#orsimer

obiwangaynobi:

OK ok so for science, reblog this if you’re autistic and tell me in the tags what race you main on Skyrim

Orsinium

Some of my ESO toons. Trying out a different way to draw and color because I’m tired of spending too much time coloring tbh

by Henri Darveaux

“The steel that protects you is invisible. It runs in your veins, hot and shining like a mirage. Let it flow from you into the way you move. Move like this to spare you wounds: spin your spirit in circles.” - Frandar Hunding, The Book of Circles

Upon first glance, a Breton might not recognize a knight of Abibon-Gora as such. The only emblem of their prestige is their dual swords, curved as most of Hammerfell, and their ornately decorated crimson capes. Otherwise, they dress simply in the traditional, flowing garb of many desert-dwellers. These protectors of the Barony of Abibon-Gora don no armor for combat; their defense is their “invisible steel.”

For millennia, the Knights of the Wheel have been the marvel of this western region of Hammerfell, along the coast southwest of Sentinel. These valorous Redguards claim to need no more armor than the clothes they wear, for their faith in Julianos and the words of the legendary Frandar Hunding protect them from harm. Many locals even seem to believe this literally, thinking that their skin was made of steel. Your humble but skeptical author found these claims to be dubious, and wondered how their skin might truly be hardened thus. So I traveled to the city of Abibon-Gora to investigate.

When I arrived at the city, I immediately went to the Fighter’s Guild to hire one of their mercenaries. I found one such admirable Orc, who shall not be named here upon request of the Guild itself. Suffice to say, he was sufficient for my purposes, after offering a demonstration of his power. A magnificent slab of muscle enshrined within a glorious suit of Orcish armor, and wielding with brutal efficiency a mighty axe of similar caliber. 

My dashing protector acquired, I proceeded to the hall of the Knights of the Wheel, and inquired of their seneschal where might be one of their most accomplished warriors. He offered me Sir Haribad, a tall Redguard woman whose highly-decorated mantle sharply contrasted her drab tunic. In the tradition of knightly honor, I challenged her to a duel, with my Orc companion as my representative combatant. She accepted, and we met the next day at the city’s arena. And as the two prepared to fight, I equipped my specially-enchanted ring of magic-sight.

You see, I had begun to suspect in my research that Abibon-Gora’s association with Julianos and the mystical defenses of its knights could not be coincidental. Despite the typical Redguard disdain for magic, I believed that there must be some spell or enchantment used by the Knights of the Wheel which gave them their special protection. So, prior to my journey to the city, I had purchased from my local enchanter a ring that can detect magic, allowing me to sense the presence of such effects.

When the ring took effect at the arena, I was immediately attuned to some magic in the room, giving me great, if brief, satisfaction. But as the detection focused, I noticed that the magic sourced not from Sir Haribad, but from my own combatant, instead. He seemed to possess some enchantment in his armor to enhance his strength. As per the scorn Redguards have for magic, duels such as these forbid its use. I immediately stood to stop the fight and my accidental duplicity, but was instead mesmerized by what I next witnessed.

The Orc’s enhanced strength was never utilized against Sir Haribad, for she would not allow his attacks to connect. She seemed to be a whirlwind of sword and crimson, avoiding and deflecting the Orc’s blows with profound grace, and striking through the chinks in his armor between his swings. Even the Orc’s dying rage could not halt the knight’s advance, and at last she stood victorious over his bleeding body, barely a tear in her simple clothing.

It occurred to me then that those passages of the Book of Circles, written by legendary Yokudan hero Frandar Hunding, that the Knights of the Wheel so praised, were far less mystical and far more literal than any Breton scholars had ever assumed. There was no magic at play, protecting the knights in lieu of armor; by eschewing heavy protection, they used their own agility to avoid their opponents’ attacks. 

Upon the calling of the duel, I immediately approached Sir Haribad and the seneschal to apologize profusely, telling them about the enchantment on my combatant’s armor. They simply nodded. “It does not matter,” Sir Haribad said, wiping the blood from her blades off on her crimson cape.

“It does not matter?” I repeated, incredulous. Then, realizing, I asked, “You knew?”

She nodded. “I knew, yes. And I knew it would not matter.”

“How do you know you’re right?”

He is here again, regal as ever, his long white hair spilling out from under his silver helmet. But here, in this private arena in the Ashpit, there is little brilliance to give his armor luster. 

Both combatants stop mid-combat to witness him. “What? - Lord Trinimac!” says one. He glances back at Malacath, but can’t entirely steal his astonishment from the interloper. “I thought you said…”

“Never mind what I said.” Malacath sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Leave us be, Gortwog. We’ll finish this another time.”

The recently-deceased king slowly obliges, but he constantly looks back to stare at the god who was and the god who wasn’t before the walls of the fortress separate them.

Malacath turns to face Trinimac, Vosh Rakh still gripped firmly in his hand. “Should really start letting me know when you intend to visit.”

“Myapologies,” comes the rushed response, but he returns to his question. “How do you know when you’re right?”

“What kind of question is that?” Malacath narrows his eyes. “This about him? All that mess you’ve been up to down there, with my city?”

“Of course it is!” He throws up his hands in mock frustration. “Partially, at least.” He wags a finger in Malacath’s face, and almost loses it. “And it was my city, first.” He shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter right now. I asked you a question.”

“And you haven’t explained what the hell it means.” Malacath slowly circles Trinimac, sizing him up in the center of the arena.

“What I mean is…” Trinimac’s hands grasp at the air, at words. “You. You made vengeance your sphere, correct?”

“Itmademe. Besides the point, probably. What about it?” Malacath drags Vosh Rakh through the ash in the pit, kicking up little puffs of it as he traps Trinimac in a small circle.

“Okay. Well, vengeance implies you know you were wronged. Which implies you were right, and you know you were right, and they were wrong.”

Malacath stops in front of Trinimac, letting the ash settle. “‘Suppose.”

“So…how do you know you were right? How are you ever so sure?”

The orc shakes his head. “Stupid question. Just know.” He punches Trinimac in the breastplate, pushing him out of the circle in the ash. “How do you get so old and not be sure? Ain’t the Dawn anymore.”

“…You know, I asked someone the same thing once, a long time ago.”

Malacath thinks and sighs. “Yeah. You did.”

“Back then, I thought I knew everything. Exactly who I was, and I thought I was unshakeable. A mountain before mountains existed.”

“But you didn’t, obviously.”

“But now you think the same. And now I’m here again.”

“I’m not like you. I know who I am. You knock me down, I don’t forget.”

“No matter how you try to hide it, to ignore it, to pretend I’m just an old ghost - even to my champion. You know you’re exactly like me.”

Malacath scowls. He throws down his sword between them, displacing more ash around their ankles. “Then prove it.”

“Pardon?”

“Tired of all the words. Pick it up and fight me.”

“…There’s only the one blade, between the two of us.”

“We’ll make it work. Just pick it up.”

Trinimac bends to arm himself. Malacath’s blade becomes Trinimac’s again, the rough edges of Vosh Rakh smoothing out into Penitent. He hesitates. “You’re still unarmed. It’s just the one blade.”

“Shut up and swing at me.”

Trinimac shakes his head but obliges. “On your guard!” He reels back his swing. Malacath readies in his grip an imaginary blade, twisting his stance to guard. As soon as Penitent neared Malacath in its arc, there was a short hiss of metal-on-metal, and Trinimac’s weight was shifted to the side. Malacath held Vosh Rakh, and Trinimac’s hands were empty.

They both paused to raise brows at this result. Then a corner of Malacath’s lip pulled back, baring his sharp teeth. “Again!” he shouts, raising Vosh Rakh high over his head.

