#howtodisappearcompletely

Are we the Bal Molagmer, then? Is that why we climb? Nameless, faceless heroes, braving the mountain of fire, and stealing burning stones? I never did find out what those were for. Perhaps we can use them to rebuild our burned bridges. Burning bridges, building paths, climbing mountains, escaping pits. So many clichés. But they're not supposed to accurately represent the chaos, they're maps out of it. Prophecies are just stories with happy endings, and you can write your own as you go. Leave them behind, so that others might find their way. They'll never know if it was true, and it won't matter. We go different, and in thunder. Each to the beat of our own doom-drum. I'm going to break his heart. That's not a metaphor. According to Vivec, there is no bone that cannot be broken, except for the heart bone. Proving that for all his poetry, he was not immune to sentimental clichés. Of course, with Vivec, the danger is always that it might not be a metaphor. God has no need of theory and he is armoured head to toe in terror. I'm scared, too. But unlike Vehk, I am shielded by my mortality, and I cannot be trapped in the cracked crystal of my (im)perfections forever. Shift ye in your skin, I say to the Trinimac-eaters. Pitch your voices into the colour of bruise. This whole island, ruined and reborn. Surviving the fire, again and again. All of us, finding new ways to survive... and then surviving those. Surviving the forms we had to take, to stay alive in the places we found ourselves, learning to breathe ashes, drink poison, eat shit. We can do this, because whatever survives, grows. And whatever happens next, something will survive of me, because I exist now. I have already existed, and this cannot be undone, short of deeper magic than I'll ever know. Survive, if not intact, then by parts. My blood will join the ash and feed the mushrooms. My bones... my bones will be quiet, unthreatening. My soul is energy, in which all lost possibilities are regained. For now... we are Nerevarine. Failed, false, fallen Incarnates. You are Nerevar, my love, as I am Nerevar, as all of us breathing air and ash and magic are Nerevar, because he died and we live, and we are all the Changed Ones. All Trinimac, all Malacath, bruise-tinted, shit-stained heroes. Stealing whatever godhood we can. Wearing our curses as badges of honour, because fuck you, Azura, that's why. We have no ancestors guiding us. We banished them all, again and again, though they wait beyond the door, always returning. Sometimes because they love us, but love alone is not enough. But then, love is never alone. It is born of, and parent to, so many ugly and beautiful things. Things to grow, to nurture, and be nurtured by. Things to build. A city of swords, to cut ourselves into better shapes. A city of gods and monsters, to be razed and restored, brick by brick. A home, secret and safe as any pocket dimension, which is to say, never as safe as you hope, but... sometimes doors need opening from the outside. I move, and I pulse at the heart of a web of threads... no, a net... no... a bloodline. A lacing network of living support, easily grazed at the edges, but more healing and resilient then I could ever imagine. It's not a thing I can leave behind, because it isn't there, isn't outside. I'll carry it with me. I grew it myself. I'm taking it all. Taking all my blood and ash, all my ghosts and bones. To find what lies beyond my burning, in the pathless, unstoned places between is and is-not-yet. What was and what could be. To plant something new... no... to help something different grow. Not an ocean, wild and unpredictable, sinking all who incur its disapproval. Not a garden, clipped into a false, symmetrical notion of beauty, weeds pulled up by the roots. Something in between, blurring the boundary, like a swamp. If my mother is earth and my father is water, then I am neither and both, a new experiment, my own substance and solution. Soft and yielding... but sometimes, when people think swampland is solid, they drown themselves, trying to step on it. The stone that recalls it is really water... what if it knew how to be both? It's no deception. Unless it is. Say no elegies. Welcoming the living, the dead and the in-between, all who need to rest somewhere with no need to choose between sinking and swimming. A place to be vague, for a while, indistinct. Cocooned, liquid and lingering in the grey maybe of creation, to see what solidifies. Of healing and metamorphosis. Of absorbing toxins, and nourishing sprouts. Tangled and illegible. Hard to translate, because its definitions keep shifting. A ward to its enemies, but part of its charm, to its devotees. Who know that love demands no dissection, no labels. I still hope you might choose to be there. I think you'd understand, too. I don't think ashland is so different from swampland. The Velothi say that on certain days, all the hidden seeds of a certain plant will all bloom at once, and flash the whole land one colour in a brief, day-long frenzy of purple or gold. I'd love to see it. But I already know the Ashlands will teem with flowers, if you're there. I have to go back, because I've changed and it hasn't. I can see the invisible, now. I can see in the dark. I can see through walls, see the pale-fringed lichen on the other side. I can see gently, obliquely. Out of the corner of my eye, for some vanish under the weight of too much visibility. I can see, and be seen, according to my will. I can slip into the molten margins, where touching another soul is possible, and extend a hand. My other will always be yours. I look at you across the fire. And you aren't my true-love, that isn't a thing. But I love you, and we dragged each other through the hardest year of our lives. And whoever I love next, and whoever I am loved by... it was you that taught me how. So until the next change comes... until the ash takes and remakes us, until we are eaten again... look back at me, through the air and ash. See me here, in this moment, alive and whole, safe from all possible harm. If we fall, and they find us, my hand will be in yours, and they'll know who we were. He drew a long, clear breath that lifted and filled him like the sail of a boat. His heart rising with the wind, Iriel moved forwards. end. thank you for reading. previous: 199: keening beginning: 1: numb

