#hazil

I came home to something very different after our last voyage. Not even Casethar waiting for me on the sea wall, and when I came home

when I came home

it was so quiet. Our little house. Sunshine filled the garden, autumn, late afternoon, sun on the bench which Sham helped Ethysil build so Hazil could sit outside. Cold inside, except for the sick room, which we never could keep as cool as Hazil wanted it.

That's where they were. In the sick room.  Casethar dragged me through the door and dropped me down beside the bed so I could see him and he could see me and everything went cold and grey, then hot and... a curious shade of orange, and then

He wasn't dead, but he was dying. I think he said my name. His lips were so dry it was hard to tell, but I kissed them anyway and held his hand and promised him I wouldn't leave and

Which brings me to what we knew was going to happen, really, from the moment we met him.

What do I say? What am I supposed to say?

I'll write it down, I said, but every time I think I'm ready to talk about it my hands start to shake and the ink goes everywhere and the parchment ends up too damp to write on. I can't light this damned hackle-lo without getting ash all over the desk. I want to go back. I want him back. I want to write him back into existence and I can't, I fucking can't.

The week after it happened is all in bits. I remember lying there holding his hand for hours (it was cold. It was so cold). I remember looking up and finding he was gone, because I'd fallen asleep and Casethar moved me into our bedroom. I remember staring at a bookcase when R'khan arrived to offer his condolences, but I don't remember saying anything. I remember my hands being too numb to fasten my sash on the morning of the funeral. I remember Casethar's hug hurting as he pushed his jaw against my head, pulled the bones of my shoulders into his chest. I remember a lot of hot soreness in my eyes, my chest, everywhere. I don't remember drinking but there are a lot of empty bottles around here and my head hurts so I think that happened too.

After all these fragmented images appeared and faded I was at the funeral. It was a nice evening. Warm air, purple sky. Dartwings in the firelight. The sort of evening we would have walked up the hill together. Ethysil said a few words and then so did everybody else. I had the violin, the painted one R'khan gave me on my wedding day, the one which sounded so beautiful it would have brought Lord Seht to tears, and I think they expected me to play it. I threw it on the pyre instead because how the fuck was I supposed to play in that situation? How do I ever play again?

And then I came back to a place which didn't feel like home any more, locked myself in here and picked up the quill. Now I know what it's like to lift a feather and find your energy drained. I know how he felt.

I can't go to sea again. I'm not sure I can go outside again, so my history of the Scamps ends here. I wish them well, whatever they find on the horizon, and thank them for all we did together.

I can't write any more, Hazil. I'm sorry.

.

.

.

Epilogue

'How is he?'

'Bad.'

'Can I talk to him? I think I can help.'

'You can try, but he won't listen. He doesn't want to hear any of it.'

'He might want to hear this.'

Vilayn stabbed at the parchment with the quill, blotting the page and upsetting the vase of stoneflower stalks. Before the water splashed onto the manuscript he swept it aside, letting every word fall to the floor, and picked up a new sheet to write on. His hand jerked angrily across the page.

fucking priests and their fucking bloody thrice damned words oh I'm sorry how awful how sad let me know if there's anything I can do think about all the good things he's safe now he's with the gods now isn't that lovely isn't that so fucking nice for them fuck that make them give him back he isn't theirs he's ours I want him back I want him back I want him back why can't any of them fucking do anything

There was a knock on the door. The nib of the quill ripped through the paper and scratched the desk below.

'Vilayn? It's Ethysil. I really want to talk to you. May I come in?'

'Fuck off.'

---

"I'm going to look up what ingredients Hazil's medicines would be made from!" Ctrl + F "restore fatigue"

>Bread ...all righty then. Technical ingredients, these. >Crab Meat Crab sandwiches it is. >Hackle-Lo Leaf Followed by a quick smoke. >Large/Small Kwama Egg "All food", basically. >Saltrice To taste. >Scrib jerky >Scuttle

Right, that didn't work. Let's try "fortify strength" instead. >Ash Yam (secondary) There is going to be at least one healer Hazil visited who just told him to eat a proper meal. >Daedra Skin That's more like it! >Dreugh Wax Yay! >Vampire Dust (secondary) Hurrah!

http://morrowind.inventivegamer.com/tools/potion-maker/ Dreugh Wax, Saltrice, Daedra Skin and Hackle-Lo fortify strength and restore fatigue, but have a chance of paralysing the patient if made incorrectly. Dreugh Wax and Saltrice alone

Bread, saltrice and hackle-lo  restore fatigue only, but would be edible. Dreugh Wax and Bear Pelts fortify strength.

