Letters to Mother from the late 2nd Era, numerous and unsent
[cw: discussion of implied religious trauma / loss of faith, difficult mother-daughter relationships, brief mention of physical parental violence]
Attempt 1:
Dear.
Dear Ma.
Dear Mother.
Mother Dearest.
Dear. Darling Dearest Dear Fuck. It it doesn’t sound written right enough, I mean…. I just… I don’t know, I don’t fucking know, it’s why I’m writing this isn’t it, scrawling through the scrambled mess of my head until I can make sense of dead ends.
fuck.
Ma. Fuck it. Ma.
It’s Kasmei. Kas. Your daughter. Don’t burn this letter.
Ma, I’m lost. I’m so so lost.
I think
[THE PAGE IS CRUMPLED, TOSSED AWAY]
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Attempt 2:
This isn’t the first letter I’ve tried to write. I’ve been lost before, I’ve been lost worse than this, you just never knew. I don’t even know why I’m wasting words on this draft that I’ll toss away, I don’t know why I’m telling you that I told you, I told you before – I squeezed out every last drop of misery into ink and bled across the page and folded all my mess up nice and neat and I put it in an envelope, wrote the address in print, and then I burnt it all up, I burnt straight to a crisp. And I’m going to burn this one too, because I’m a big damn hypocrite, because you were never gonna read this anyway, aren’t you Ma?
We’ve not spoken in a hundred and seventeen years, you and I. Why trust a courier?
I don’t know why. It’s all abstract, at this point, our family, lines on a page, genealogy, legalese, a footnote in the will that was wavered, you were not gonna speak to me again, you were not going to speak to Amsei again, you spoke to none of us. A tomb we didn’t belong to. That’s not family. Maybe that’s what the dunmer call family, some of those with the fancy names and houses that aren’t homes but it’s not family to me. Where’s uncle’s riverside stories of hist-songs, Ma? Where’s all our cousins bringing coconut and chillies and fresh picked herbs gathered around the bubbling stewpot for festival days, Ma? I know I don’t know everything, you don’t have to clock me around the ears again, telling me that again – but I know it’s not family without that.
But you wouldn’t listen to me annyway, would you? I know you were never proud of me – and I know you’d never be proud of me and her
[TEAR IN THE PAGE, VIOLENT]
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Attempt 3:
Okay. Starting again. Calmly.
Ma,
It’s Kasmei.
Don’t burn this letter. For real this time. Please.
I’m not messing about, Ma. I’ve really fucked it this time. I’m not messing.
And the worst thing is that it doesn’t feel so awful.
I think I’ve fallen for something
And I think that means something really bad, you know, really really bad, like they say about that madness of the twisted kind, it’s not that you start seeing things lurk in the bits of shade but when the things you see… they don’t seem so bad, really.
Because if it’s right, then. Then. What?
Years before all… this, happened, before, well… not too far back. But. The Clockwork Apostles, you know? They…. They uh, actually asked me to join them. I’m pretty handy, you know? Turns out, enough to impress some gear-heads. Hey, not totally useless, after all!
Okay, yeah – I never told you then, and we were still writing letters – scant letters, in cold hands, but ours nonetheless... but I knew… I know you’d nod but you wouldn’t smile, you’d approve but you wouldn’t, you have this sad resignation, this sailed-away sigh, when the tide’s gone in and brought nothing but a sunset. I know he’s never been your favourite, I know you like your gods big and colourful and plenty, and he’s... not those things, really.
And it didn’t feel so awful, you know. Working there. Being industrious and productive and a model citizen in the most janky and off-beat way you could just about think of. It’s how I knew staying with those damned shiny-armed twinkle-eyed wrench-wielding apostles of his was the right thing to do – and it’s why I didn’t, even though he had decided I was worth something – I lied, by the way, the apostles couldn’t give a skeev’s arse about me, but him? Asked for me specifically. Fuck knows why – and I turned away. I turned away because it didn’t feel wrong – because if it doesn’t feel wrong, it means they’ve got me for real – and not even he can stop Them.
I still don’t believe in the Three and I’m not sorry.
I think I’m too used to fireworks. They used to call me the fireworks, you know, back out on the field – bring in the fireworks – and that was me, your hymn and your prayer, your explosive quality. Your battle winner. Your trump card.
