(AN: This chapter is where it all comes out. I had been planning on something like this since before I decided to shift course with this story. Trust me, this is hardly the most bizarre thing I could have come up with. One idea was to have, at some point, Sigrun black out and wake up in a modernized testing chamber run by Dunmer in white coats: but I decided that - like having Pelinal Whitestrake be a robot from the future or C0Da as a whole - it served no purpose whatsoever.)
(Before we begin, let me apologize for all the absurd sexual innuendos that you are about to be subjected to: believe me, I'd rather not write them, but it's necessary for depicting Vivec accurately.)
Confutation
Sigrun kept her hand on the shaft of her sword and her eyes fixed on the thing before her. She fully expected it to attack her, or cast a spell upon her, or do something at all. Once the thing descended from where it had been levitating, it implanted its phallic spear into the ground and then began to gyrate, thrust, and dance upon and around the spear in the most exaggeratedly acrobatic fashion. Sigrun was taken aback and more than a little disgusted; aside from the upbringing of her family, seeing something that was not entirely male but also not entirely female dancing and thrusting most provocatively was almost more than she could handle.
"Can I leave now?" she asked.
"Why ever would you want to leave, devil child?" a deep voice whispered softly. "Behold the dance of starlight; the prance of CHIM, the et of ADA, the Shake-Fast of the Wind-Break, the AL of the TADOON! For I have shimmied beyond the confines of this flat, hollow world by the auspices of the Sultans of Swing and the Barons of Move-Like-This to view the majesty from the side and reveal the secret name of god: I. Having thus uncovered the vagaries of the God-Walk through violence, I - who is both male and female, god and mortal, friend and traitor - do dance upon the Tower upon my holy Muatra!" With this, the figure clung to the spear with its feet, contorted its back around, and licked the shaft of its spear.
"Um...who are you?"
"He who asks need not know, and he who knows need not ask. The ending of words is ALMSIVI."
"Not this shit again," sighed Sigrun.
"Indeed this shit again!" mocked Vivec as it removed its spear from the ground and began leaping and prancing around Sigrun. "Though your journey of mounting and World-Riding may have opened your tiny devil mind to some of the paradoxes of the kwama-shell, you are still human; therefore the Talk-Song of the God-King cannot be fully eanaciated by you."
"What do you mean mounting and riding?" Sigrun asked.
"CHIM, AMA-ranth, Star-Like-Royal," said the mad-god, spewing a salad of words as if they themselves had meaning alone and without explanation or content. "The process of mantling. How Mortals become Makers and Makers become Mortals. Though, of a surety, you are even a step below mortal, being a white devil-Nord: your kind can never achieve CHIM, though you should take Hold-Fast of creatia and ride it as vigorously you humped your ginger lover."
"Silence!" Sigrun shouted, brandishing her sword. "Don't you dare say a single word about Erik!" It surprised her how vehemently she defended him, who she was but a day or two ago considering discarding.
"Don't you ever wonder why your Ysmir's story was so full of errors?" asked the mad-god. "He, like so many before him, said the Dwarfs were short-folk: I have stood in the presence of Dwarfkingdumac and know that he strode as tall as fifty purflarf. Did he not also call the Wood-Like-River part of the Reath-Folk? He is a liar and a fool, that Ysmir: much better role he served as the slave of the Dragon, whether reluctantly or no, until he was killed dead and good."
"You..." Sigrun gasped. "You mean my Father..."
"Yes," came the voice. "Rim-of-Sky was a mistake, as was your entire dung-dwelling race of devil-folk. But lord Vehk knows how to deal with them, yes he does; give Rim-of-Sky a rim-job with his holy Milk-Finger. Stuff it down Ysmir's throat till he Shouts no longer, as I did to Bar-Fuck." He laughed. "Ah, she did drink well of my Muatra, that winged devil-whore. My devoted followers have emulated my glorious deed a thousand times against your white-devil kind, especially those living in blessed Resdaynia."
The thing then stopped in mid-air, placed the butt-end of its spear against its crotch, and began thrusting its hips against it, miming an action which Sigrun knew all too well. Into her mind suddenly came lurid images of that winged woman she had seen in the snows being mouth-raped by this...thing; and now it threatened to do the same to Father. Anger filled her body as she kept her eyes upon the thing; it continued to prance about, humping the air or licking the tip of its own spear: to her greater disgust, it would let out a deep, throaty moan every time it licked the spearhead.
