#greybeards

I know it’s the season to be jolly, but I’m a year-round Halloween kind of person. Here’s the opening of Chapter 1 of my Reach horror fic :) 

Tagging these excellent writers: @captainmarkarth@translimen@jjgremlinson @expended-sleeper&@memaidraws - no pressure! 

Long after the events of Skyrim, a dying Einarth reflects on the fatal misjudgment that led him to High Hrothgar.

I miss my voice as one might miss a limb. I am not quite whole without it. When I had it, I never put it to good use. I have served the world better this way, and I did not come here to be made complete.

Even before I made my vows, I knew that silence was beautiful—lonely, but beautiful. I have never known the two to live apart. So it wasn’t a sacrifice when I left home to live and die at the Throat of the World. I came here to better love my lifelong companion. In silence, there is solace. I am welcome. I am safe.

I defy my vow by writing this. But have I not served well, and faithfully? My tongue is all but severed. I have lived longer than Men were meant to. My Voice has been made into a weapon I cannot use. I am a vessel, a conduit. There is so little of me left.

Brothers, if you ever felt love for me in all our soundless, hallowed years, if that one human thing has not been taken from us, too, then I beg you to indulge me.  

The hardest thing to give up wasn’t the sound of my own voice, the sight of my own face, or the warmth of another living being. It wasn’t the blue sky in the morning, or the steady roar of the river at night. It was the color green—the verdant flush of the Reach in full bloom swallowing the valley whole, and me along with it.

I can still see it in my mind. The mountain flowers turn sunward. The birds swoop low and skim the grass. The valley sings.

You must listen for it. It is not something you happen to hear. You must anticipate it, and expect it.

But you must never sing back.

Krosis is still unpublished, but if you’re here from the Reach fanfic tags, I highly recommend Lost and Found by cosmikazeandRat King by wanda von dunayev!

finally some good fucking content