A/N: Hello everyone! Hope September is treating you well! Thanks to krikanalo and OnnaMusha for reviewing the last chapter, and I hope everyone will enjoy reading today's. It's a bit of a bridging chapter, one that was a little hard coming, but hopefully it works in the end.

Warning for depictions of violence.

Chapter 16: Confrontation

This was it. But Llovesi was raising her hand to the great stone handle of the Temple door, when she hesitated and her hand froze in mid air.

Was she ready to do this? Try as she might to tell herself this had to be done, that Almalexia had to be stopped and she was going to get Julan back, Llovesi just wasn't sure. And feelings from three months ago flooded her mind. Ghostgate, Dagoth Ur, the volcano...

She had lied to everyone that she was ready then, and she had survived despite the odds. But this was different. For all the similarities between Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal, Llovesi was about to turn on something the people of Morrowind still held dear. She was taking a quarrel to the heart of their city.

It didn't matter what Almalexia was truly like, what she had done, Llovesi thought as she turned back to see the crowd of Dunmer still keeping their vigil at the Temple steps. In many ways, she wished she were on the threshold of the Palace, ready to have the last confrontation with Heselth. That would be acceptable. In truth, she wasn't worried about her own death this time. She was worried about what would come after.

And she had only just healed from the last struggle. While Bols repaired her cuirass, one of the alchemists at the Craftsmen's Hall had applied a thick healing salve to Llovesi's back, closing the Daedra claw wounds into long, jagged scars. She'd had to take potions to restore her tiredness and alleviate her aches, for there had been no time for rest in the end. All the while, she'd lain on her front, her shirt open at the back, watching the inhabitants of the Craftsmen's Hall.

For that was what they were now: inhabitants. Close to four days they'd spent in the Hall, and it was becoming more and more like a refugee camp. When she'd returned from Bamz-Aschend, she found that everyone had grouped into the smithy, for the constant source of heat and light. There they had set up cooking pots over the hot coals, and blankets on the stone floor, and they gasped over Trueflame when she brought it back. If Bols and Yagak were annoyed by the intrusion they didn't show it, and Llovesi suspected they weren't. They were far gruffer on the outside than the inside, and it had got to the point where all anyone truly wanted was some company. So they hunched together, sharing provisions and stories, looking very much like victims in the aftermath of a disaster. When she had left she told them she was going to stop the ash storms. It wasn't strictly a lie.

Now Llovesi stood, a bundle of nerves held together by alchemy, on the threshold of the Temple, her hand aching to reach out and grasp the door and also wanting to slip back to her side. Why was she here? What did she want, truly? And what would she do when she opened this door?

She looked at Trueflame, banging against her hip in the force of the storm. Just a few days ago she had sworn she would forge the sword and use it to kill Almalexia. Salas Valor had insisted it was necessary. Then Julan had been abducted and she had been consumed with such a rage that when she stole any sleep all she saw was Almalexia's head rolling onto the flagstones. Even yesterday she had been ready to go through with it. Why was she having doubts now?

Julan was in there somewhere. Her ring had not burnt on her finger since the Daedra halls, but she knew if he were dead she would feel it. She hoped she would. Her hand inched closer.

Well, who said she had to fight Almalexia at all? Maybe she could be convinced to stop the ash storms, to work with her people instead of against them. Nerevar would have known what to say, Llovesi realised. Perhaps that was what all of this was about anyway. Nerevar and Almalexia. Two relics of the First Era, reunited.

This is stupid. I have to go in there and get Julan, and stop her. I have to.

Her hand closed on the door handle and she pushed.

The antechamber was empty.

The absence of life was a shock. Llovesi felt it more keenly because she was sure her mind was just full of people. Julan. Almalexia. Nerevar. Llovesi. Helseth. Barenziah. Helseth and Almalexia. Julan, Almalexia and Llovesi. Nerevar, Almalexia and Llovesi. Nerevar and Llovesi.

She crept across the darkened and silent room, wishing she could scream as loudly as her heart was beating.

Is this a trap? Is it wrong to presume this is all about her and me? Anything she does affects the whole of Mournhold too. But no, she's proved herself to be petty, cruel, prideful... and oh so desperate.

She'd reached the door to the High Chapel. She took a deep, shuddering breath, then attempted a stoic expression. Her hand on Trueflame's hilt, she turned the latch. It was unlocked.

Inside, the scene was just as it had ever been: Almalexia's soft golden skin radiating out into the heights of the Temple and surrounded by five Hands this time. The sight gave Llovesi a strange measure of a comfort and familiarity, despite what had passed here. Llovesi knew they were both beyond that now. The game between them was nearing its end.

"Almalexia," she said, and her voiced bounced off the curved walls. She was relieved to hear how steady she sounded. And in that instant she made her decision.

Almalexia's head snapped up and she opened her eyes.