Instinctively Trinimac raised a missing blade to deflect, pushing off from the collision to dodge to the side. Again, the sword changed hands with the same sound of metal scraping itself in swift oscillating rhythm.

Trinimac’s feet traced through the ash like ballet as he stole away from Malacath to a more casual stance. He ran his eyes up and down his ancient gleaming blade like it was an old lover. “It is the same blade, even still,” he says, inspecting his beaming face in its reflection. “It answers to the same master.”

Malacath roars and charges again, his unarmed hands held up in another attack. Trinimac steps forward and catches the blow in Penitent’s guard. The blades meet and vanish and meet again, flashing back and forth fast enough to shriek from a contact that doesn’t happen - once Penitent, then Vosh Rakh, then Penitent again - over and over, until the arena is filled with a blinding light and the combatants find themselves flat on their backs in the ash.

Malacath rises to sit, clutching his head in his hand. He feels the warmth of blood there, above his eyes. He tries to open them to see his hands.

There’s his blood, alright. But it’s god’s blood, aedric, golden ichor, and it’s speckling metal fused pitch black to flesh. He jumps back in a start, and the blood sinks into his vision. He tries to wipe it away, but when he opens his eyes, the gold is everywhere, staining the entire world. The dark iron is gold, the steel is silver, the ash is carpet, the crude architecture now ornate. 

Across the room is Trinimac, but he looks like him, and he seems just as perplexed. Malacath calls out to him, “What did you do?” But Trinimac called it out, too, at the same time, their voices mingling into one. 

“What? What’s happening? Where are…this place, it’s…it’s not supposed to be this way. It’s not supposed to look like this. Is it? Stop doing that. Make this stop! I’m not doing anything. Then who…who am I? Why do I look like…why do you look like…why? I’m not like…Stop this. This is too much. This isn’t real. It can’t be. I’m not like…Am I?”

Malacath ae Trinimac ae Malacath approach each other on their knees, knees that feel the same on ash or tile. They grab each other by the shoulders, their every movement perfectly imitated. Malacath ae Trinimac says, “I’m not strong enough for this. I’m not strong enough. Just stop this. Just stop. Stop. Stop. Please, just stop.” Trinimac begins to flicker, like Penitent on Vosh Rakh. “I’m not doing anything. Who is? I’m not. Who are you? You’re not.” Malacath begins to flicker, like Vosh Rakh on Penitent. “Who am I? I’m not. Who…Stop!”

- - - - -

What happened that day in the Ashpit is a mystery, because no one seems to rightly remember. Some orcs became elves. Some elves became orcs. The rooms and fields shifted in a sea of light and darkness, and everyone saw different things. By the end of it all, everything was back to normal, but the thing most people there remember best was the screaming.

The rumor had long persisted that there was a ghost in the Ashen Forge. Of course, this seemed a bit foolish to whomever heard it, seeing as everyone there was dead. The older denizens always chided the newer arrivals for saying such silly things, telling them they’d probably just been drunk, either on ale, battle, or fumes. Nevertheless, talk of the tall, pale specter hovering about the deeper parts of the fortress never quite went away.

Malacath had naturally heard these rumors himself, but only heeded them when the rumors pinned locations of sightings to places uncomfortably close to his private chambers. There were few rules in Ashpit, but chief among them was respecting the Prince’s privacy.

When one day his resting in the garden was broken by the sound of shears pruning, he assumed perhaps someone had not gotten the memo. “Leave now and don’t return,” he said, “and I won’t throw you into Coldharbour.”

“Pardon,” returned the intruder, “Simply tending to the forget-me-nots.”

Malacath jerked his head around at the sound of a familiar voice, and jumped to his feet when he saw him.

“You! You’re my ghost!”

Indeed he was, just as the stories claimed. He kneeled before the flowers, but Malacath saw his height despite it. Tall, pale, his ragged robes not hiding well his bulk. He turned his head towards the Prince, but did not move to rise.

“I am?” He stroked his long, silver beard, thinking. “Oh! Is that why everyone runs from me in fear?”

“Okay,” Malacath said, marching towards the ghost, “I changed my mind. Don’t go anywhere. I’m throwing you into Coldharbour.”

The ghost rose to his feet, his slowness and grunting betraying his age. “Oh, has it finally happened? I’ve been doing my job so well for so long that you didn’t know I did it, and now I’m being fired?”

Malacath grabbed him roughly behind his neck and appraised him. The “ghost” was old, and looked to be - “An elf?”

The ghost put on a shy smile. “Oh, not so uncommon you know. Well, maybe nowadays. The new ones look so different! So sturdy, like you. But they didn’t exist yet when I died.”

“When you died?” Malacath tightened his grip.

“Oh, that was before you, wasn’t it?” The ghost put on a show of counting on his fingers. “Ah, well, yes. I came here and began taking care of the garden before you arrived. Before you were born, even, perhaps!” He delicately wrapped his fingers around Malacath’s wrist, but there was a strength there Malacath hadn’t expected. “If you would please release my neck? I’ve already got a crick, and you’re a poor masseuse.”

Malacath burned his eyes into the ghost’s, but nothing came of it. He let go.

“Thank you, thank you,” the ghost said, patting Malacath’s hand as they disengaged.

“Who are you?”

The ghost waved his shears about. “Why, I’m the gardener, of course. Well, the last tenant’s.”

“…Trinimac?”

“Of course. He was the last tenant, correct? I’ve been caring for this garden ever since.”

“…How come you never came forward? Haven’t seen you until now.”

“Ah, well. You see, the old man told me to be as discreet as possible for whoever would come later - that would be yourself. ‘Hold back until it’s time, until he’s ready,’ I think he said.” The gardener widened his eyes and quickly covered his mouth. “Oh, dear. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so loose. It seems you may not be ready yet.”

“Ready for what?”

“Why, the truth, of course. About the old man.”

“I already know. Mephala told me.”

“A version of the truth. Hers, of course. But he wanted to tell you his. But, well, he’s not here anymore. So I would have to tell you mine.”

“Tell me, then.”

The gardener started stroking his beard again. “Well, I’m not sure you’re ready yet.”

Malacath’s eyes began to burn again. “I said, tell me.”

“…Very well, my Prince. But don’t blame me for anything I tell you.” The gardener looked up at the ash-choked sky, lost in thought. “You know, I trust, about Lorkhan. And about what your predecessor did to him.”

“Of course. Killed him. Ripped out his heart and threw it east. Didn’t have a choice, though. Was forced to.”

“Ah, but isn’t there always a choice?” The gardener met Malacath’s stare with a formidable one of his own. “Trinimac was offered one. He didn’t have to kill Lorkhan. He made the choice to, because he wanted to.”

“He did it because he was forced to. Auri-el made him. Would have punished him.”

“So you argue it was the lesser of two evils? Tell me, Malacath: would you have done the same? Sold the world to the Dragon and killed the only man who really loved him? The man who made him?”

“Of course not. I’m better than him. Maybe he was weak, but I wouldn’t make the same mistake.”

“But aren’t you him, and he, you? Didn’t you make that mistake?”

“No, we’re not the -”

“And how do you know it was a mistake? Is it because you feel like you would never have done it? But how can you compare his morals to yours, if you’re not the same?”

“Because I just know, I remember, I -”

“How can you? You weren’t there. You hadn’t been born yet. All you are is a suit of armor for a broken man. A broken man who doesn’t deserve to be protected. Who should have stayed broken and left this place forever vacant and empty.”

“Stop. Shut up. Let me speak.”

“You may not speak while I am speaking.”

Malacath found that he could not speak.

