool."
"I know you're frightened that I'll leave, and frightened that I'll stay. You make me tea, gift me a weapon, and then insult my god and my race. You know the pain you'll feel if I depart, but it's a pain you've felt before from others you've pushed away. It's familiar. But learning to live with someone else is strange and new and presents challenges of its own."
She turned away. For a moment, it seemed she was considering his words, and Gelebor had hope this confrontation would end peacefully. And then she turned back to him with poison in her countenance.
"You're probably familiar enough with abandonment," Nadene said. She took a step towards him, an ugly smirk on her face. "Where was Auriel when the Falmer were being slaughtered by the tens of thousands?"
"I told you, don't use that word."
"Where was your god when the Snow Prince fell on this very island, to the blade of a Nord child?"
"What?" Gelebor ran a shaky hand over his face. She must be lying, trying to provoke a reaction. "I hadn't known his end-"
"Where was Auriel when you tried to save that Falmer baby? "
"Please-"
"Where was he when your brother died and left you alone in the world?"
His fury and shock grew to an inevitable climax. Gelebor lashed out with his fist, blind and uncoordinated in his anger. At the last second, some primal part of him that had been nurtured over eons redirected the direction of the blow. Nevertheless, he made a connection. Nadene's bow shattered in her arms. Shards of moonstone and malachite fell to the grass. The sounds of the forest seemed to dampen in light of their spat.
Gelebor beheld his closed fist, mouth agape. I've fallen further then I ever suspected. To be driven purely by emotion...
"That's one way to avoid archery practice," Nadene said quietly. She levitated the pieces of the bow into a tidy pile and then dropped them gently on the rear porch steps. "A necessary sacrifice. I had to know how you'd react when pushed to the brink."
"I'm sorry about your bow. I'll replace it, of course, though it will take me some time-"
"Forget the bow." She ran her fingers through her short black hair, picking out pieces of the weapon. "I've many more. Let's go get some lunch. And after that, there's wood to be chopped and weeds to be obliterated."
Gelebor followed her back to the tower, confused and gladdened.
They continued on in much the same way, laboring and learning together, for days and then weeks. He wondered at some points why Nadene had chosen to employ him; she was superb at nearly every task, moving faster then his eyes could follow and accomplishing more in an hour than he could in a day. That was another oddity: she rarely sent him out alone, after the first time. Whatever droll homestead chore the day presented, she would grumble and complain and stand right beside him and help. The subject of the Khajiit who had asked for her help didn't come up again, nor did they speak of the crippled assassin.
He began to think maybe Nadene Othryn had just been lonely when she'd decided to hire him. She'd had to have been living here at least two hundred years, if not more, with only guars for company. Gelebor knew all too well the agony of solitude, but for whatever reason his matron had chosen this life voluntarily. And couldn't the same be said for you, a chiding voice in his head reminded. All that was keeping you in the Vale was your faith. You could have left at any time.
The cart he'd seen by the guar pen on his first day got little use. Nadene grew much of her own food, and obviously had some wealth hidden away judging by her opulent decoration. Only once did she leave the tower in his care, teleporting to Raven Rock in a flash of sparks, but she didn't return for an entire day and with only a few bundles of paper in her arms to show for it. He'd forced himself to resist his curiosity as she'd casually thrown her cloak on the hook by the door and asked how Ur and Alma were getting along. I don't have the right to pry. Nadene is letting me stay here, in this beautiful place nestled among the wastes. I must never betray her trust.
Only occasionally did she let her guard down and let him catch a glimpse of the elf behind all the bluster and bristle. These moments were often late at night, when Nadene would take a jug or two to the back porch and watch the sky in silence. This would often coincide with his evening rituals, but every now and then the stars would align and he'd join her.
"The moons are lovely," Gelebor said. She offered him the hefty jug of sujamma, and he refused.
"Oh." Nadene peered into the darkness, head cocked. "I suppose they are."
"You hadn't noticed?" He stretched out his limbs on the chair, comfortably sore from a good day's work. "It's an odd day when I don't find you sitting out here looking up at them."
"I chose this spot for the view," Nadene replied, her voice low. "But not for the moons. Search further into the far darkness. See the ruin of Morrowind standing proudly."
Gelebor obeyed, leaning forward with his elbows on the porch railing. It didn't take him long to discern her meaning. The horizon was glowing faintly, and even so late at night the silhouette of the volcano was visible. Distant clouds of ash shined with an intense heat, cutting through the rest of the sky like a grotesque stalk of poison.
"Red Mountain," Gelebor said. "You said once you've been on Solstheim for two hundred years. Did you witness the eruption?"
She nodded almost imperceptibly, and then took a long drink from the jug. For a long time no words passed between them, and the air was filled with the sound of the night: glowing insects chirping near the treeline, the gentle push of the wind through branches, and in the quieter moments even the snoring of the guars from around the tower. He was beginning to think Nadene had fallen asleep when she finally spoke again.
"I was on Vvardenfell when the mountain exploded." Her voice was one that had been withheld from him, until now; a side of Nadene kept locked away from the world. "I'd been away for a time. Too long. When I first landed on that blasted island, many years before the Red Year, almost every s'wit there loathed me. If you think you were treated badly in Raven Rock...ha. Then I did some things. Some important fucking things, Gelebor!"
He didn't respond, wary of saying the wrong words and bringing her shield back up.
"I can't tell you what I did," Nadene continued, her hands trembling on the arms of her chair. "But I came to Morrowind with nothing. Nothing. And when I finally pulled myself up out of the muck, when I finally felt comfortable existing in this doomed world, I gave it all to Vvardenfell. Everything I had. Just to watch it all burn away. First during the Crisis, when Dremora poured through and destroyed Ald'ruhn. The Imperials abandoned us. My people were praying for me to return as they were cut down. I returned just in time to see the sky explode, and soon after that the Argonians invaded."
"I know what it is to be alone," Gelebor said. "I'm sorry."
She turned her head sharply away from him. "Don't be. Everyone else who cared is dead. We all deserved what happened to Morrowind. I'm a bitter old woman, endling, unworthy of a space in your heart."
He was about to respond, but she held up a shaky hand.
"Leave me." Her voice was tight, unsteady, as if she was on the verge of tears.
Gelebor reluctantly obeyed, quietly returning to the tower and the not-unpleasant warmth of the dim hearth. Nadene hadn't said anything to him, but he hadn't failed to notice the fire was never built up enough to cause him discomfort. Never again did he see it reach the blazing levels of his first days. There's kindness in this elf, even if she won't admit it. He laid across the couch, and in the small hours of the night confusing and beautiful dreams haunted his sleep.