He hadn't intended to have this conversation now, had meant to wait until everything was over. Perhaps, by then, he'd know what to say. Or he'd be dead, which would, in many ways, be easier. Now he'd let it spill clumsily over his lips anyway, and perhaps some of the terror had gone with it, because he felt eerily calm. "How long?" Julan asked. "How long've you been planning this, without telling me?" "I wasn't planning anything," Iriel said softly. "I've known it was in my head for some time, but... I thought it would go away. I assumed... that it was only my treacherous brain, trying to make me sabotage everything, as usual. I hoped... that was all it was." "But," said Julan, voice flat, "it's not." Iriel pressed his lips together, and shook his head, slow and deliberate. "Were you even gonna tell me?" That old, paranoid hitch in his breath. "Or was I just gonna wake up, one morning, and find you gone?" "No!" The first word was a reflex, torn from his throat. The rest took longer to organise. "I told you," he said at last, brow knotted with the effort of clarifying his meaning, each word precisely enunciated and spaced. "I want you to come with me. That's why I'm asking you to come with me, because you need to know. How much I want it. It's just that... I already know your answer, and I understand why." Ire held his lover's gaze. He felt the grief, a hard lump in his throat, but he kept it there, and didn't let it rise. Julan looked back at him, jaw equally tensed. "I thought about not asking," Ire continued, slowly paying out his confession like a chain. "Or saying that I didn't want you to come. Staying is so obviously the best thing for you, that I thought I'd spare you the guilt of turning me down. But... surely you know I could never leave without a word, leave you wondering why? You deserve to know how desperately I want you to come with me. You need to know that, when you make the choice we both know you'll make." Julan seemed about to get up and range around the room, but at the last moment, he changed his mind. He focused the energy into his stare, instead. "Why are you so sure you know what I'll choose?" Ire folded his hands carefully in his lap. "Because you need to be needed," he said. "And they need you more than I do." Incomprehension spasmed in Julan's face. "The Ahemmusa... they don't really need me, not... not me! They need hunters, warriors. Maybe a few of them want me as a symbol, a reminder of my father. Minabibi even thinks Sinnammu's planning to put me forward for khan someday, but not because I'd be good at it! Because she thinks she could control me! It's all just... politics. Not one of them cares about me the way you do." "Only because they don't know you the way I do. They'll love you, if you let them. Don't you dare go thinking I'm the only one who ever will." "You underestimate the Ahemmusa if you think one person is the difference between survival and destruction. They're stronger than that." "Still stronger with you, than without. Anyway, it isn't just that, and you know it. They're your people, they always have been. You need them, and they need you." "And you don't." The last syllable fell dead from his tongue: not a question. Ire raised his chin, held the lump where it was. "No. I love you and want you beyond anyone, and I'll miss you... past all metaphor, because nothing comes close, but... I'll survive. I'll be safe, like I promised." "Cutting away all the things you don't need any more..." Ire made a noise of frustration, calm aura dissolving. "Sweetheart, how many times must I say that I want you to come with me? Do you think that if people don't need you, there's no reason they'd keep you around? It's the opposite! It's because I don't need you to survive any more that I can see clearly just how much I love and want you! How full my life can be, when I move past mere survival." He exhaled sharply, ran his hands through his lengthening hair. "I used to hate needing people. I thought independence was the same as freedom. I know, now, that isn't true. But I refuse to invent a dependency that isn't there, simply to manipulate you into a decision you'd regret later." His voice pitched upwards, tight-strung. "I'm trying to make this easier on you. I'm sorry, I know how much you hate that." Julan's head slumped between his elbows, chin on the desk. He made a choking noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "I wish I could be selfish, and hide here with you forever," Ire continued. "But you see... it's not just about me. There are things I need to do. Which is your fault. Yours, and everyone else who made me believe I could do them, and who gave me the tools to try." "And you can't do it in Vvardenfell, whatever it is, you have to do it in Summerset?" "Yes, because my country... my whole people... are a system. And so long as I remain here, I'm still within that system, and I'm doing what it expects of me. It's no true opposition at all." "That makes no sense." "Summerset has neat categories, for rebels, and people who don't