"What the shit is that?!?!" "It's wax smeared across a bear. Eat up! :D"

Dreugh Wax, Scuttle, Ash Yams and Scrib Jerky makes fortify strength/restore fatigue/fortify fatigue. So musty, fishy wax. Mmm.

When people ask Hazil why he's so bitter about taking his medication, he points out that its primary ingredient is wax, it tastes of fish and it doesn't work.

"Oh, wax isn't that bad!" “Do you know what dreugh wax is? Have you read 2920? In the words of Lord Sotha Sil, dreugh vomit.”

Vilayn leaned against the doorframe, remarkably pale for somebody who had recently sailed through the waters of Hammerfell and Elsweyr.

'What did you say he was called?'

'Jilos. Sounded Dunmery to me.'

'Did they mention his House?'

'Nope.'

Luca watched curiously as Vilayn glanced over his shoulder, towards the closed sick room door, but whatever was on his mind he chose not to share it with her. When he turned back his face was carefully blank and his voice, equally carefully, business-like.

'What about the Order of the Eclipse? Did the Guild learn anything about them?'

'That they's a bunch of evil bastards?'

'I'd gathered that already.'

'I tried. Real hard, it was. I only did it 'cause of it being fer Mistress Willa an' all.'

'Thank you, Luca. Run along.'

Luca did not run along, and even went so far as to follow Vilayn inside, until he relented and flicked a coin in her direction. Only when the gold was safely lodged in the mysterious inner recesses of her shirt did she turn tail and amble off to wherever it was she whiled away her time without shipboard duties to occupy herself. Pitying the poor soul she intended to torment next, Vilayn took the box upstairs, into the bedroom, and pushed aside the curtain hiding a rickety table in the back corner.

The first few journals revealed very little, other than the discomforts of travelling from Morrowind to Valenwood and the author's particular dislike of teleportation spells, which seemed apt to land him twenty miles from his intended destination in the middle of a den belonging to the more vicious specimens of local fauna. Ostensibly he undertook his journey in pursuit of the Order of the Eclipse, acting on orders from the Fighters' Guild, but it became apparent, as Vilayn read on, that Jilos was less interested in his Guild contract than he was in discovering a miracle cure for his growing illness.

Some days are worse than others. I could barely lift my sword our second day in Arenthia; I told the steward it was ataxia and he gave me some vile Bosmer concoction which did nothing. Perhaps, if the rumours about the Order are true, this spring they've found might help.

Towards the end of the journals, entries became increasingly sporadic, with a gap of a whole month following a rumour that the Order had been sighted. Vilayn ran a finger between the pages, but there were no rough edges which might indicate something torn out. Whatever happened in that silence, Jilos had been either unable or unwilling to write it down, and only resumed his account after the discovery of the spring. There were no further mentions of the Order.

I believe it is safe to sample the water. With no children of my own and the healing properties of the spring on my side, I believe I might finally remove this evil from the blood of House Vasar.

The thump as the book fell to the floor woke Hazil. Vilayn heard his voice calling from downstairs, asking what he was doing up there, but rather than hurry down he retrieved the book and turned the page with hands that shook so badly they almost ripped the paper. The next few entries detailed Jilos's delight as the water took effect, a delight not even his apparent failure to fulfil the contract could stain, and his triumphant return home.

Vilayn turned to the final entry. This time it wasn't the book which fell to the floor but his own body, folding slowly at the knees, sinking back against the bed without feeling it digging into his back, as he reread the page.

Llaraniah told me her child was taken ill while I was away. She thought perhaps it was ataxia, but it has been going on for the past two months and the healers can do nothing. I drank from the spring two months ago to the day.

It is my fault. I should tell her that I brought this upon her child. Peryite may not be a Reclamation, nor even of the House of Troubles, but His reach is far and insidious and House Vasar has been riddled with His pestilence for generations. She doesn't know and ought to be warned that it cannot be removed, and to try brings Peryite's wrath down tenfold upon the next generation. There is nothing to be done.

I thought perhaps I was recovering, but even that proved false; I merely delayed the onset. My sword-arm grows weaker again. I write this page in the hope that before the curse takes me, I will have the courage to show it to Llaraniah, let her read of my shame, all the while knowing that I will not. The guilt is too much. I have doomed her son to buy myself a few more years, and now I cannot even bring myself to confess what I have done.