“He killed him because he wanted to. Because he believed in what Auri-el was doing. But it was the greatest heist to ever happen, and it was the first. Lorkhan made a world for everyone, and then we put it in chains. We ripped out its beating heart and let the Dragon feast on what was left. We didn’t let it happen. We were accomplice. I killed Lorkhan because I wanted a part of the world, a slice of the pie, just like everybody else. And no matter how much you repent, try to give us a new image, it will never change the reality that -”

“Shut up.”

Trinimac found that he could not speak.

“You did what you did because you were afraid. You were just as much a slave to that bastard as everyone else. Shor forgave us long ago, but you weren’t paying attention. It wasn’t convenient to your story so you didn’t care. Get over yourself. Stop haunting my garden.”

Malacath embraced Trinimac until he was alone again.

chapter 2 

(chapter 1)

cw: implied nsfw, nothing explicit

note: i don’t even know what the state of tense is in this, and i don’t care at this point lol

- - - - -

“…So.”

Hla-eix had already rolled over away from Daabush, her eyes contemplating the window. “So…what?”

“You said we would talk.”

Dammit, he remembered. She closes her eyes. “Did I?”

A hand grabs her shoulder and rolls her onto her back, but she keeps her head turned away from him. “No,” Daabush says. “Not again. You agreed to this. Stop trying to run away.”

“It’s all I’m good for. Running away.” She bites the inside of her lip, wishing she hadn’t said anything.

Daabush reaches over her, his rough hand gentle on her chin, pulling her around to face him. He’s so intense, the way he stares at her - into her. She always tries to avoid eye contact, but if she ever finds it, that intensity holds her completely still. No more running away. 

He caresses her cheek, his thumb running over the thin, delicate scales there. “I just want to get to know you, Eix.”

“Sorry,” she says, her eyes managing to step aside for just a moment to breathe. “I don’t know what to tell you. Where to start.”

Daabush purses his lips around his tusks. “Fine,” he says. “Okay. I’ll start, then. I grew up in a stronghold, out east, in the Velothi. What about you?”

“Uh.” This was going to be hard to explain. She always hates having to. But maybe if she can just get it over with… “I grew up in two places. Some in Morrowind, some in Black Marsh. Few years with my moms near the border. About ten years in Morrowind. Few years after the Red Year, I got taken in by the An-Xileel. Then -”

Daabush stretches his thumb over to cover her lips. “Sorry, hold on,” he says. “The Red Year?”

She bites his thumb. “I told you I was old.”

“Ow! Okay.” He props himself up on one elbow. “Also, what’s the An-Xileel?”

“Uh. Government of Black Marsh?”

“Is that common knowledge?”

“It’s not a secret.”

“I’ve only ever lived in Skyrim.”

“I guess you wouldn’t know then.”

“Anyways. Why’d they take you in?”

“Well. My mother was a dunmer. Ashlander. Mabrigash, to be specific. Like a witch, I guess. I lived with her and her coven for a long time.” Hla-eix looks up at the ceiling. She’s always thought about these things. She just needed a push - and some trust - but once she got going, she had plenty to say. “But the An-Xileel pushed north after the Red Year, to take back lands stolen by the dunmer long ago. We lived in those lands. So they killed the mabrigash except for me.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, but…okay. They didn’t kill you? Why?”

Here’s the hard part, the one she’d been avoiding. “Well. You know what I look like. I had two mothers, an argonian and a dunmer. They found a way to have a child of their own with magic. When the soldiers found me, they thought I was … a cruel experiment of witches, I guess. Another awful thing the elves had done to our people.”

“Why didn’t you tell them?”

“Couldn’t. I don’t know why. But I didn’t speak for a couple years after that. So I just let them assume what they wanted.”

“Okay. So -”

Hla-eix covers his mouth with her hand. “Nope. Your turn again.”

He swats her arm away. “Ugh. Fine.”

“Why’d you leave the stronghold?”

“Well. Hm. You know the Great Houses of Morrowind, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, there was a wave of Hlaalu emigrants almost ten years ago. Bunch of folks nobody wanted no more, on account of being so close to the Empire. Got especially bad after the Red Year.”

“Wait. You said you were born in a stronghold.”

“I did. Hold your tongue for a minute. I’m not Hlaalu.” His eyes glaze with thought for a moment. “Well. I might actually be, technically. That’s…well, who gives a shit.” He shakes his head and looks back at Hla-eix. “Where was I? Before you rudely butted in.”

“Hlaalu emigrants.”

“Oh. Well, they passed through the Velothi near our stronghold on their way to Skyrim. We let them camp nearby, gave them some supplies. Hlaalu’s always been the House that hated us least. There was…” He pauses, bites his lip. “…a person who, uh. Became important to me. But before I could get…their…name, the caravan left.”

“Daa.” Hla-eix playfully bonks him on the head. “My parents were both women. You don’t have to play the pronoun game.”

He sighs, and she notices that some tension leaves his body. He closes his eyes. “Okay. So … Well, I decided to leave the stronghold to follow them, so I could talk to him again.”

“You didn’t mind leaving your kin behind to follow this Hlaalu mer?”

Daabush’s eyes shoot open. “That’s…Actually. It’s your turn. Why’d you leave Black Marsh?” 

“…Occupational reasons.”

“A trader? Adventurer? Mercenary?”

“…Sure.”

Daabush furrows his brows pointedly but doesn’t push it. “But you didn’t mind leaving your kin behind to follow your occupation.”

Hla-eix cocks an eyebrow. “So your elf crush was just a job to you?”

“That’s…!” He stiffens his posture and raises his voice. “That’s not what I mean and you know it. I was just … ugh.”

“I was forty-four when I left for the first time since arriving,” Hla-eix says. “To me, that’s nothing. But to orcs I’m sure that age is meaningful. What I’m saying is that it wasn’t easy to leave.” She wiggles and fiddles with her fingers idly. “I’m sure you can imagine … what it was like for me. To be among normal-looking argonians. To constantly have to prove yourself worthy. That you’re one of them. That you’re loyal to them, and not the dark elves.”

“…Yeah. I get it.”

She snaps out of her anxious spell and sits up straight, crossing her legs. “Tell me more about the Hlaalu boy.” 

Daabush gently runs his fingers along Hla-eix’s exposed and heavily scaled back. “…His name was Sevren. Member of the Dren family, he said.” Hla-eix raises a confused eyebrow. “As in, Vedam Dren.” She pulls back a corner of her mouth and shakes her head. “Was the Duke of Ebonheart. Whatever. Important guy.”

“…So what happened? Did you talk to him? Were you…involved?”

Daabush’s eyes close shut, then open again, but they were in a different place and time. “Yes. We were in love. He left his family to be with me.” He shakes his head back and forth slightly. “Not easy, two men, orc and elf, in Skyrim, you know. He was used to city life. But it wasn’t really an option. We joined a band of poachers in Eastmarch. They didn’t mind, long as we pulled our weight and didn’t get nobody caught. They were skeptical about Sev at first. But we managed. It was cold, but there was warmth there, with Sev, and the others. Like family.”

He shakes his head more forcibly to clear it and sits up, matching Hla-eix’s posture. “What about you? What’s your history with love like?” 

She looks away towards the window. “…I lied.”

“What?”

“I, uh. You’re my first.”

Daabush places a firm hand on her thigh. “…No. Doesn’t make sense. You’re too experienced. You’ve had others.”

She stands and walks towards the window. “No. When you’re like me, you have to pay them. And only if they’re desperate.” She opens it and leans into the biting cold.

Hla-eix doesn’t hear anything except for the heavy silence of Solitude late at night. It is a quiet hour, even the loud drunkards fled to bed. No early morning exercises clanging metal at the castle; no music wafting from the college; no weeping at the cemetery; no prayers at the temple. There is the faint whisper of winter wind, the delicate sound of snow shifting, the crisp crackling of street torches, and the cacophony of thoughts roaring in her head.