"Slaves should know their place," said Vivec, noting her revulsion. "It was foolish of you to come here, as you are: a woman and a devil-Nord. Yet you came, as surely as you did in ginge's embrace."
"Shut up!" Sigrun shouted.
Vivec laughed. "Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of NIN. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden assiduously avoided, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here."
"What?" Sigrun asked.
"But of course," replied the mad-god. "As I said, your tiny devil-mind cannot comprehend my god-song. Carrying on, the Three-in-One, of which I am a key element, conceived of the conflux of an aetanoomia. Landfall: the world of Tomorrowind. To walk upon the Worm-Ridden-Corpse of the Lying-Serpent in starlight, my thoughts transmitted instantly into the heads of every mer, free of the tender cruelties of dragons and devils in an age of unfathomable enlightenment. This necessitated the use of the One-in-Three, whose actions came nearly to fulmination under the holy algorithm that I conceived, as a mother conceives a child. Yet for all our tonal calculations and the auspices of salt, there remained yet one flaw in the system, one bug in the code, that could actualize a critical error in the system and zero-sum all that we have worked so hard to achieve: the anomaly. You."
"Me?" Sigrun asked, her head spinning from all that Vivec had spat at her.
"Yes. It is in mer-nature to embrace the contradictory, the paradoxical, if so, by doing, one may clearly understand the true auspices of Side-Ways-Movement. Your makers are dead, yet they still act in the simulacrum that we wish to unmake. This is most unsettling, but not the terminal error: for they could not transcend the matter which they formed with their Starlight, thus the return journey was lost to them. But not to me. How another robot from the future came to scourge mer-kind is beyond even my limitless knowledge, despite mantling Ysmir and rewriting his story to portray him as he truly is: an idiot."
"What are you talking about?" Sigrun asked.
"The anomaly. You."
"I'm not a robot...whatever that is," she replied. "I bleed, I've been bleeding for the past several days. I'm human."
"Are you?" asked the mad one. "You are a devil-Nord, a sleeve for my holy Milk-Finger. Even now I have peeped beyond the Rake-Shroud of the kapla and know that you are but a pawn. A tool created by beings of lesser intelligence even than yourself, fully under their power: your freedom of choice is an illusion, for they have already made the decision for you."
"You sure like talking," she replied. "It must make you feel really good, hearing the sound of your own voice."
"Indeed," replied Vivec. "If I should ramble on in glorious Song-Speak more, I shall surely come in mighty effluence across the face of AMA-NIN. That is the burden of being both, as you see I am. The Hortator would not oblige me my pleasures, for his mind was as binary as yours: but Ayem did, and for that we entered into covenant to do as I have redacted. Error. Data inaccessible. Replay. Behold the dance of starlight..." Vivec began to repeat his ramble again from the beginning, and Sigrun was starting to get really angry.
"Enough!" she shouted. "I grow tired of your narcissistic babble! Either kill me or let me go: I can't stand another minute of you licking yourself or acting like a shameless wench."
"You shall remain forever here," said Vivec. "And listen to my Song-Speak until your tiny devil mind can no longer comprehend NIN in binary terms. Then, when I have thoroughly broken you, you shall beg to polish my Milk-Finger: only then will I grant your request and ride your face until I am satisfied. Then shall you die."
"Sorry, but I don't break that easily," she replied. "If you want to fight me, then do it and stop prancing around!"
"Fight," he spoke, as if never having heard the word before. "To do battle with the goal of prevailing. But you could never prevail against me...not when I have such great power at my hand."
There was a bright flash and Sigrun saw that the battlefield was gone and she was in a room, shaped like a pyramid with torches and banners all about. She didn't know it, but this was an illusion of the Palace of Vivec from the city that once bore its name. In truth, it lay beneath layers of rubble, igneous rock, and ash: the end of the false god. But for the present, it seemed as real as anything Sigrun believed to be real.
"Belief," he muttered. "Faith that the simulacrum one views with their eyes is all that is real; but you are as close as you could ever hope to become to mounting the World-Wheel, and I have danced upon the Secret Tower. We do not dwell in worlds of real and unreal: we straddle the line between good and evil, real and unreal."
"More talk? Really?" Sigrun asked.
"I am a maker, you are a mortal," Vivec replied. "I have all the time I want, whereas you have precious little time. Your actions have zero-summed yourself, confuting your own existence: all that you are now is a breath before you yeet yourself out of existence."
"What?" Sigrun asked. This, however, broke through her defenses: it spoke to the pain in her body.
"He who asks need not know, and he who knows need not ask."