fit. You're made an Ouster, or an exile, and either way, you become invisible. As long as I stay within that narrative, they're getting what they want from me, and I can't bear that." "You're going back out of spite?!" "Gods, you make it sound so petty. I want to change things. Not everything, perhaps, but something. Make things better, if only for a few. Not as a warrior, not even one like my ma, but... quietly. Softly. Like Muriel or Helende, Jobasha or Uupse Fyr. Or even Kaye, but... if you want to heal suffering, it helps to understand it, and there are certain types of suffering I know a lot about. Perhaps I can use that knowledge. Make it worth something, finally." Settling his hands, he laced them on the table before him. "There must be other people, falling through the cracks, and someone ought to be there to catch them. Or to fish them out of wherever they land." "Fishing, huh?" Fighting its way through the other emotions on Julan's face was the edge of a smile. "Well... he is good with nets. And... someone has to go and rescue him, don't they? Assuming he even made it to Morrowind, who knows what might happen to him, all alone? He's a bit of a delicate flower, my pa, to be honest. Not that we'll go back to Lillandril, at least not yet. I have no interest in seeing my ma, though if she does hunts us down, I think I could handle her, now. But... there are plenty of places we might try. After all, I promised Tilde I'd find her somewhere safe." "Sottilde's going with you?!" "She wants a new start, somewhere as far away from the Camonna Tong as possible. Remember last time we saw her, on that awful silt strider that swayed so much she kept threatening to name the baby after it, if she had to give birth inside a bug's arse?" "...Still dunno about Thorax for a boy, but Antenna’s kind of pretty..." "After we got to Vivec, I told her to go and wait for my pa, in Ebonheart. I didn't have a plan, then, only that they should take care of each other, if I didn't come back from Red Mountain. Now, I... think I might have an idea. And it involves me going with them." He made a dubious face, wrinkling his nose. "I won't lie to her, it's going to be difficult. Scandalous, probably, though I hope I won't have to actually marry her to save her honour. I mean, in Summerset, that would only exchange one scandal for another. Marrying a Nord, the depravity! Far worse than marrying a man - think of the bloodline! Of course, I also have no legal existence there. Which... might even help, actually. I might be able to... work the system a little." "You do have this all planned out, then." "Oh gods. Not remotely. I only hope Tilde can handle a sail better than you. I'm sure she can handle my pa, I have no concerns there. Charm him in seconds, probably, no spell required. In fact..." Iriel broke off, chewing his nail, eyes darting around the room. "What?" "I do hope he's put on weight since I last saw him, I just had the most appalling thought." "Sounds like you've had enough thoughts," Julan said, jamming a stick into the gears of Ire's churning computations. "Since you're so certain you know my choice already." Iriel reached for his hand across the table, careful not to touch the crystal blade lying between them. "I know that you spent your whole life trying to be part of something bigger than yourself, and now you can. I know that you're a young, green thing, growing into any scrape of dirt that will hold your hungry, scrabbling roots. And I would love to let you cling to me like lichen as I run before the wind, but that would be selfish, because you aren't lichen, my love, and you can't thrive that way. You need deeper soil to grow into the tree that you are." Julan frowned, gripping Ire's hand with a belligerent strength. "And you need to stop telling me off about metaphors, then saying stuff like this! More importantly, stop telling me what I need! It's complicated. You're not wrong about some of it. But... you're not the only one who's learned things about survival. Roots... soil... they're not always where you think they are. I know what clan really means, now. Why'd you think I wanted to be marked for you, first? But... still... gods. I don't know. If I left, and something happened..." "Something will always happen, wherever you are, love. It's not up to you." "I know, but... I'd..." "Rather be wrong about staying. I know." Ire was losing control, now, but held onto a smile long enough to say: "Will you at least come and see us off? I'd like you to meet my pa. You could even change your mind at the last minute, and take a flying leap off the docks. That would be very romantic." "Or you could change your mind, and come back to me. No matter how long, I'd still want to see you. To know that you're happy." "I will be. You have to be, too. Happy fucking endings, right?" His voice broke against the fifth word, and the last was muffled in Julan's chest, who had rounded the table to hold him. He wouldn't let go, but in time, Julan said, "I haven't decided, so don't start thinking different. But... suppose I did stay... you'd take care of Tilde for me, right? And let her take care of you?" "Of course." "And would you do one other thing for me?" "What?" "Have the tribe perform the bone-rites for you." "The...?" Julan's arms were clamped around him, his lips at Ire's ear. "The ghostline. Bind your soul into our ghostline. You always said you didn't want to go to Aetherius with a load of Altmer, when you die. So come back and be with me instead." Ire was paralysed by surprise. "Julan, I... I don't believe in that. Even after everything, I still don't believe that my soul, or whatever energy survives, after my death would be me, in any real