Then there is a massive warmth pressed against her back, wrapping around her. “Then I’m not your first,” Daabush says, slowly turning her to face him.

First she sees his chest, heavily scarred grey-green flesh built like a bear. Then she looks up into his eyes, this time without being forced by them. “You’re the first that mattered.”

He pulls her into a deep kiss, their first real kiss despite all their rutting, and his first in years. In his arms, she is warm despite the cold outside.

When they finally pull away from each other, he reaches over to close the window. Hla-eix buries her face in his chest, listening to his heavy heartbeat, entranced. But he hesitates, and distantly she registers the sound of a door slamming open downstairs. 

“Shit.”

note: this is technically the last chapter of “a window, open and closed.” i don’t know which chapter that is, though. just the last one. but i’m uh. i just wrote it so i’m kind of really feeling it and as a result i don’t have the sense to like, post it after the rest of awoac. so…here.

- - - - -

They had not spoken in years until Uuloril and daro’Zirr invited Hla-eix to a reunion of sorts. She was reluctant, but knew she had to go. They were her friends. She had saved the world with them.

She did not know it was because Daabush was dying. If she had, she would not have come.

Uuloril was the one who told her when she arrived at the estate. Daro’Zirr was pacing in front of the door, their tail twitching anxiously. Uuloril did not look much older than he had when Hla-eix had met him, his altmer blood sure to last him another century or two before he shows significant signs of aging. The only sign he was any older than he was that day in 4e201 was that the youthful innocence he’d had then had been drained from his face by the decades since. 

Daro’Zirr, on the other hand … their once bright red fur was paled with grey, their mane long but with half the hair length from the root stark white. Despite all the energy the khajiit had been known for, they seemed subdued, tired. Their pacing was accompanied by a limp suggesting poor hips, their eyes were dark and sullen, and their anxious claws shivered with frailty.

“…said maybe a few more days with this treatment, but that was a few days ago, so…Are you okay?”

Hla-eix was focusing on daro’Zirr’s condition too much that she forgot Uuloril was talking. “What?”

“You just seemed…you know, distracted, or -”

“Of course I’m not okay!” She grabs him by the collar as she realizes what he had asked, her voice quickly raising to a scream. “Are you? You would be. So goddamn detached and self-concerned. Just another fucking inconvenience, huh? Never mattered to you. You never gave a shit about him! You -”

She stops. He’s crying, tears shattering on his cheeks, smiling so sadly. “I loved him, too,” he says.

She lets go. Daro’Zirr steps in between the two of them. “What the hell is wrong with you?” they whisper harshly. “‘Detached and self-concerned?’ You’re the one who ran away. Daro’Zirr and Uuloril stayed with him. We stayed together. But you ran away!”

Hla-eix stares blankly. It’s worse up close. She can see the wrinkles under the fur, deep as canyons. And their voice is strained like a frayed rope. Not long now until -

“Of course,” they say, shaking their head and stepping back. “Not even listening to daro’Zirr. Fuck off.”

“He, uh,” started Uuloril, wiping the wetness from his eyes and under his nose, “wanted to see you. He asked for you.”

“Of course he did,” Hla-eix said, but the malice she tried to lace the words with just felt like lead on her tongue. She walked towards the door, but her attempt to push past Uuloril was so feeble he just stepped aside himself. She put her hand on the door handle. She could not turn it.

So she just stood there for a long moment. She tried to break free, and the only way she was able to was to breathe the words, “I can’t.”

Uuloril was right beside her. He put his hand over hers and slowly turned the knob for her.

He was lying in bed. A healer sat in a chair next to him. Hla-eix only looked at her.

“Scales,” he croaked. “You made it.” 

He was hit with a coughing fit. The healer’s hands reached over to his throat, glowing with golden restoration magic, and Hla-eix’s eyes couldn’t help but follow them to his face. 

She immediately covered her eyes with her hand, to avoid seeing him, and tried to play it off as rubbing her face. It probably looked more like wiping away tears. Once the coughing fit subsided, she looked again, this time at Uuloril, who sat on the other side of the bed from the healer, Daa’s weathered hand in his. Daro’Zirr leaned against the wall, their arms crossed, keeping a weary eye on Hla-eix.

“Hey,” Hla-eix says, her glance shooting between Uuloril, daro’Zirr, and the healer, trying not to look at Daabush. “Long time no see, I guess.” 

Uuloril looks to the healer. She nods solemnly. He looks down at his and Daa’s entwined hands, teardrops staining their skins. He nods back weakly. Hla-eix decides to look at the ceiling instead.

“Could you…leave us alone for a minute?” Uuloril asks. The healer nods gently and leaves the room.

“Come,” Daabush says, his voice so hoarse. (Hla-eix can look away, but she wishes she could listen away too.) “Sit by me. Please.” He waves towards the healer’s seat, now vacated.

She does, keeping her eyes as far from his shriveled body as she can. 

“I’m glad you came,” he says. His eyes are burning a hole into her head, and she tries, she tries so hard to ignore it, to resist. But she can’t help but finally look at him.

He’s so pale, like his wrinkled skin is so thin that she can see right through to the bone. His eyes are set so deep in his head, but their fire hasn’t ever gone out. His hair, once long and ebony-black, is patchy and ash-grey. His once massive muscles cling weakly to his skeleton. He reaches up towards her with a shaky hand. She hesitates before accepting it; its shriveled boniness fits cold and awkward in hers. He squeezes, but the reminder the gesture gives of the comfort these hands once gave her just makes it worse.

She can’t bring herself to look at his face too long, so she looks at their hands again. “What … Is it … How bad is it?”

Daabush swallows thickly and closes his eyes. “Any time now,” he says. “Potions stopped working a week ago. Spells stopped working yesterday.”

“Why did you bring me here? I told you. I didn’t want …”

“I wanted to see you. I missed you. We missed you. Even daro’Zirr.” He coughs again, but manages to force it down himself. “And I know you missed us.”

“No.” But the word wouldn’t have convinced even the healer outside. “I didn’t. You … I told you. You shouldn’t have … I could have stopped this. I told you I could. But -”

“But I don’t want that,” he says, opening his eyes again. “Just like Gus didn’t want it. I’m not afraid.”

“Bullshit.” She looks him in the eye. “Of course you are. Everyone’s afraid of dying.”

“But everybody dies.”

“You didn’t have to!” She lets go of his hand and looks away. “You could have stayed young and done so much more with your life. You could have - we could have done so much together.”

“I’m content with what I did with my life. It was enough.”

“No, it’s not. You could have done more. You could have done it with me.”

Daabush doesn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes half-focused on Hla-eix, the other half on something beyond. A memory? Or something else?

Then he swallows, and says, “You don’t look a day older than when I met you.”

“Of course I don’t. The Serpent keeps me. It could have kept you.”

“You haven’t aged,” he continues. “And you haven’t changed.”

Her eyes snap back onto his. “What?”

“You haven’t changed. Always so … afraid. Running away from everything. Pushing people away when they get too close. Afraid of change. Afraid of losing things, so you throw them away before you can lose them.”

The dam she was bracing her entire being against this whole time breaks. She keeps staring at him for as long as she can until the world becomes too murky, and his face is a vague blotch of light. Then she collapses on top of him, her body a thousand earthquakes, and her face a million tsunamis. 

“I’m sorry … just … please don’t go. Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave.” 

“It’s not your choice to make. It’s mine.” He places his cold gentle hand on the back of her head. “But I’m sorry.”

