#firienposting

"It is," she said quizzically. "How did you know?"

"I'm more surprised that you know," said Vilkas. "When you self-impose a competition with no one to read as many historical tomes as possible in your youth, you pick up on a few things. What is the significance of the Guardian, eh? Light reading or...?"

"Not the Guardian," said Firien, almost fearfully as she held her hands out for the book. Vilkas returned it to her curiously and she hugged it to her chest. "The Traitor."

"Concerning, but I am definitely curious about your thought process here," he said with a weak smile. "Come, let us sit for a while and talk about this."

Firien shook her head. "No. I... I must tell Farkas about this first."

"Tell Farkas about what?" he asked, his frown returning. 

"Miraak." As always, his name felt like a curse upon her tongue, foreboding and ill-induced, like it was a shameful confession. And it was, in a way.

"Miraak?" Vilkas raised his eyebrows. "Is that...?"

"The... Traitor." Her hands tightened on the book reflexively as she spoke. "I knew him."

"What? How? The story of Vahlok is from the Merethic Era. If he truly is this... Traitor that Vahlok fought and vanquished, Miraak has been dead for thousands of years."

"Not dead," Firien murmured. "Trapped. In Apocrypha."

"But—"

"Vilkas, please," she said firmly. "You must let me have this discussion with Farkas first. I need him to know first."

"Very well," said Vilkas, his expression perturbed. "But I must ask you something, as his brother. You guard your secrets well and always have, but this feels like more than that. If you did know Miraak, however that may be... did you love him?"

She knew this was what he would ask, especially once he mentioned his place as Farkas' brother. Still, it was not the first time she had been asked this, and her answer remained unchanged.

"No," she said bluntly. Vilkas visibly relaxed. "I will tell you what little I told Farkas, and leave it at that until I am able to tell him everything. He was the First Dragonborn, and Vahlok the Jailor defeated him when he tried to incite rebellion against the dragons, but Hermaeus Mora claimed Miraak as his own, and he was trapped in Apocrypha ever since. Miraak... believed he loved me, but the feeling was not mutual. The only emotion I bore toward him was a very significant kinmanship and... obligation, I suppose. He was what I could have become, what I still can become. I wanted to help him in ways I likely cannot even help myself. And I failed him. Miraak is dead."

"Oh. I... I'm sorry to hear it."

"No need," she replied, tone flat. "I have accepted my failure and the consequences of it. It is a repeated cycle."

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded. He sounded unusually offended.

"You know what I mean," said Firien, frowning. "Elerien, Kodlak, Miraak, and now Tahir. A repeated cycle."

"Firien, you cannot—"

Firien quelled his argument with a glare before turning her back to him. "We will talk about this later. Good night, Vilkas."

She ignored his protests as she entered the luxurious room she undeservingly shared with Farkas. She leaned against the door for a moment, listening to see if Vilkas would try to enter after her. Fortunately, he only muttered something indistinguishable under his breath before leaving, his muffled footsteps on the plush running rug quickly fading away as he left the corridor.

After waiting a few more moments, she slowly crossed the room, setting the book down on the table as she went, and sought her pack from where it had been left against the wardrobe. She knelt before it, hands trembling, and stared at it blankly for an immeasurable amount of time, her mind somehow simultaneously empty and a maelstrom all at once. Finally, she moved against her own will, first opening her pack and then sifting through it, searching for the hard, polished unknown material. It took all of seconds for her fingertips to brush against the face of the mask, sinking into the grooves and the crack from where that stupid, useless axe struck.

Firien inhaled deeply before she pulled Miraak's mask from her pack.

It looked the same, as cold and bleak as it had been the last time she saw it. The empty eye holes stared back at her with as much emotion as she currently felt. She traced along the sinister, horn-like crown of it, wondering what it was made from. It did not feel like wood, nor did it quite feel like metal either, though it had rang as such when the blade of the axe collided with it. 

"Destruction is in our nature."