sense. Anyway... don't you need my bones?" "Well... I still, um..." Releasing Ire, he fumbled in his shirt pocket, and dug something out. Ire stared at the off-white fragment in his palm. "Oh gods. Is that...?" "Yeah. D'you want it back?" "What? No!" Iriel sat back, his lips moving silently as he tried to think. "But surely the rites would never work across such a great distance. Teleportation wouldn't." "It's not the same. It's not about working out numbers of arcane whatever. There's a reason only the Ghostfence could stop it. It's about faith." "You know I've never been good at that." "Then let me do this, if it doesn't matter anyway." "It does matter." He laughed shakily. "I mean, what if it worked? You really want a weird vassith Altmer soul in your family ghostline? Where I'll have to meet your wife and children... oh gods and your mother... and make polite conversation about... oh, hello, yes, I'm just someone your father used to... to..." A tear fell, then, and Julan gathered him back into his arms. "Souls don't work that way, Iya. I don't know much, but I know it won't be like that." "I know, I'm just...  I... all right. I don't think it will work, but... yes. If we live, I'll do it." "And if you meet someone new, and you change your mind, and want to go wherever he's going instead... then... I get it, but... you have to come back to Vvardenfell. To tell me, and to undo the rites, and you have to bring him with you, so I can meet him and see if he's worthy of you." Ire felt him shrug. "Or let him take bone-rites, too. I'm not as jealous as I used to be." next: 200: heart previous: 198: sunder beginning: 1: numb

He adjusted his mouth-filter, but there was no stopping it. The ash was outside and inside, filling every space and coating every surface with a red that was bloody yet barren, dull with decay, a wound past all healing. Filling him up with rusty greyness, the null remainder of things long since burned and lost. Who are we? What am I? The ashes of all the possibilities I set fire to along the way. And whether we fall or rise, the ash takes us all back, eventually. Nothing endures. Nothing can burn forev-- Shut the fuck up, Ire! Stop thinking! Walk! All you have to do is walk! Three days. Two on the lower slopes, where camping was still barely possible. One in the blightstorm, where any shelter would have to be wrenched from the mountain itself, and so far, the mountain hadn't given an inch. All they could do was keep going. Wind in his ears, a ceaseless, hollow roar that blocked out everything but the old, brittle monologue, creeping out of the cellar on its spindly legs again. I can't remember the stones. How can I, when there are no paths, everything shifting, reburying me endlessly. Only the ash drinks our tears, and ash has no memory. Ash has my memory, ashes of memories. Ash is eaten fire. We have been eaten and burned... no, burned and eaten. I was burned, so I burned things. Many things, far too many. Sweat ran down his back, beneath his protective layers. The Armigers had shown them how to sew frost-charms into their cloaks, but the heat was still relentless. The air coming through his filter smelled of charred corpses and tasted of dread. Nothing behind me, and nothing ahead. Past ash, future ash, what exists between, what pins me placeless, hauls me helpless? An illusion. Nothing. No rudder, because no ship. There is no room for it. I am trapped between past and future in the no-space of the present which is absent, imaginary, noth-- Something caught his foot, and he stumbled into blind space, landing in ash that yielded so numbly, he thought himself still in mid-air. He floundered, lost. There was only the ash, he was adrift and alone. Panic crushed his chest in an airless fist. nothingthereisnothingnothingnothing--SHUT UP!!! He choked a word out into the red: "Where--?" A voice, closer than he'd expected. "Hold on, I see you." "Where are you?" "Here." "Are you still there?" "I'm here." "I thought you were gone." "No." A darker shape in the air. Fingers on his arm, a brush that slipped into a firm grip. "Can you see me?" "I've got you." "Look at me. Please, I'm..." "I see you." "Don't look away!" "I see you." A hand around his wrist, hauling him on through tear-muddied, gore-red fog. He followed, forcing his legs through knee-deep ash-drifts that clung, heavy as swampland, but dead, dead, dead. The red-veined clouds belched open, and burning stones began to fall, tiny glinting shards and sparking embers, the largest as big as his fist. Julan raised his shield and dragged him faster. "This way! I see something!" Harder uphill. Lungs burning, muscles burning, the air acrid with smoke. Missiles clattered on the shield above him in harsh, staccato bursts. Some struck his shoulders and arms, lighter than he feared. Charcoal, perhaps, or pumice. The ash evened out, and he saw pipes buried in it, felt firmer ground beneath him. "There's a tower!" Julan yelled, and Ire squinted upwards past the shield, rubbing his goggles clean with his sleeve. Great shapes loomed over him, colossal metal cylinders studded with rivets and augmented by massive geometric structures, ranging from the conceivably functional to the aesthetically perverse. Statues, even. A brass-bearded Dwemer king hung bent, skewed horizontal in midair, dead-eyed and creaking in the wind. It was awe-inspiring. So much so, that he didn't notice an ember had caught his scarf until Julan shouted, and by then, his cloak was on fire. He should have thrown himself down and rolled. Instead, blindsided by flaming panic, he clawed wildly at his face and neck, breaking the clasp of his cloak as he ripped it off, screaming as his blue silk scarf fell apart