It is not the glorious death in battle that many orcs dream of and pray for. There is no great triumph, no heroic sacrifice. There is Uuloril, holding Daabush’s hand so tight, his golden face awash with tears and snot; there is daro’Zirr, kneeling beside him, their face in their claws; there is Hla-eix, body shaking, screaming into his chest. There is a family, damaged by time, but a family, together, nonetheless.

It is not the honorable death expected of a savior of the world. But it is a good death.

Daa,

Something’s come up. It’s Uuloril and daro’Zirr. He went missing first, and then they went to find him. Now they’re both gone. If you don’t hear from me in a week or two, your ass better come looking for me. And them too, I guess.

I don’t want to lose any more of us.

- Scales

With a note like that, she should have known better than to expect him to wait. 

Uuloril had been invited to meet someone; he had told daro’Zirr where he was going; Hla-eix followed daro’Zirr’s tracks, because the khajiit always traveled recklessly. But Hla-eix’s investigation left very little for Daabush to go on, the clues mostly destroyed or no longer useful, and Hla-eix knew how to move in secret, minimizing her trail.

Fortunately, on top of being among the last Dragonborns, Daabush was damn near the best tracker in all of Tamriel.

He followed her across Skyrim, never catching up, but the faint trail was fresh enough he knew she couldn’t be more than a day ahead of him. He knew he wouldn’t find her before she found their friends, but hopefully whatever happened, they could hold out one extra day for him to arrive.

After a week of chasing, Daabush entered the Dragontail Mountains, and thereby the nation Orsinium. He might have been excited to be here had the circumstances been different. At the border he was stopped by orcs in heavy orichalc armor.

“Halt, outsider,” said one, supposedly the leader, in Orcish. “State your business.” 

“None of your business,” replied Daabush. His Orcish was fairly rusty.

“You come here, you make it our business,” said one of the other guards.

“I can really make it your business if I have to. Move aside.”

“That a threat?” The guards drew their weapons in trained unison.

Daabush had not bothered to bring his bow for this quest. Whatever was stealing his friends from him demanded a more personal touch. He pulled a massive warhammer from his back, but did not bother entering a combat stance. “A promise.”

One of the younger guards stepped forward to attack, but his boss held him back, and said, “Wait. Is that…?”

“By Malacath,” exclaimed another. “It is. It’s…”

As every orc recognized the hammer and its gravity, they whispered in awe, “Volendrung.”

Daabush stepped forward until he was almost tusk-to-tusk with the captain. “Unless any of you want an express trip to meet the one who gave me this hammer,” he said, “you are going to take me to the city. Now.”

- - - - -

The capital city of Orsinium, Orsinium Major, was nested in a deep valley surrounded on all sides by a veritable wall of mountain faces. It was only accessible via a network of natural tunnels carved into the rock. The orc from the border patrol who led him there had to give Daabush to the guards who roamed those halls. They attempted to rebuff him as well, but his heavy badge as Malacath’s champion forced their hand.

When he emerged into Orsinium Major, he could not help himself this time to be a tiny bit awestruck. The entire city was built like a temple, perfectly arranged and carved from stone, every building from abode to smithy to palace a monolith to the strength and fortitude of the orcish people. Orcs, goblins, ogres, trolls, and even ogrim walked its streets like priests of Malacath (or Trinimac), and though Daabush had long ago distanced himself from his people, his chest was filled with pride to witness their works.

But then he remembered his purpose, and continued his investigation.

After asking around to no avail, Daabush resorted to more subtlety in his search. The approach proved fruitful, if only because the subtlety of his target was less than impressive. The facility was poorly hidden. If you looked hard enough, the entrance to the cave was visible from over the city’s walls. And Daabush had eyes like a hawk. All it took the old hunter was a bit of climbing to reach it.

The hole in the side of the mountain was watched by two orcs in even heavier armor, but brass rather than orichalc. (Daabush did not care to wonder why.) They were braver than the border patrol, and seemed unimpressed by the artifact Daabush wielded. But their bravery was misplaced. One had his chest caved in, and the other Shouted off the mountain.

The first chamber of the caverns was mostly empty, except for some brass machinery that Daabush couldn’t quite place. Were these thugs operating out of some dwarven ruins? It seemed irrelevant to him until one of the machines spoke.

It was some kind of perforated cone hung from the ceiling. It had a thin, metallic voice, speaking Cyrodiilic. “Ah, you’re here, Daabush gro-Dren. Come, your friends and I are waiting for you. But, if I may? Please do spare my researchers. They will not harm you. I cannot make the same promise for the soldiers, as they are sworn to defend our work. Make your way to us as you must. I eagerly awai-”

Daabush smashed the machine into a thousand brass pieces. He didn’t bother to see if it communicated both ways, because he couldn’t stand to hear any more of the transmitted monologuing. If they were to exchange words before Daabush tore him apart, they were going to do it face-to-face.

He did decide to oblige the speaker’s request to spare the civilians. But he relished destroying the armed orcs like they were skeevers. Deep into the mountain, with a trail of mangled corpses and weeping scientists behind him, Daabush kicked down the door to the lab.

Inside were four cages. Three of them held Uuloril, daro’Zirr, and Hla-eix, all chained and gagged, while the fourth and central chamber contained a small orc whose brief startlement became a wide smile when he saw Daabush.

“Wonderful! You made it.” He clasps his hands together. “My name is Ogash. I hope the soldiers didn’t give you much trouble? Ah, no, of course they didn’t. With friends like these,” gesturing vaguely at the caged Dragonborns, “of course you would be more than capable of taking care of them.”

“Let them go. And maybe I won’t paint Orsinium with your guts.”

Ogash frowns. “Oh, well, you see. I can’t quite do that yet. I do hope you don’t get too heated over it.”

“I can show you heated, alright. Let them go.”

“Show me that fire, then, little dragon. I’m dying to hear it!”

Hla-eix yells through her gag and fights against her restraints, but it’s too late. “Yol Toor Shul!”

Daabush’s shout never reaches the orc in the cage. Suddenly his eardrums are filled with ringing like a bell’s long echo, and he cannot move an inch.

“Excellent!” exclaims the small orc, opening his cage. “Give me one moment, please.”

Only Daabush’s eyes are mobile now, and he looks around the room. The walls and ceiling are covered with more of those metal cones, and they stare at him like laughing eyes. His captor moves over to a large machine and fiddles with it for a moment, pulling levers and flipping switches. It prints out something on a long scroll of paper, which he scrutinizes with a growing frown.

“Damn. Still useless to me…” He glances at Daabush’s frozen body with a slight smile. “You’d think the thu’um would be more interesting, and more scientifically important.” He crumples up the paper and tosses it behind him. “Oh well. I’ll release them then. You’ll find I haven’t harmed a hair on their head. Or tail. Or a scale on their skin? What a fascinating bunch, but not for my purposes.”

As promised, Ogash begins to open the cages, unlock the chains, and remove the gags, starting with Uuloril, who seems very shaken by the entire ordeal. Next is daro’Zirr, who tries to bite the orc as he ungags her, but can’t quite manage it. Last is Hla-eix, who says nothing and does not resist.

Once the three are freed, Ogash operates the machine again, relinquishing Daabush from the ringing and paralysis. Daro’Zirr catches him as it happens so he doesn’t fall over. Once back on his feet, he tries to swing at their captor, but stops his arc just before hitting Uuloril square in the face. “He’s letting us go,” the altmer says, his voice dripping with exhaustion. “Leave it be. No more bloodshed.”

Daabush stares into Uuloril’s eyes for a moment, then grunts and puts Volendrung away. Ogash smiles at Daabush, and he really wishes Uuloril would let him kill the orc anyway.

