#void nights

A large Khajiit with pale white fur and an ornate dark robe walked ahead of them into the sandstorm. He ignored the pleas for help from the others, and stepped over the bodies of his kinsmen without skipping a beat. He walked with unflinching determination, and had his hands clasped behind his back.

“You can stop being so dramatic, I’ve seen enough,” the Khajiit said with a deep voice that befit his stature.

The landscape suddenly crumbled to dust around him, leaving only a starry nebula with the moons in close proximity, and large floating pieces of land dotted with ruined structures of an ancient era.

“And yet still you continue forward,” a disembodied voice replied. “Does it not concern you that your actions will bring about the end of your people?” It sounded as if multiple people spoke at once, and the vibrations caused the very ground itself to shift.

“I do not believe in the lies and misleading half-truths of visions. My lived experience is the only faith I need to know what I must do for my people.”

“And why should your lived experience determine the fate for so many who have lived different, happier lives?”

“Because they cling to the ideals of a world that doesn’t exist, and the cries of the many who fare the worst go unheard and dismissed, because it is a truth they do not want to hear.”

“And so instead of listening to them, like the wise leader you once were, you have taken it into your own hands to devise a ‘solution’ they never asked for.”

The towering Khajiit stopped and looked up at the sky. “No one should have to ask to be treated like a person instead of a pet!” he shouted. “No one should have to wish they were born with the basic dignity of being able to clothe themselves, to have thumbs, and simply to even speak! It was your ‘solution’ that caused all of this - when you cursed us to be born as monsters! When you decided that parents should herald children that could look nothing like them, and who will be cast aside by the society that you created!”

He closed his eyes. “I do this for them, so that no one has to live wearing shackles because of when they happened to be born.”

The sand beneath his feet whistled with the wind in the vacuum of emptiness. One of the floating rocks crashed with another, splitting debris that fell on the pathway ahead. A stairway led above to a platform where a temple once stood.

“The elves that you conspire with do not share that concern,” the voice said tauntingly.

He walked with a tired limp up the stairs. “And nor do I share theirs. It is an arrangement of mutual benefit.”

“Until it’s not.”

He scoffed. “You love pretending to care, but if my plan truly concerned you, you would smite me here and now, and put an end to all of it.”

He extended his arms to the sky. “So smite me!” he shouted. He waited for retribution, and when it never came, he laughed and proceeded further up the stairs.

“A mother should not coddle her children. I allowed you freedom, and that includes the freedom to destroy yourselves,” the voice said. “Besides, you are foolish if you think no one will dare to oppose your tyranny.”

“So, inaction and complacency. I should have expected nothing less from the mighty Azurah.”

A crack of thunder ushered through the realm’s void, and her rage could be felt through it.

The tired old Khajiit finally reached the top of the stairs, where he was greeted with a pedestal and an iron bowl in the center of the ruined temple. He approached it.

The apparition of Azurah appeared behind the pedestal. She was feline in aspect with a ghostly blue hue, and cold eyes that burned into him. He grunted in distaste for her choice of form.

“You know that what you seek is no longer here. You know where it is. Why do you continue to trespass in this realm?” she asked.

“My reasons are my own.”

He stood across the pedestal from his enemy. He stared coolly at her for a moment, and then unsheathed a dagger. Still looking at her, he pulled back the robe from his left arm and held it open over the bowl. With the other, he slowly sliced into his palm. He clenched and winced, and dripped his blood into the bowl, but kept his silver gaze level with Azurah.

After a few moments, he looked down and stared blankly at the result.

Nothing happened, only the reflection of his aged, maneless visage stared back up at him from the pool of blood.

He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.

Azurah laughed. “Did you not assume the other would take up the mantle?”

“I knew,” he replied solemnly. He rested his hands on the pedestal, lost in thought and struck with several emotions. A single tear rolled down his cheek. He bit his lip, shook his head and tapped the bowl with his knuckles aimlessly.

He took in a deep breath, held a vacant stare for a few moments, and then smacked the bowl across the room. He yelled wordlessly as it spilled the contents across the temple. The iron bowl clanged as it hit the ground and rolled in a circle until it found its rest. He regained his composure, turned around and walked away. “I found what I came here for.”

“And what was that?”

He closed his eyes.