in his hands, and the wind snatched the last shreds into darkness. In that moment, he felt his soul disintegrating with it. He came a little undone. When Julan finally got Iriel into the shelter of the brass-panelled porch that cupped the tower's round entrance, Ire was shaking and coughing, hyperventilating ash. He was no longer burning, but his head and neck were bare, and he'd torn the front of his shirt down to the waist. "A short season of towers," he was reciting, eyes glassy. "A rundown absolution, and what is this, what is this, but fire under your eyelid?!" "What?" Julan tried to hold Ire's head still long enough to check it for injury. "Your eye? It looks fine, where d--?" "The fire is mine! Let it consume thee!" "Aagh! Stop that!" As Julan hissed and worried at him, Iriel looked down at his bared chest and began to laugh. "Look!" he gasped. "I've given my honour to the rav'nous flame! I've burned everything now, everything!" His voice was rising again, breaking into shrill, jagged ribbons of sound. Julan tried to quiet him, but Ire's laughter only grew more uneven, weighted with sobs. "My blood, my family, my beauty and wisdom! Who did I burn it for? What did I ever get for it? Was it all a false exchange, a trick? A test of devotion? To what? What?!" "It wasn't anything, you're just babbling. Shhh..." "Even... even my sorrow, the thing I though I'd never lose, the tears I thought would never stop... it all burns away, in the end! Everything, everything... I've burned all my bridges, burned all my ghosts..." "Shhh, Iya. You're safe, nothing's burning." "I cursed the stars! Of course I'm doomed to lose everything, of course I’d never win my true love! My pa'd tell me I had it coming!" Julan wrapped his arms around Ire's head. "Shhh. It wasn't your fault." He pulled him near, held him still. "Shhh..." Drained and red-eyed, Iriel watched the blightstorm rage through a crack in their small, metal shelter. Julan had found a fallen panel in the ash and propped its corrugated bulk across the porch entrance. Only swirling darkness showed through the narrow gap, but Ire stared at it anyway, transfixed. "It feels like there's nothing else left in the world," he whispered. "As if everything has already burned and crumbled away." At his back, he felt Julan's ribcage expand in a slow breath. "Not yet." "There'll be no going back, after we walk off this edge. Nothing will be the same." A shrug. "That's the whole point." Despite the hoarseness of his throat, Ire began to sing, weak and breathy: "The dawn broke hard upon the ash, my hands were barren and blistered..." "But," Julan interrupted gently, "the dawn broke." His hand was on Ire's arm, and he squeezed it. "You can't really burn things like that, you know. Weren't you the one who hated trite metaphors?" He gave Ire a soft but meaningful nudge. "Your pa wants to see you." Iriel sighed. "I just... can't picture... anything. How can you ever know what to keep and what to cast into the fire? What will warm you, and what burn you to the bone, if you let it get close to you ever again?" Julan said nothing, only held Ire tighter against him, and reached out to improve the seal on their makeshift door. "Even if we live... what will be left, after all this is over? When we sift through the ashes?" A still pause, before Julan said: "Love?" Ire couldn't quite laugh, but he got as far as a watery smile. "As if it were a gemstone, formed once, in times of great heat and intense pressure, then perfect forever after? They give crystals as wedding gifts, back home, you know. To represent permanence and purity. Such guarshit; love is nothing like that. It's a living thing. You have to care for it or it dies. And even then, nothing mortal lasts forever. Time eats love, desire, everything. But... the fact you would say that is part of why I love you." "You make it all so complicated." Julan stifled a yawn. "You sure it counts, saying you love me, now? Seems to me, brushes with flaming death should be like orgasm, under your rules. You need to be a certain distance away, before saying you love someone means anything." Ire settled back against Julan's chest. "I have a new rule. It's called shut the fuck up and let people love you." A little later, Julan felt movement, and glanced down. Iriel had turned away from the storm and was fumbling with the straps of his cuirass. Julan chuckled. "You getting that sexy imminent doom thing again?" "No. I don't think that works, when it's real. But I need to be closer to you. I need to feel your heartbeat, instead of that other one, out there." Julan co-operated with the straps, and shrugged out of his armour. It was glass, found on an unfortunate Armiger's body, their second day on the mountain. It had taken some argument, but Ire had eventually convinced him that the greatest respect they could pay the fallen warrior was to wear his armour on their journey. Iriel was trying to press himself against Julan with all his limbs at once, but had too many of them to really succeed. "I guess you're right about imminent doom not being all that sexy," Julan muttered, after a few minutes of this, "but you squirming around half naked between my legs certainly is." Ire sat bolt upright. "Wait!" he said. "Yes! Right! I've changed my mind! Fuck me!" "Uhh... You're sure that's really a good--" "Yes! I'm full of nothing but morbid nonsense, and I need to get it screwed out of me." Julan rubbed his eyes and stretched, bracing his back against the curving brass wall. "Iya... no offence, but... when has that ever worked, before?" "Previous failure is no reason to stop repeating an experiment," mumbled Iriel, but the energy had already left his voice, and he stopped