But then there is a flash of steel and a spray of warmth on Uuloril and Daabush. They stare at Hla-eix and her bloody blade and face as Ogash starts screaming.

“Oops,” she says. “I’m sorry. I think I slipped. So very sorry.”

“I don’t think she’s sorry,” Uuloril whispers to Daabush after stepping back to hide behind him. “Or that it was an accident.”

“You don’t say,” Daabush says, rolling his eyes.

Daabush bends over and picks up Ogash’s severed arm from the floor. “Here,” he says, holding it out to the wailing orc. “Let me give you a hand.” He hits Ogash so hard that the amputated limb breaks with several sickening snaps, and the orc is unconscious before he hits the ground. His body starts thrashing about, blood spewing everywhere, as the last Dragonborns leave Orsinium to go home.

———

“I need a new lab. New facilities.”

A smith is fitting Ogash for a prosthetic as a healer tends to his swollen face. Across from him, shrouded in darkness, is the King of Orsinium.

“You don’t say,” she says, her eyes scanning the reports in her hands.

“New guards, of course. More of them. And almost all of my assistants quit.”

“Both are replaceable.” She flips through a few pages. “You, however, are not. Even if you’ve given me nothing so far.”

Ogash frowns and says nothing. But then he suddenly straightens up in his seat, then squeaks in pain. The sudden movement caused the healer to accidentally press too hard on the bruised mound supposedly hiding an eye. He composes himself, and says, “I have an idea. But I need a more remote lab. And more funds.”

The King puts aside the reports and leans forward, the shadows peeling from her skin like a sunburn. “What’s this new idea that will dig even deeper into my coffers?”

Ogash runs through historical, geological, mathematical, metaphysical, and tonal data in his head. “There’s a few more things that need checking. But this could really work.” His mind races through dark tunnels, navigating their twists and turns, searching for something that could change everything. “I need some of your best and most loyal to accompany me into the deep tunnels. Very deep.” 

He swats away the smith and healer with his remaining left hand so that he can lean in towards the King and whisper, “If we find what - who - I think is down there, I can make your nation something truly great.”

The researchers were guided to the ruins by a Redoran they had hired, not only for his knowledge of the landscape, but also for protection from the wildlife of Vvardenfell. They were three rather scrawny individuals who had devoted their lives to academia rather than any practical pursuits: Ogash, who despite being an orc was short and frail; Caromascius, a portly imperial whose sagging arm betrayed his innocence with the sword they’d been given as protection (but the grip on his flask of Daggerfall wine betrayed anything but innocence); and Falion, their Aldmeri “friend,” which actually meant “supervisor,” whose mastery of magic was mostly limited to spells of convenience and comfort rather than defense. 

The Redoran’s name was Samhreth. Falion had immediately whispered to his two companions once out of the dunmer’s earshot, “What a horrid dunmeri name.” 

“I’ve heard worse,” said Caromascius, after a swift swig from his flask. “I’m just going to call him Sam. You know, like from Samuel. You elf fellas have ‘Samuel,’ right?”

“No,” Falion said, his voice dripping with the usual contempt, “us ‘elf fellows’ do not use such a hideous half-mer name.” He paused for a moment, then conceded, “But it is preferable to ‘Sanhereth,’ or whatever the savage called himself.”

Ogash did not need bother wonder what Falion and Caromascius thought of his own orcish name. Falion had remarked upon it as soon as they were introduced. Caromascius had feigned sympathy for Ogash, but laughed at Falion’s comment regardless, saying with a pat on the orc’s back, “He’s not wrong, you know.”

Ogash did not know, but had learned long ago to not bother arguing the point.

- - - - -

They had almost arrived at the tunnel entrance supposedly leading to the ancient dwemeri citadel Kherakah. According to the first era maps, it was once located here, in the shadow of Red Mountain, but in the years since the eruption of 1E668 it could not be found. But it was Ogash who suggested that the more recent eruptions of Red Mountain may have revealed a network of old flow tubes in the volcanic stone that could lead to the fabled city. He supported these claims with evidence from recent geological surveys as well as explorations of the subterranean networks by returning dunmer exiled by the Red Year, and took them to the Board of the Imperial Historical Society. It had taken some convincing, supported by his colleague Caromascius, as well as his own slowly developing powers of persuasion, but the Board eventually granted his request to send an exploratory mission to the site.

On one condition: Ogash and Caromascius will be the ones to go, overseen by one of the Society’s Dominion watchdogs.

On the trip from the mainland to Vvardenfell, Caromascius whispered to Ogash between heaving over the side of the ship, that the Board likely thought it a suicide mission. “They’re probably just tired of us - you - asking for all this dwarf nonsense. They expect us to find nothing and die while we’re here.”

“But why send Falion with us?” Ogash tried to look away from Caromascius, himself fairly seasick. “They must have some faith in us, to send us with a Dominion agent.” 

“They probably expect me to die, too,” groaned the altmer from behind them. “I think they want to replace me, anyway. They refuse to admit my value.” He pushed Caromascius out of the way and leaned over the edge of the ship himself. Ogash sat down with his back against the railing and shut his eyes tightly, trying to drown out the commotion of the ship and its crew, as well as the anxiety - and eager anticipation - that grew as they drew closer to Red Mountain on the horizon.

- - - - -

“Here,” growls Samhreth in his ash-choked voice, typical of the dunmer of the island. He points his three charges towards a slightly sunken part of a nearby ashmound. “Wizard. Blow away the ash.”

Falion, obviously miffed at being bossed around, steps forward to cast a spell. He stiffly recites some incantation and gestures with his hand, directing the wind to pick up the intrusive ash and uncover the hole beneath. It works, but then the wind returns to its natural direction, throwing all the ash on Samhreth, Ogash, and Caromascius. Samhreth merely covers his eyes with his forearm, not unfamiliar with ashstorms. Ogash and Caromascius, on the other hand, both had their mouths open, panting from the long journey uphill through the uneven footing of the ashlands. They both set to hacking and coughing. Falion turns back and for a moment almost looks like he might apologize. But he simply says to everyone, “There.”

Once the orc and imperial have mostly evacuated the ash from their throats, they step forward to appraise the unearthed opening. “Looks tight,” Caromascius remarks. He glances down at his rotundity. “I don’t think I could make it.”

“I refuse to crawl through a dirty hole in the ground,” Falion says, covering his face with his ornate Summerset silk scarf.

“Fine,” Samhreth says. He turns to Ogash. “Orc. You will fit. I will lead the way through the tunnels, and you follow.” He reaches into his pack to retrieve something. “Altmer. Human. Come.”

Falion and Caromascius approach Samhreth. “Hold out your hands,” he says, something hidden in his palms. The two comply, but yank back their hands after Samhreth quickly pricks their fingers. 

“‘Talos, Sam!” cries Caromascius. “What in Oblivion was that for?”

Falion casts Caromascius a scathing look. The imperial realizes his mistake and shrugs, smiling meekly. “A joke, of course, I was caught off guard is all.” But Falion has already forgotten in favor of sucking on his bleeding finger.

Samhreth slaps Falion’s hand from his face. “Stop. Need that.” He produces a stack of sixteen scrolls. “This is why I charge so much. Telvanni charge a fortune for these.”

Falion squints his eyes to divine what the daedric on the scrolls implies. But Ogash has already figured it out. “Mark and Recall?” Samhreth nods.

Falion’s face contorts in shock again. “Those magics are outlawed, by the Levitation Act -”

“- by the Mage’s Guild,” Ogash interrupts, “over two hundred years ago. They’re not around to enforce it anymore.”