(burns-through-the-ash, a walking firework, a living weapon, a knife’s edge, sharp and wicked)
I think a firework fucked me up in the head
[BURNED AWAY]
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Attempt 4:
I’ll tell you, Ma. I’ll tell you what I did. I threw away an honest living to be a toy a toy soldier a soldier and when I was broken enough to be slit in the throat I crawled my way back to the land of the living to become a hired blade again, and you think, you honestly think, that I could ever kneel before those same three gods like nothing had ever happened? I don’t get it. I don’t get why’d you’d want light to be a person and want life to have a voice. People are fucked up, Ma. I don’t want people, I don’t want gods with flaws and shadows and violence that’s anything less arbitrary. I signed away my vessel to the shadows themselves, to the real secret keepers, to [CROSSED OUT ILLEGIBLE STAIN SCARRED THROUGH THE TABLE CUTTING THROUGH YOUR KNEE GRAZED ABRASIVE AND STILL RIPPING] because at least with them I know where I stand. I’m part of their game, messed as it is, sick and bloody, and that was fine with me, Ma. Because I wanted to belong, Ma. I wanted to have a place so badly. And for the longest time, I thought a sheath was where I belonged, best. I know you didn’t like it would you ever approve of anything me or Amsei did? and we did have that big old row and I said it a hundred times and I’m going to say it again now: I was always faithful, I was always loyal. In my own way. Maybe you can’t see it Ma, but I’ve always served Morrowind. Even when Morrowind never wanted none of me.
I don’t think I’ve ever been a good person
And I didn’t question it. Or just – maybe I didn’t want to question it – not aloud – maybe there’d be questions bubbling up in the chalkboard nail thoughts at the back of my brain that would itch their way out, that sort of questioning, but I’d known better, you’d taught me better. You bottle it. You bottle it right up.
I kept almost everything in a bottle. Until I met her, that is.
I did something worse than willingly giving my soul to [THE PAGE BEGINS TO TEAR UP AND EAT ITSELF AGAIN AND AGAIN AND]
[AND]
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Attempt 5:
Ma, I’m lost. Ma, I’m so lost. Ma, I don’t know. I I met someone. It’s a special someone. It’s–
[THE PAGE WITHERS AWAY]
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Attempt 6:
I met a woman. Okay? I met a woman, and it changed everything.
That’s dumb. That’s crazy right? That doesn’t happen. It’s not supposed to work like this and I don’t hate it I don’t
And it’s just like the lid has come off and the bottle is uncapped and I’m everywhere. And I’m nowhere. And I’m all in a jumble, still trying to sort myself out, make a sense from all those tangles, and perhaps I am going mad, you know? But it doesn’t seem to matter.
Because she’s there.
And because she’s there, I feel free.
I’ve never felt free with a person around me before. I always thought people were prisons. Maybe we’re our own prisons, until we meet someone who’s a key. I think she’s the key to everything.
She’s my key.
That’s dumb. That’s dumb to say. And I think – no, I know, you… wouldn’t get on, I think. But I think if you gave her a chance – you wouldn’t hate her.
[CRUMPLED, TOSSED ASIDE, AGAIN]
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Attempt 7:
Ma, I don’t know how to tell you this. I don’t know where to begin. I think all of it roots a long way back and that’s why I keep telling you stuff I’ve told you before like it still all hurts the same, draws from the earth, a sore bruise, still.
I could tell you details. The fact that she’s with me at all – the fact that the Tong don’t know – that the [CROSSED OUT, UNINTELLIGIBLE] themselves, doesn’t know – I could do worse than die for once, if they found her with me. That her existence breaks some ancient pact about Tribunal Secrecy.
It doesn’t seem to matter as much.
I don’t think you’ll forgive me this time.
[A SIMPLE TEAR]
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Attempt 8:
Okay. So. Let me explain the rationale. I don’t believe like you do. It’s not like I never have – it’s just when I saw them face-to-face, I didn’t know how to make sense of never questioning, never doubting, never straying from something so much like a person.
And she. She. She’s all questions, see. She questions everything. It’s not like she doesn’t believe – she believes, deeper and stronger than I ever could – but it’s grounded in a different perspective. It’s like the questions are the answer.
It’s like it’s pushing forward, not back.
What does it matter, where we’re from? It’s where we’re going, right? Where are we doing?
She’s not like me. And I’d never fit in, not with her folk.
But right now, right here, in this mess of a world, she doesn’t know where she’s going anymore – about as much as me, really. We can stumble together through the dark though.
I want to stumble together through the dark with her until I have something to hold onto.
Maybe it’s her. But I don’t think it can’t be her. Can it?
I’m still not used to asking that kind of question.
[HELD CLOSE TO THE HEART, BEFORE IT IS TURNED TO ASH]
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Attempt 9:
Ma,
I met someone to be lost in a labyrinth with. Her name is Bthemetz.
Yeah. I’m not going to post this letter.
Kasmei.
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