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Hi everyone, a few words before the start of the story :
First, I dont own Morrowind universe, it's been created by Bethesdea in their amazing franchise The Elderscrolls. I have of course taken some freedom with the original material, especialy the magic system. I had to create my own system to fill the blanks, while respecting what we know of it in Morrowind game. My story will respect the canon chronology up to 3E427, the year of the Nerevarine Prophecies. I will had my own events before that, tied to my OC, and after this it will be all brand new. There will be no Oblivion Crisis, no fall of the Ministry of Truth, and no eruption of the Red Mountain in the 4th era.
Second, English is not my main language, I'm French, so Appologies for all the errors and mistakes I may and will do while writting this story. I always proof-read every chapter several time, but I'm sure I will miss a bunch along the way. I hope it will still be enjoyable.
A note on Slavery : The dunmer people are known to be xenophobic and their society use a lot of slaves as work-force, and this story take place in Morrowind, their homeland, so naturaly slavery will be part of it, especialy in Telvanni territories, as they are staunch supporters of it. My main character vews on it are those of a dunmer raised with the Temple. He is not pro-slavery per se, but he's not an abolitionist either. He is a low-born orphan who lives in a Monastery in a holy city so he doesnt see or know slaves in his daily life, so it's not a concern to him. Now, all this is fictionnal, so the story doesnt reflect my views on it AT ALL. I am of course all against slavery and exploiting in any form, I would be a disgusting piece of shit of a human being if it was anything else. So stay chill when slavery will be seen in the story, thanks for that in advance ;)
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Prologue:
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After ten years of constant fleeing and hiding, they thought themselves safe.
Their constant watchfullness had dulled lately, it had started since they escaped Morrowind borders, their homeland. They'd been living peacefully since five years with their young son in Cheydinhal, an imperial city, the closest from the borders. They looked like any exiled dark elf on the run among others, living in the middle of local humans quite used to the other « grey-skined pointy ears ».
They gave their best at trying not to stand out, but the woman was a gifted healer, and the potions she was brewing to earn honestly her coins were simply too good and were quickly a success, perhaps too much of a success.
More importantly, they had underestimated their value in the Temple eyes.
They were not just some heretics questioning the official Faith and Doctrine. They had a key role in the Dissident priests group creation, by freeing prisonners jailed for Heresy and by stealing from the Temple Secret Library last copies of forbbiden texts condemned by faith autorities.
They also ignored that the Temple had handsomely paid the Morag Tong, the legal assassin guild, tasked to find and eliminate the dissident couple.
Finaly they were absolutly not aware of the discreet surveillance they were under since few weeks. They didnt know the Count himself, a dark elf like them but of noble blood, had been paid to look away when the « extraction » of 3 of his subjects by the Temple men would take place.
They didnt know any of that. Yet, in the middle of the night, the two dark elves were preparing for escape in a hurry, trying to be the more quick and stealthy they could.
The woman had woke up less than an hour ago screaming, haunted my the remains of a vision. She had seen her own death by the hands of intruders of her own kind, who had bursted in the shack, forcing brutaly the door. Their anonymous faces were everchanging and fluctuating like often in the dreamworld, but lighted up by two moon and stars, they suddendly had the unmoving and cold face of the Ordinators golden helmet, the armed inquisitors of the Faith.
After years of peace, they had been found, she knew it with utmost certainty.
Her husband knew better than distrust his wife visions, he knew those were prophetic dreams sent by Azura, their beloved goddess.
That's why they were fully awake at this hour, planning urgently their leaving.
Under the roof attic, the child was still sleeping on his rough bedroll, wrapped in a crimson peace of farbric, not woken up by his mother bad dreams and their unrest.
They were still gathering the minimum they would need for survival when violent battering banged at the door. They froze, despair in their red eyes, their skin grey as ash sudendly paler.
They gazed at each other briefly but with intensity, they knew their own role without a word. All was said in this look, the love, the fear, the desesperate hope of seeing eachother in the afterlife.
The man quickly sat on the floor and started to chant in the dark elf tongue, hands risen to the air.
A pale blue light started to shine at his fingers end, not wasting time, he pointed them at every opening of the modest dwelling. A thin magical barrier covered every door and windows to the outside.
The last opening to be sealed by his incantations was the trapdoor leading to the child room in the attic, just at the time it closed itself after the mother went up.
Closing her mind to what would happen below her, she kneeled close to her son, woken up by the loud noises they could hear downstairs. She held him tightly against her heart, tears in her eyes. After this too short hug, her face froze in unshakable resolution. She knew what had to be done, she had seen and lived it in the mist of the dreamworld. Azura, her beloved mistress, guided her hand and fate. She took a breath first, then closed her eyes and started, like her husband, to chant. But a chant of her own, charged with magic and power, a chant sent by her Goddess. A chant calling the names of their True Gods, the True Tribunal.
She first whispered the name of Mephala, The Webspinner of Secrets. In response, at the tip of her agile fingers appeared thin threads of silver light linked to the child head. At first she pulled softly on those threads, then, failing to hold her tears, she pulled harshly on the silver filaments until they snapped suddenly. The child eyes opened widely with confusion, then became hazzy and unfocused, as if his mind went astray in the fog.
With a wave of her hand, the silver threads, still floating in the air, vanished away, and with them all her son's memories, only letting a blank identity, like one of a newborn.
More words whispered by her and magic took her son back in a deep slumber. Then she heard below the loud explosion of the now destroyed magical barrier and then the last cry of pain from her husband before he fell dead.
Shaking and sobbing she started a new chant, prayer to Azura, Sovereign of Prophecies, Mistress of the mysteries of magic, begging her to always guide her son and show him the way.
She finaly called the last of the three ancestral gods, Bohetia, the Dark Warrior, the Father and Protector of all dark elves. She prayed for the God's strength and cunning to be bestowed onto her son, she prayed again that victory against his enemies may be granted to him.
Her haunting chant stopped when every one of the intruders at the Temple orders came in the attic.
She stayed on her knees next to her child who would never remember her, her back to the murderers who already took her husband's life.
With a last sob and after drying the tears on her cheeks, she turned to face those who came for her, the priestess of Azura. She defiantly gazed at each one of them and cursed them silently, engraving in her mind their faces, hoping that the Ancestors would gave her the power to return and haunt them. She knew she was helpless, made weaker by the unusual magic she had just done.
She faced them with cold anger and acceptance, then closed her eyes, welcoming the outcome of her fate, ready to feel the thread of her life cut by those assassins's blades, waiting to join her beloved goddess, her husband and her ancestors.
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Later that night, under the nightsky filled with silvery stars, under the light of the two moons, a party of dark elves shrouded in dark cloak, their faces covered by hoods, went on the road on horses back, leaving the city at full speed, as if they were running from all the blood they had spilled. Coated in the arms of one of them, a sleeping child wrapped in a crimson piece of cloth, without memory, deemed innocent of his parents crimes by the sacred Law of Mercy. He would wake up of his magical slumber days later, in Morrowind, on his forefathers land, a land he'd never walk on before.
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