"Fuck you!" Sigrun shouted.
"It is not I that shall be ridden, but you," it condescended. "I have already been ridden before: it was...glorious. Perhaps you as well shall enjoy it: after all, you're a devil-Nord. Your kind know only servitude to gods: it is where you belong, on your knees, drinking the milk from my Muatra."
Sigrun suddenly saw a shape she did not think to see: the white hawk again. It flew through the walls of the triangular palace and lighted above her. At last she gained understanding and clarity amid the foolishness. This thing, whatever it was, meant to have its way with her. Beneath all of its pseudo-philosophical bullshit was a creature of lust, utterly depraved and unbound in the mind.
Just then, however, she noticed the bi-colored floating thing was now standing before her, its yellow eyes leering at her as it thrust its spear in her direction. Half from her combat training and half from revulsion, she turned aside, her eyes closed. As her eyes closed, she saw the face leering out of the darkness and she suddenly knew: it was its face that she had seen in the dreams and visions so many times over. Anger filled her being once again.
"What do you want with me?" she demanded. "In plain words."
"I will not stoop to your low level merely to make you understand me," it replied. "After all, he that asks need not know and he that knows need not ask."
"No more games!" Sigrun asked. "One way or another, you're going to die and I want answers!"
"But I have already said," replied Vivec. "Everything that I will say is quite beyond your puny devil-Nord mind's ability to comprehend. Even were I to let you in on the best kept secret of gemmatria and apoplasia, you would not understand it."
"Try," Sigrun retorted, the cynical side of her becoming stronger as her anger with this being increased. "You're supposed to be a god, aren't you? Surely you're capable of talking down at my level."
"How dare you insult the great warrior-poet Vehk!" it replied. There was another bright flash and Sigrun found herself within a great dark cave with a lofty roof. The two of them stood on an island of rock amid a sea of fire that belched loathsome gases and odors up from their chthonic depths. Into her mind came once again the memories of the dreams she had seen: this was where Wulfharth the Undying, the Dragon of the North, the Grey Spirit, had fell in the Battle of Red Mountain. Her foe now began to prance towards her, spinning and leaping as it went and thrusting its spear at her. Taking up her spear, she heaved it at Vivec in the hopes of pinning it down to the ground; but the spear glanced off of Vivec's spear and fell into the fire with a burst of foul-smelling gas.
Vivec halted its prancing and glared angrily back at Sigrun.
"You lowborn dirt! How dare you try to harm my glorious Milk-Finger! I shall take great pleasure in choking your whore-mouth with milk from my Muatra!"
Vivec charged at her, spear held lance-like with both hands. Sigrun leaped aside just in time, hoping to catch the fool off-guard and send it plummeting down to its death in the fires below. But as it approached the brink, it crossed its legs together and floated up into the air and back down onto the isle.
"You cannot kill me, little devil," it mocked her. "What is divine cannot die and I am a maker."
"Yeah?" Sigrun asked. "And what have you made?"
"I made Resdaynia mighty among the petty kings of AMA-NIN, et ada-Bal," babbled Vivec as it hovered back down onto its feet. "My silver tongue convinced the Dragon himself to dismantle the Brass-Like-Walk. I made my people to breathe water so that they may live when the sea rose up against them. I caused the Ministry of Truth to remain in the sky by the power of the Dunmer's love for me."
"From what I hear," Sigrun replied, ducking as it thrust its spear at her again. "Your little island is a wreck. The rock fell and your people burned."
"Lies, all lies!" it retorted. "The devil-b*tch lies! I shall stuff my Milk-Finger into your mouth to silence your lies!"
With that, Vivec advanced swiftly upon her, thrusting its spear toward her face. Sigrun was being driven backwards towards the edge of the isle and the fire below. All she had was her sword, fending off the spear as it came too close for comfort. Now she was on the edge, teetering between here and oblivion; the bi-colored thing was prancing toward her, its spear placed between its legs as it humped the air towards her.
"Kyne, give me strength," she prayed.
"Your dead gods cannot hear you, devil-b*tch," laughed Vivec. "You are in my realm. You cannot kill me, for I am a god!"
It thrust its spear at her. Sigrun leaned back, barely missing the blow. Another one came. But this time, Sigrun swung her sword to turn the shaft. It turned the blow, but just barely: the spearhead cut into the left side of her head. She cried out in pain and stumbled back; she could feel her left foot slipping off the edge. The next blow would either claim her or send her into the flames below.