The Redoran has already begun to stamp scrolls with blood, taking drops from himself and Ogash as well. “There,” Samhreth says after he’s done distributing them appropriately. “We use the first Mark now.” The three oblige, Falion begrudgingly so. 

To Caromascius and Falion, the dunmer continues, “Use the second - not the first - Recall after about ten minutes, once we get inside and use your second Marks. The scroll won’t work at all if we haven’t used the Mark yet, so just try again a few minutes later.” Samhreth gets down to begin crawling inside the tunnel. “We’ll use the first Recall to leave when you are all done. Understood?” The three nod, and Ogash matches Samhreth’s movement, ready to follow him. “Good. See you on the other side.”

- - - - -

The tunnel is dark, but the two manage it well enough, most mer having eyes that adjust well to darkness. Yet another reason Caromascius likely could not have followed, even if he could have fit in the hole to begin with.

After what Ogash feels must have been hours, but knew was only a few minutes, of scraping his knees and elbows on the rough porous rocks that line these veins of the mountain, he sees a faint light peeking from in front of Samhreth, growing as they continue forward. Finally they climb out of a wall into an ancient room.

It is dimly lit by the strange tubes of light the dwemer used for illumination. The walls are carved from stone, banded with brass braces decorated with what Ogash recognized as the dwemeris script. The room hums with the strange steam power of the dwarves, singing from the pipes and machines that litter the room. Not all seem to be functioning, and some pipes look burst, but whatever system they see seems to have been cleverly designed with redundancies and failsafes, keeping parts of the mechanism running even despite these flaws.

As soon as they plant their feet on the plate metal floor, both Ogash and Samhreth set to coughing from the dust kicked up. 

“Worse than the” - cough - “Three-damned” - cough - “ash,” Samhreth says.

Once they compose themselves, Ogash responds, “This dust hasn’t been disturbed in thousands of years - likely not since the dwemer vanished.” He slowly approaches and places a hand on some thrumming floor-to-ceiling machine, before jerking his head back towards Samhreth. “That means there’s no automatons here.”

“That’s a relief,” the dunmer responds, having just finished using Farion and Caromascius’s other Marks and stepping away. “Tell the truth, not sure I could have protected you from a centurion or spider.” He gestures at his sword. “Useless on a metal beast, you know.”

Before Ogash could properly express his dissatisfaction with the comment, Caromascius appeared in the room with a pop. He immediately empties his stomach on the floor.

“Oh, for the love of …” Ogash looks away from the mess but gestures vaguely at Caromascius. “All over everything?”

Caromascius pants as he wipes his mouth. “Wait until it’s your turn. You’ll do the same. Damn teleportation.”

“Wait, where’s Falion?”

“Oh, haha. The idiot.” Caromascius takes a big glug from his flask. “Used the wrong Recall. Just teleported a few feet away.”

“Stupid n’wah. Good thing he didn’t use the other one, then,” Samhreth says. “Would’ve been stuck down here.”

Caromascius comes up for air from another pull of wine and tugs at his shirt. “Just me, Sam, or is it real hot in here?”

“We’re pretty deep in the volcano, Caro,” Ogash says.

“Yeah, I guess.” He wipes some sweat from his forehead. “Well, let’s get this over with. Lead the way, Oggy.”

- - - - - 

After about an hour of exploring, they enter the next room in their exploration, but by the time Ogash reaches up to cover his eyes, it was too late. “Shit.” One of those tubes of dim yellow light was flickering fast and rhythmically, casting the room into darkness and then light over and over again every second. He could feel it in his head, sucking the weight from his bones and placing it all behind his eyes. Even in the darkness behind his eyelids the world spins like a top.

He knows it’s too late, but he tries to run away from it and this damn room anyway. 

“Ogg! Where you going?” Caromascius calls after him.

“Gotta … go,” Ogash says, but his lips feel so soft he’s sure nobody heard him.

He’s out of the room now, so he opens his eyes. But the darkness lingers a moment before evaporating too slowly to the edges of his vision, not quite going completely away. The open-eyed blackness scares him and he screams. He hears the footsteps behind him, the Redoran and Caromascius, he supposes. 

It’s coming and he’s running through this ancient maze of pipes and machines but there’s nothing he can do, and he is afraid. He tries to hold his eyes open as wide as he can, but the darkness is closing in and not stopping. He trips on something he can’t see, and on his way down he catches a glimpse of something coming alive in the corner. But then his head hits the floor with a thunk and he is gone.

- - - - -

He opens his eyes and he sees a corpse.

He stares, unknowing, for a moment. But then he becomes Someone again, and he recoils from the sight. It is Samhreth, covered in blood, his sword in his hand, useless in the end.

He sits up and backs away from the body. Every muscle in his body screams to him but he is too shocked to listen. His chest rises and falls erratically, and a forbidden thought reminds him that breathing is a luxury not afforded to all, and he wishes he didn’t have it.

He squeezes his eyes shut and clutches his head. He feels warm wetness and pulls his hand down to peek. It is shiny with blood, blood like Samhreth’s, but his own. He gently probes his own head and finds the wound near the back. His eyes accidentally catch the small patch of blood on the metal floor near where he woke, and he begins to remember.

Ogash’s body groans with pain, and forces his throat to do the same. But the moan becomes a whimper as his eyes catch a glimpse of Samhreth again. Suddenly he can barely see again and almost panics before realizing it is not the blackness - it is tears. 

Then he hears the clacking of metal on metal in a six-footed gait and covers his mouth, smearing blood on his face. The tears roll down his cheeks and mingle with the blood as he tries so hard to still his breathing, even his heartbeat. The bloodstained brass spider strolls through the room, neatly stepping over Samhreth’s corpse, and moving on without noticing Ogash.

When he feels safe, he finally inhales a broken sob. He weeps for a moment, his entire body shaking, before the ache suffusing his bones brings him back to his mind. 

Why didn’t it kill me earlier, when it killed Samhreth? he thinks. The only answer he can come up with is that it didn’t see a need to kill such a frail thing convulsing on the floor.

It was the best answer he could come up with, so his mind shifted to the task at hand. I need to get out of here. He forces himself to crawl over to Samhreth and search for the Recall scrolls. He tries to not look at the killing wounds, but he sees them anyway and nearly loses his fortitude again. 

He finds the scrolls, but they are soaked in blood. Unusable. Useless, just like that sword. 

He didn’t fancy his odds trying to find his way back through the tunnels by himself. Without the scroll, he was trapped here, with that murderous mechanical spider. He collapses over top of the dead dunmer, sobbing.

Then he remembers: Caromascius. Where is he?

Ogash pushes himself away from Samhreth and tries to stand. He almost falls over in his first attempt, but manages to rise to his feet, despite his sore, shaky legs. He starts to shamble towards the door opposite where the spider went, which he recognizes now as the way he came in during his mad dash to escape his seizure. Caromascius has to be that way. Maybe he made it out.

(Ogash wanted to believe that was possible, but he knew it couldn’t be.)

He slowly makes his way from chamber to chamber, clutching his throbbing head, and wanting to clutch his entire body to make the extensive pain go away. On the bright side, his head has finally finished clearing up. On the dark side, he stops dead in his tracks when he sees Caromascius.

He is lying there, his head propped up against the wall, his hands clamped over his stomach. Ogash thinks he is dead, but as he approaches Caromascius opens his eyes. “Ogash,” he sputters, “you’re … alive. How? Where is …” He goes into a coughing fit. Ogash kneels down next to his friend. “The elf?”

Ogash tries to speak but his throat is tight and dry, his tongue fluttering in vain. Instead he just shakes his head at Caromascius.

“I … told you. Suicide … mission.” He smiles faintly, but blood drips from his lips and sets him to coughing again. 