interfering with Julan's belt. "I'm sorry," he sighed, head sinking forwards. "It's just... lately, every time I touch you, I start thinking... what if this is the last time? What if this is our last chance?" "Look, how about you stop trying to make sure our last time is the worst one ever, and focus on how we make sure it's not the last?" Julan was pulling blankets from his pack. "Like by keeping your strength up, and getting some rest." Iriel offered no resistance, cushioning the metal beneath him as best he could, and curling foetal. Settling himself alongside, Julan wrapped an arm around Ire's shoulders and pressed his mouth to his ear. "Harileth, ka harilethar zunni, Iyabibi." "Hmm? I love and... will love... something else?" Ire shifted in Julan's embrace to pout at him. "It's not fair to say sweet things, if I can't understand!" "How d'you know they're sweet? I could be insulting you." "You didn't mention guar, so..." "It's just a way to say goodnight," Julan said. "To children, usually," he added, a touch sheepishly. "I used to hear it in the camp. It means: I love you, and I'll love you tomorrow." Ire's mouth twitched. "Tomorrow..." "As many as we get. And I intend to fight for them. I know... it's not about us. That succeeding is more important than whether we survive it. But... this isn't a suicide mission. I'm going to fight with everything I've got. You have to, as well. Don't burn out on me yet, Iya. Think about what you want, afterwards. Hold onto it." Ire managed a laugh, this time. "There you go again with the storybook hero talk, it's adorable." Dodging Julan's nose, he nuzzled close. "Harileth," he whispered, between kisses. "Harilem. Either. Both. All the forms. All possible tenses. Yesterday and tomorrow, and now... and now... and now..." next: 198: sunder previous: 196: dawn beginning: 1: numb

Once, the discovery of so many Dwemer texts would have sent Ire into paroxysms of academic glee. Now, his first reaction was exhaustion at the mere thought of coercing his soap-bubble attention-span through so much information. Next came muted sorrow that he'd never succeed, quickly subverted by guilty relief he didn't have to try. At least it took the pressure off. At random, he pulled out an ancient volume, and opened it across the rusted iron desk. Dwemeris script, angular and precise. "Can you read it?" Julan asked. His voice echoed strangely among the brass pipes and valves, backed by the dim vibrato of restless machinery, deeper in the ruin. Suppressing a smile at Julan's optimism, Ire shook his head. "Not any more. But it's in the same handwriting as the others, and the blueprints on the wall. Diagrams and formulas... these are the notes of someone recording their experiments. Over a very long time, judging by the number of volumes." "Kagrenac?" "I think so." "What was he doing?" "I have no idea. I'd have to take them to Baladas." "You used to have lots of ideas." Julan scrutinised him, as if he thought furrowing his brows hard enough might let him see into Iriel's brain. "You've really forgotten everything you learned about the Dwemer? You're sure it's not just... locked up in your head, somewhere, waiting to be found again?" "What does it matter? I should still take the books to Baladas. I was being selfish, before, trying to hoard my discoveries, when I knew he was the expert. What's important is that this knowledge is used to make the world a better place." Julan's eyes flickered to the far end of the table, where a brass hammer lay, perfect in its symmetry. Deceptively small. "I'm not sure it's that kind of knowledge," he said. Iriel shrugged. "It's just a tool. To build or break. Both are sometimes necessary." "You sound so... Altmer." Julan, sitting on an iron keg, folded his arms on the table and narrowed his eyes at the hammer. Holding it, he claimed, made him feel huge and leaden, like a Steam Centurion. For all that it was impossibly heavy for its size, it was very difficult to put down. "Nothing I said was especially Altmeri," Iriel tutted, turning another page. "You only think that because you dislike what I said, and you want to assign the reason to something simple and unalterable, such as race, so you can dismiss my point without considering it." Julan huffed and rolled his eyes, as Ire continued: "If anything, my words were more akin to something Sotha Sil might say. It was his idea to use the tools to tap the divinity of the Heart, you know." "Yeah, well. That'll be why I don't like it, then." Julan slumped lower, suspicion churning uneasily in every movement: arms, shoulders, jaw. "And I still don't trust Vivec." "You don't have to. You heard the announcement in Ghostgate - we're free agents, now. The Nerevarine, whoever that may be, is no longer persecuted, but a champion of the Tribunal, authorised to act in their stead." "And I don't get why he needs a champion, when he has an entire Temple army. Besides, even a weakened god has to be stronger than the two of us. He's up to something, but what? If he really doesn't expect us to return the tools to him... and he gave us Wraithguard... then what?" Julan’s nails drummed a hollow rhythm against the table. "Those dreams at Ghostgate... you don't think he wants us to use the tools on the Heart ourselves, do you?" "And become gods?" Ire snorted, sending a wave of dust from the brittle parchment. "No. He was warning us, teaching us. Showing us how to fail, so that we might not." He smoothed the ancient pages with a careful hand. "Baladas was wrong about something," he said. "Knowledge is worth nothing, in itself. Whatever we learn must be shared, used to further our collective understanding. To stop others making the same mistakes as the