"So," she said softly, barely a hint of emotion. "You have returned. I believe I knew you would. What words do we have left to exchange?"

"None," Llovesi said, and drew Trueflame. "Not now. You have taken my husband. I've come to get him back, and end your blight on this city."

She raised Trueflame so that the flames flicked to life, and ran towards Almalexia.

Closer, and closer, Trueflame blazing through the air, towards Almalexia and her plinth, but the Goddess didn't move at all. Then the Hands moved as one, five guards surrounded their Goddess, five scimitars rose in unison, all of them pointing at Llovesi.

Llovesi skidded to a halt, and lowered Trueflame slightly, but the flames still licked around the steel, casting harsh dancing shadows at her feet.

"Why don't you put your dogs down and face me yourself?" Llovesi said with a voice full of barely restrained menace.

"Brave words from a coward," Almalexia said sweetly. "Didn't you run the last time we spoke here? But now I have your lover, and now you come running. Not a mention of my people this time, though the ash storms still rage. No, this time it's personal. But it was personal ever since you set foot in my city."

She laced her fingers together, and looked serenely at Llovesi from in between the raised scimitars.

"I was denied my lover," she continued, "and you shall be denied yours. Even if you kill me, you will never find him here. I was denied my power, and so I shall take it back."

Llovesi's only reply was an inarticulate scream of rage. Before she knew what she was doing she pulled every last drop of magicka to the fore and pushed with heat and flame. The five Hands were thrown back to the curved walls of the High Chapel with a thud that should have brought everyone running. But still the Temple was silent.

Almalexia still stood before her, looking exactly the same. The spell hadn't even ruffled her hair.

Llovesi raised Trueflame high, but Almalexia's hand shot out and caught her wrist. Her grip was incredibly strong; Llovesi fought not to drop Trueflame as Almalexia twisted her wrist and brought them closer together.

"You have even anticipated my need by reforging Trueflame," she continued in her low, sweet voice. "It is the only reason I allowed you to walk away with the piece of the blade. I told you, you would be a good and faithful servant. Everything you have done, to bring us closer together, my Nerevar..."

"Let me go!" Llovesi said through gritted teeth.

"I think not. In fact, I think you should discover a place where you will be able to use that sword. You would condemn me? Then meet the one who first divined the use of the tools! There we shall have our last."

A trap. A caged rat. But as Llovesi dully realised that Almalexia had wanted this all along, she had taken Julan to draw Llovesi to her one last time, that the grip on her wrist had not lessened–as she realised all of this in an instant, bright light was glowing from where golden skin met sun kissed green-grey, and she was falling, falling, falling.

Falling through darkness and stars. She felt the same pull in her body that came with teleportation magic, but this was pulling her further than she had ever been before. She squeezed her limbs to her body, bracing herself for impact. When she landed, it was with a splash.

I watch. I wonder. I build. I tear down.

He was working, as always, in solitude and silence. His hands stretched over the circle of his many arching consoles, tapping, divining, experimenting, creating. Tinkering. The Mage, the Clockmaker, in the hub of his workshop. Magicka flowed through the great cables above, and the whole room hummed and clicked with every stroke of his golden fingers over the machinery. Pistons, cogs and steam-powered mechanisms were here. His mind was elsewhere, as always.

Solitude. His burden and his blessing. His technology was occupation enough, a guiding light on the shadowy path of curiosity. And it had led him to many curious things indeed, mechanics and prosthetics and magicka drawn from the body into circuits of possibility. It had led him to clockwork. But he was, above all, an observer. And solitude was his to bear alone, the solitary figure, the solitary citizen. Long since he had spoken with the other Tribunes, long since he had moved things among the mortals. No, this was his way now, and the disconnect was almost complete.

Or was it? He felt the arrival again. Someone had been walking his halls as of late. It bothered him not, for they bothered him not. His halls were not closed to those who knew to find them, though he suspected his experiments kept that select group away. But the presence was closer this time; in fact he could hear soft footsteps...

"Sotha Sil," Almalexia whispered.

He looked up from his consoles, metal limbs clicking and compressing as he lowered his arms and stood upright. He considered her from behind a helm of Dwemer metal. So she had come here. But, was that a surprise? He stayed, she came, and that was a balance of sorts.

He opened his mouth, then found he had nothing to say.

He looked back to his consoles. He had many a thing to do. Already his mind was jumping away, distracted, heading back through the corridors to his creatures and creations. He forgot Almalexia.

But she did not leave. She stood in front of him, just in his field of vision, her right fist clenched and her left holding her blueflame Dwemer-blade, Hopsefire. It had been many an age since he'd seen it wielded.

"This is where you cower, Tinkerer."

He waited, his hands pausing over switches and levers. She would say her piece, and then she would leave. That was communication. He noticed not the tone of her words. Almalexia had always been hard as tempered steel, even in joy. And then there was Vivec the riddler, clothing himself in obscurity... It had been so long since he'd thought of the others.