Ogash shuts his eyes for a moment. He massages his throat as he tries to speak. “Pack?” he rasps.

“What?” Caromascius manages to get the word out before continuing to cough. He answers by shifting his eyes to his left. Ogash looks in that direction and spots it, unbloodied, sitting next to the sword Caromascius had brought with them. He crawls towards it and rummages through it. All the notes and recovered dwemer documents are here, right where they should be. 

Caromascius says, “We didn’t bring any … potions. Remember?”

Ogash looks back to Caromascius. “Yes. I know.” He stands, his weakened body buckling under the weight of the bag. In one hand he grasps a scroll. In the other, the sword.

“Oggy?” Caromascius says, his eyes closed. “The scrolls. Falion could … maybe heal us.”

Ogash stands over Caromascius. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You couldn’t have made it.”

The imperial opens his eyes and only sees the sword as it slides into his throat. His hands reach up, grasping for air, letting blood from his stomach gush up. He convulses for a minute before falling still, his eyes empty.

- - - - -

Ogash returns to the surface with a pop, his knees and stomach giving out, the latter emptying into the ash. Whether it was because of the seizure, a reaction to the gore he had seen, or simply from teleporting, he did not know, or think important to know.

“Ogash! Ogash?” It occurred to Ogash, once he finished, that Falion must have been speaking to him the entire time. “What happened? You’re covered in blood! Where’s Caromascius and the dunmer?”

“Dead,” Ogash says after wiping his mouth. “Automaton killed them. I barely got out with my life.”

“By Auri-el’s beard …” Falion tentatively reaches out to Ogash to help him up, but Ogash waves him off. 

“Just. Give me a minute.” He tries to erase the sight of Samhreth’s body and all of Caromascius’ blood from his mind, but he can’t make it go away.

Eventually Ogash lets Falion carry the pack as they make their way in the direction of the closest settlement. Falion even has the decency to not ask too many prying questions about what happened under the mountain.

Ogash knows he will have to explain everything to the Board once they get back to the Imperial City. But he will have time to come up with the story while they travel home. 

The sailing from Vvardenfell to the mainland is so quiet. Despite himself, Ogash appreciates it.

chapter 1

cw: implied nsfw, nothing explicit

note: the fluctuation between past and present tense is intentional. it might not work out as well as i hope, but i’m experimenting.

- - - - -

Daabush was captivated at the sight of her. She sat, naked, a few feet from an open window, illuminated by moonlight. The patches of scales all across her body caught the glow and showered the rented room in faint glints, shifting ever so slightly as she breathed. The orc had never seen anything quite like it - or anyone quite like her.

A stiff breeze of cold Skyrim air clambered up over the edge of the bed, pulling Daabush out of his reverie, and his sheets up to cover more of his own naked body. 

“Aren’t you cold with that damn window open?”

Hla-eix didn’t avert her gaze from the night outside. “No.” 

Daabush grunted. She could be so damn frustrating sometimes. One minute she’d be playful, flirty, passionate. Then she’d do…this. His lips asked the question just as his brain did: “Why do we do this?”

She glanced towards him, her head tilting ever so slightly, before returning her outward stare. “I don’t know. Why do we?”

“Don’t dodge the question,” Daabush said, sitting up in bed. “I’m serious. Why? You come off so strong when we first meet, and then by this time at night, like clockwork, you act like this. It’s like … oh, by Malacath. I get it.”

“Tell me what you get.” Hla-eix swiveled in her seat, planting her chin in her hand. “I’m very interested to hear it. Dying to know, really.”

“You’re just a goddamn fetishist, aren’t you? Of course you would be.”

“You’re the one who’s been sleeping with a deformed argonian,” she shoots back. Then she bites her lip, hard, and turned away.

Daabush had never really asked what her deal was. She looked mostly like a dark elf, really, but with places where grey skin was replaced with dark scales, and a strange quality to her eyes. He had thought it curious, but best not to ask. 

“Hey,” he said, rising out of bed. Every step towards her reminded his skin of the blasted cold. “I didn’t mean to …” He didn’t finish his sentence, and instead just reached out to her scaled shoulder.

She brushed him off harshly. “Don’t touch me.”

He reaches out again. She brushes him off again, but softly. “I said don’t fucking touch me,” she says, quieter. “Please.”

Daabush obliged. Instead he walked around her and sat underneath the window. It was frigid as Coldharbour but - “Can we please at least talk?”

“About what?” Hla-eix avoided looking at him.

“About … this. About why you do this. Why we do this.”

“What is there to say?” She scoffed. “We both have needs and we satisfy them together.”

“But then you get so distant. So cold. Like the only thing in the room with me is that damn open window.”

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“You wouldn’t. I’m just … a freak. You wouldn’t get it.”

“Maybe I’m a freak too. You don’t know me.” He stares so fiercely at her that she can’t help but match it. “I want to know you.”

She made a noise in her throat, like she was swallowing something hard. Then she stood up from her chair, closed the window, and sat on the edge of the bed. Daabush slowly stood himself and sat beside her. 

They sit in silence for a moment, Hla-eix not sure what to say, and Daabush not wanting to push her. Finally, she blurts out, “I hate doing this. What we do. It makes me feel so … disgusting.” Daabush starts to object again, feeling like he might’ve been right about his earlier theory, but Hla-eix interrupts him. “It’s not because of you. It’s … these bodies. Yours, mine, anyone’s. But mine especially. It’s … disgusting. Horrid. Maybe suited for the work I do. But not suited for … what we do, you and I.”

He lets the words rest for a moment, trying his best to temper his impulsivity, before responding. “I mean … I think it’s pretty damn well suited. Disgusting is about the last word I’d use. I’m no bard, but I could throw a few other words at you instead. Like sexy, or -”

“Please just stop right there. Not helpful.”

Daabush closed his mouth mid-sentence and clasped his hands together. “Okay. Sure.”

Hla-eix shakes her head and covers her face with her hands. “I hate it. But it feels like I can’t help it. Like there’s something driving me to do it, like I’m an animal, and as soon as I come to my senses I realize how repulsive it is - I am - and I just … I make promises to myself that I’ll never do it again, I’ll never stoop that low, I’ll never debase myself like that, not ever again … but in a few hours it comes back, that sick hunger for more. I feel like a slave to it. It won’t go away. And it just hurts me.” She pulls her face from her hands and looks at Daabush, her eyes close to overflowing. “And others.”

“Hey,” he says, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close, this time to no resistance. “Don’t worry about me. It doesn’t hurt me, doing what we do.”

“Not helpful,” she whispers. 

“Yeah, sorry.” He gently rubs her arm. “Just worried about you, is all. Hurting yourself. It hurts to watch you like that.”

“Why?” She looks up at him. “You barely know me. I’m just the weird-looking elf you meet up with for sex.”

“You’re right, I guess. I do barely know you.” He kisses her forehead, a much gentler kiss than their usual snogging. “But maybe I want to get to know you.”

Hla-eix shakes her head. “That’s a lot. You don’t want to know. There’s so much about me.” But then she smiles and sits up straight, letting Daabush’s hand fall to rest on her lower back. “If you really got to know me, I’d have to find somebody else to fuck. And it’s not so often a woman finds a nice boy like you to treat her right.”

“‘Nice boy?’” Daabush smiles back, his hand sinking lower. “I’m not some novice teenager or something.”

“To me, you might as well be.” She places a hand on his chest and leans her face into his, their lips breaths apart. “First thing you get to learn about me: I’m actually over two hundred years old.” Her hand slowly trails down his body. “Let me show you what two centuries of experience feels like. And then we can talk more.” She cuts out the breaths from between their lips, and the two fall back into bed.

(chapter 2)