Tribunal, Dagoth Ur, and the Dwemer." "You said you didn't remember what the Dwemer did." "What?" Ire looked up, blinking. "I don't." "Then how do you know they made a mistake?" "I..." Iriel paused, fingers jerking, sending long shadows snaking across the table from the candle at his elbow. "I really don't remember what I wrote in my report, but... I do remember other things. Dreams, echoes. Dream-echoes. Something went horribly wrong, for the Dwemer. For the Tribunal... it went horribly right." "And for Dagoth Ur?" A shudder. "Just... horribly." "What else do you remember?" "How not to fail." His voice was dry and papery as the book before him. "How to sever the dead divinity of Lorkhan from this world, and stop people feeding off his corpse, like scavengers. I wasn't sure, until we found the other tools, but now... I can feel it." "How?" "It's an enchantment. Several of them, layered like notes in a chord around the Heart by Kagrenac, so he could channel and direct its power. Tonal enchantments... half magic, half music. Now that I know what I'm listening for, I can sense it, even from here." "And you're going to... what? Figure out how to trigger it, like that teleport glyph you opened?" "No. I'm going to do something far blunter than that. The magical brute-force overload to end all overloads. Unsophisticated, Helende would say. Breaking a lock, not picking it. In musical terms... oh gods, I don't know. Hurling your lyre through the Orchidite Window of the Alinor High Temple in the middle of the Mourning Solitaire?" He grimaced. "I don't know what will happen after that, but it's going to be messy." "I'll bet. You're sure this is what Vivec wants?" "I think so. What the Tribunal are doing with the Heart of Lorkhan... it may look prettier than what Dagoth Ur is doing, from the outside, but on the inside, it's not so different, and it needs to end. It's not a healthy relationship." "Then why not end it themselves? They chose this, and they kept on choosing it. Why didn't they destroy the Heart long ago, if they think it's such a great idea?" Ire looked up, candle-flames flickering in his steady eyes. "Because they're addicts, love. Vivec... he's self-aware enough to realise it, but... he's in withdrawal. He knows if he was near the Heart himself, he wouldn't be able to resist. He's a god, but his divinity is the source of his sickness, it's exactly the wrong sort of strength. That's why he needs a champion, that's why he's asking for help. From a neutral party, because it can't be anyone too close to him, whose faith might be tarnished by the knowledge. Soon, that faith will be all he has left." "And the others, Almalexia and Sotha Sil? Did they agree to this? Has Vivec even told them?!" Iriel gave an awkward shrug, bent over the book again. "Severance is always painful. That doesn't stop it from being necessary, sometimes. Slaves not being equipped to handle freedom isn't an argument against them having it, only for care in the cutting, support on the landing. And I have no idea what support an ex-god would need. It'll hurt. Worse than hurt, perhaps." "You mean... if we destroy the heart, it could kill them? And you still think this is what Vivec wants?" Ire turned pages for a while, too fast for reading. "I don't have the brain to appreciate them the way I used to," he said, "but from what I recall, Vivec's later writings have this ongoing preoccupation with... annihilation. With destroying and replacing things that have served their purpose, or were mistakes from the beginning. He seems... frustrated. Worried that the needs of the people will change, and he won't be able to meet them. That the Dunmer must learn to break free of the things that are holding them back. You begin to suspect he means himself. That, read a certain way, the Sermons are almost... his will. Or the longest suicide note ever, a writ of self-execution. There's certainly something terribly Mephalan about it all." "Maybe he can't live with himself any more. Maybe the guilt of murdering Nerevar weighs too heavily on him." Iriel gave him a searching look. "Are you really so certain they killed him?" "What? You don't buy into that Temple propaganda, do you?!" "All the sources, even the most anti-Tribunal ones based on Alandro Sul's words to the Ashlanders, record that Nerevar was mortally wounded when he was carried from Red Mountain. Sul was injured too, blinded, some say, and likely not even present when Nerevar consulted his queen and advisers. Of course he was devastated to hear that his shield-brother was dead, afterwards. Of course he was riddled with survivor's guilt, and wanted someone to blame, other than himself, for failing to protect his lord. But the Tribunal didn't need to kill Nerevar, he was already dying." "Tilde says there's a coded bit in Vivec's poetry, where he admits he did it." "Mm. She also says it's barely even a code, and a child could crack it. More importantly... an explicit confession, from someone like Vivec? You'd take that at face value?" "Why confess, if he didn't do it?" "Why confess at all?" Ire's finger idled against a page, tapping and spiralling. "Have you never... felt unable to contradict terrible lies someone told about you? Even... wanted people to hear them, because then you'd finally know what they really thought of you, find out what they were willing to believe? See who, if anyone, would defend your innocence?" "No. People always made their opinions about me pretty clear. What're you--?" "And... it's irrational, but... if you feel guilty about something... if there was someone who loved you, but you failed to live up to that love, whether through betrayal of an oath, or just... constantly falling below their