"You keep yourself away here. Hiding from the world. Withdrawn, working by yourself. What luxury."

She had drawn closer; she was right in front of him now.

"So. Many. Years. I doubt you even know what day it is. What month. Let alone the faring of your people in outer Sotha Sil. You do not know much I..."–and she took a deep shuddering breath, her voice wobbling over the words as sure as Hopesfire wavered in the air–"... resent this. You two. The Tinkerer and the Poet, free to follow their whims while the Mother of Mercy walks in their wake, picking up the pieces. The Mother of Mercy, walking among her people. Learning them. Serving them. I thought that we chose this path as equals, but it seems even Gods are not created equal!"

She was shouting on the final words. Sotha Sil stood impassive, his fingers still hovering over the consoles. He waited for her to leave.

"You have become self-absorbed, gods only in the service of yourself! I alone watch over my people, but I cannot any longer. You didn't even feel it, did you? You've turned yourself into half a man, with those metal legs, metal arms, metal heart!"

She spat the words, her eyes roving venomously over his body as she did. Hopesfire started to tremble in her hands.

"The silent mage, and the silent thief. I, the warrior, had to fight for us all. Too heavy a burden! Too heavy for one to bear! You chose to throw it away! I couldn't. And when I could no longer perform my duty I found I had no choice again!"

She was sobbing wilfully now, waving Hopesfire around in grand gestures as she spoke. His eyes followed the flames from behind his helm with vague disinterest. But then she looked up, at him, her own eyes burning gold through her tears.

"You ignore me even now? Why don't you speak! Answer me!"

He said nothing. She began to pace.

"I hate you. This is what I now realise. I hate you, my brother. I hate what we did. You know my Nerevar returned to me? He did, but you never did care for the prophecies. But, oh the Daedra must be mocking me, for he has returned as a woman, with her own lover. Was it folly what we did? I think it was a greater folly for me, for I alone carry the Tribunal now. I alone am the one true god!"

He could see every tear on her face... then the blade came up, swinging wildly past the ring of consoles, and plunged through his metal cuirass. Oh. It burned. He had forgotten pain. It hurt quite a lot. His mind came rushing back.

"Speak!" she screamed.

He did not. He found that, when it came down to it, he had no words. Those who fail to comprehend my silence will fail to comprehend my words. He chose it. She did not.

She pulled the sword back, trailing his innards with it.

"So, there is something of a mer left in you," she said. "Let us return you to your mortality! Perhaps then you will lower yourself to speak with me!"

A strange word, mortality. A forgotten word. So long ago he had replaced himself with his own constructions, so not to feel. Now he felt keenly as she ripped and hacked his artificial limbs from him, trailing wire and metal across the floor.

"Why do you defy me!" She was still screaming as she smashed through his consoles and tore him apart with her bare hands. "Talk to me!"

The lights were flickering and failing around them. Sotha Sil imagined the damage it could be causing. Flooded halls, traps becoming active, mechanisms failing. But he could only imagine. He could no longer see.

She'd torn great cables down from above and she was pulling him up, stringing one broken arm, then the other, wrapping a thick rope of metal magicka around his neck...

Oh, silence. To leave this cumbersome life. Maybe it was what he needed. To sleep, finally.

Then came the sword again, searing as it sliced. She rent his helm, half of the great metal mask flying away and the other half welding itself to his face. Skin that hadn't seen light in years peeked out. She punched him in the mouth, cracking teeth that hadn't been used in centuries.

Still there was silence.

His mind was fully in this room now, staring at the lights on his consoles, feeling the metal round his arms, hearing the cogs whirring and Almalexia grunting, hearing rather than feeling the sound of the sword. All was metal sparks flying, metal room spinning, metal walls darkening...

She was panting now, sobbing quietly. One word, over and over again: "Speak."

Sotha Sil died with his mouth hanging open, and there were no words.

Almalexia stood back and saw her work.

There was silence.

A/N: Some things to say.

Firstly, the beginning of Sotha Sil's section (I watch. I wonder. I build. I tear down.) comes from the wonderful 'Sotha Sil's Last Words...' on the Imperial Library, which also hugely influenced his description. I just wanted to show him as maybe he was - to my mind he's one of the most interesting Tribunes, yet... well, you know what happens in game. I tried to strike a slightly different tone/style in writing his perspective, hopefully that came across.

Secondly, and I'm sorry to say this, there won't be any updates for a while. This is my fault - I've caught myself up with the pre-written material, and I've been battling real-life priorities/writer's block to get the chapters finished. I can't say when chapter 17 will be done (though it's about half way there so although I'll shoot for next week sometime.) I'll try to go for weekly updates. The good news is, there are only a few more chapters to go - this story will be finished! If you're reading my other ongoing story, Cardruhn, an update is coming for that very soon.