Then she saw, floating in the air above their heads, the glowing white hawk again. Her left foot slipped and remained steadfast in mid-air, resting on nothingness. Strength returned to her, and she gripped her sword with both hands. The battle-fury was now risen in her, and she felt a burning sensation coursing through her veins. She felt seven feet tall, though her height hadn't increased an inch. Vivec charged at her, thrusting its spear at her. She swung her sword, this time with the blade of the sword rather than the flat; no mere parrying of shaft, but a deadly cut. She let out a cry and swung with all of her might.
There was a sickening sound of blade slicing through flesh. The spear fell from Vivec's hands in two pieces; a wrinkled, blue-gray penis that shriveled and shrank. Vivec, meanwhile, had collapsed to the ground on its knees, roaring and crying in pain at the loss of Muatra. To Sigrun's surprise, the thing began to shrink before her very eyes, becoming smaller and feebler; the head alone retained its size. The thing that crouched before her looked like an overgrown baby with a withered body.
"You took away my Milk-Finger!" sobbed Vivec. "Please, show mercy!"
Sigrun took a step towards the weak, feeble, and withered thing. Her body was filled with disgust a thousand-fold over; not merely for the thing in its hideous shape now, but for something else. Into her mind, as if a vision came here and now, she saw that winged woman she had seen in the night - the hawk that had guided her to the sword - kneeling before Vivec. It placed its spear between its legs and then began to thrust it back and forth in her mouth as Erik had thrust his member in her nether-parts that night in Solstheim. She knew now what all the lies and bullshit amounted to: nothing but a depraved old charlatan wanting to dominate someone it viewed as an inferior.
The hawk descended from its flight and rested upon her, melting into her and becoming one with her. She was Sigrun Stormborn, daughter of the Dragonborn, the Child-Out-of-Time, and vengeance itself; when she spoke her answer, another voice spoke in chorus with her own. It was Bjornvik Wing-Maiden.
"For a devil elf? Never!"
She rose her sword, and thrust it deep into Vivec's mouth; just retribution. Then, pulling it swiftly out, she severed the oversized head from its thin and shriveled neck. There was a white flash and a shape like the one that had once stood before her moments ago - the shape of Vivec - disappeared once again into the door of white light: the same one through which it and the ancient giant had appeared. Before it closed, Sigrun caught sight of Llevas Dorvayn thrusting his sword into Vivec's chest beneath the fifth rib - slaying it from in-front rather than from behind as he had been betrayed. The false god of the Dunmer, the last of the Tribunal, was now the Twice-Slain.
The light grew, and suddenly Sigrun found herself back in the midst of the chaos of Fort Dunstad. The battle carried on from where it had stopped. Sigrun looked around in amazement. She thought for a moment that she had had another vision; then the cold wind blew upon the cut on the left side of her forehead. That was certainly real enough. Through all the chaos around her, she looked about for her companions and saw, lying on the ground just a few feet away from her, the bulbous severed head of Vivec. There was nothing left of the rest of the body: to pull Vivec back from the moment of its death and mantle itself onto her, Arvela had zero-summed herself, and therefore ceased to exist.
Cries were ringing around her. "Victory! Victory!" Sure enough, those who stood around her were dressed in the steel lamellar and chain-mail of the Stormcloaks; not a single Imperial Legion soldier was left standing. She lifted her sword to cheer with those around her, then felt her throat tighten and she bent over and coughed a harsh, phlegm-heavy cough. She winced in disgust as she felt some of it on her lips even after she had finished. With the back of her left hand she wiped her mouth off, only to hold her hand up to her face.
What she had thought had been phlegm was, in fact, blood.
(AN: I was struggling with tacking this chapter onto the end of the last one, but decided that it should stand alone: the last one was the build-up, this was the big reveal and confrontation between Sigrun and Arvela mantling Vivec. I wonder if anyone will notice that I actually put some lines from the Architect from The Matrix Reloaded into Vivec's rant: likely nobody will notice, since his scene is very Kirkbride in its essence. The whole repeating himself part comes from the fact that the majority of Morrowind's NPCs have copy-pasted dialogue: having played it, I can speak from experience on this regard. The line "he that asks need not know and he that knows need not ask" comes from my own experiences with trying to break into role-playing games.)
(So now we come to a rather interesting situation: the big supernatural threat is eliminated and now the war is left. However, unlike The Thing of Which We Do Not Speak [Game of Thrones season 8], this will be much more significant and important to the overall story. We're not done yet, dear readers.)