hopes and expectations until you'd ruined everything... if it's too late for you to fix that mistake, perhaps there's a certain appeal, in being blamed for something worse. A warped form of atonement." "I think you're taking this too personally." "Perhaps. I just know that guilt is strange. Self-hatred is strange. I doubt that divinity makes it less so." A shrug, as he closed the book. "And then, of course, Vehk is a poet. Perhaps he thought making himself Nerevar's killer would be the perfect metaphor. But surely the real place he murdered Nerevar is in his writings, where he condemns him to history as a blundering dullard, stumbling after his teacher, misunderstanding his wisdom." "Uh huh. And how about selling us out to the Empire, and torturing dissidents? Was all that for poetic effect, too?" "I'm not defending everything he did. But I do find it hard to blame Vivec for making himself divine. For finding a way to sever himself forever from the person he used to be." "Pity he became a worse one, doing it." "Mhm." Ire shifted position, expression, nothing holding still long enough to give a firm guide to his opinion. "He sought godhood as a way to endure himself, but it didn't work. He wasn't a perfect god like the Aedra, how could he be? He was still mortal when he designed himself. His divinity was always a mixture of contradictions and flaws, however gloriously gilded, but once formed, he was static. He lost the ability to change, to grow. And stasis, as he tells us again and again in the Lessons, is nothing. It's addiction to the thing that holds you above the spikes, out of the pit, but it's an illusion, because you're already in the trap. Stuck there, unless you're willing to chew off a limb... or a heart. Or ask someone to cut you free. Either way, you might not survive the journey to freedom. You still might choose to risk it." Moving to the bookcase, Iriel replaced the journal carefully on the shelf. "The thing about survivors, Caius once told me, is that it's often best not to ask what they did, in order to survive. Vivec cut his mortality away. Now he needs to cut his divinity, away, too." He turned back to Julan, fingers interwoven. "Perhaps you're right, and I'm taking it too personally, but... I want to view it positively. A painful rebirth from his own simulacrum." He gave a wan smile, shrugged. "Or just letting go of a coping mechanism he doesn't need any more." "Sorry." Julan rubbed at his forehead with both hands, eyes closed. "I don't mean to argue with you, I'm just tired. There's little enough chance to sleep here, and when I do..." "The dreams. I know." Iriel crossed the floor to where Julan was sitting, and began stroking his temples, gently massaging his brow. "I don't know why he even bothers. He's hardly likely to convert us now, is he?" "Maybe he's scared." Julan dragged a weary smile from somewhere, settling his arm around Ire's hips. Silence for a while, then: "Want to know a secret? I used to wonder if Dagoth Ur was right, if maybe the Nerevarine was supposed to join him, not defeat him. Return the tools that were entrusted to him by Nerevar, and then stolen from him by the Tribunal. I mean, that makes sense, right? In a Bal Molagmer sort of way." His tone was light, but an increased tension beneath Ire's fingers betrayed the shame of the admission. "That's not why I thought it, though," he added, his voice dulling. "I was angry, bitter. I thought any change for Morrowind would be better than living under the Empire's thumb, beneath the mockery of false gods. Don't get me wrong, I still hate the whole pack of them, but my hatred's not that blind. I can see that the change the Sharmat wants is pure destruction. It's burning without having anything to plant in its ashes, breaking things apart without knowing how to build. He can't help my people, only use them. I'm no poet, but if I was trying to make it a metaphor, then the return of Nerevar has to mean something else." "What is required by the ever-changing mortal agenda, the will of critical harvest?" Ire was biting the inside of his cheek. "You keep saying Morrowind needs this story of the Nerevarine facing down evil against impossible odds," he said, "but what happens if we fail? What kind of story is that? I thought you hated tragedies." Julan ground his jaw for a while. "Maybe," he said, "it's one where the heroes prove themselves through the things they attempt, not the things they succeed at. And... that's comforting, right? Because you can't always succeed, but you can always try. Aagh! Not so hard on my neck!" Ire snatched back his hands. "Sorry!" he gasped, "I forgot. How is it doing, by the way?" "Still hurts if I turn it too far dusk, but it's mostly just stiffness. It was good what you were doing before, if you want to carry on." He grinned up at Ire. "You're getting a preview of what I'll be like as a fussy old man with bad joints, I'm afraid." His grin faded. "What'd I say? Listen, I'm not dying up here, and neither are you. I told you, I'm not letting that happen, so you don't have to... worry... about..." He trailed off, eyes widening. And Iriel suddenly regretted the many hours Julan had spent studying his face like an astrologer divining the future in the heavens, learning to read his mayfly moods in each frozen glance and twitching frown. Because now, Ire had nowhere to hide the fact it wasn't just anxious fear in his eyes. It was concealment and guilt, and Julan knew it was, and Ire knew that he knew, and Julan knew that Ire knew that-- Julan's voice struck the silence like a hammer: "What?" Iriel swallowed. "Sweetheart, there's... something we need to discuss." next: 199: keening previous: 197: fire beginning: 1: numb