As she nears the palace, trudging through the mucky streets of Crucible, she's approached by a particularly small, slight Bosmer, dressed in roughspun.
"Frem! Frem is callycack, and whipple in strom. Drose you craff the findoo?"
Of all the times to be amnesiac and devoid of any fluency in anything but Common. It had to be when she was going through the maybe real maybe dream of a butterfly.
"Fie. Fie is frelfing," he seems disappointed, but not angry. He waits for a moment, then turns to leave, if she lets him.
There's some interesting-looking shops along the way. A taphouse... a couple of general stores... a blacksmith... and of course, there's the road ahead, leading up to the Palace.
She lets the stranger go, watching him for a bit before letting her eyes go back to the road. And true, there are shops that draw her eye, causing her to linger at the window to peer in. The chatter of the taphouse, what's on display at the stores, whatever can be glimpsed at the blacksmith's - what, she can spend a moment to admire a good weapon's looks.
But the path calls, calls, tugs on her collar and has her not losing track of time. The Palace waits, growing ever larger as she draws near. Up and up, up and up. She stops about halfway, both to give herself a small break and to simply gaze at it all. Really grand. The sort of place to get lost in, if there was enough time for it.
Later. This place might decide to reject her at any minute. The butterfly might wear off or she might fall through the wrong part of the ground.
Up, until she faces two doors with two guards, and picks the left simply because she took the right the last time. If none will block her path, she's headed in.
Here, at last, is the source of the water that flows through the capitol, and out to the lands beyond the city walls. Twin cascades pour down on each side of a carpeted stone staircase, which leads up to a throne embedded in the trunk of an immense tree. Braziers burn in flames of green and blue, orange and red, but much of the light in the room comes from the glowing fruits that hang from the tree’s branches.
And seated in that tree-bound throne is a figure that is both a stranger and so very, very familiar.
Lord Sheogorath seems so small against such a grand backdrop, even dressed in the extravagant finery that he is. He’s a little old man, wrinkled and skinny and smiling like a dotty fool. Fever knows better, though. That being said, something is amiss- there is the shadow of another person’s face that is absent in Sheogorath’s countenance.
It's the change in him that sparks her formality, the difference between this one that she knows and the one she speaks to in person. But she knows he is only small because he wishes to be small, and if in an instant he wished to tower and impose he would.
She smiles, and she does not bound over to him as she might in the world she knows, because she has come a long way to find him. Chasing his presence across the Isles, until she's standing right here. Just walks, until they're close enough to speak.
"Ah! So you know who you're addressing! Good, good! Means you at least had some idea of why you wanted to get through those Gates, when you killed my poor Gatekeeper. Shame about that. I'm so happy, I could just tear out your intestines and strangle you with them."
His expression seems to change every sentence, from happy, to sad, to furious.
"At least, let's hope you actually have some idea, or we're in trouble. Real trouble... and out come the intestines. And I skip rope with them! But, perhaps now's not the time. You've made it this far. Farther than anyone else. Well done! Now... here," he extends his hand, and from it dangles a golden pendant.
"A little trinket of mine, a gesture of things to come. Might serve you well. Or at least, it'll look lovely on your corpse."
She'll take the pendant from him, slipping the chain around her neck - why not, she likes it - and feeling the magic in it. It does something, but she'll have to look at it later.
"What things are to come? Or are they already en route?"
"I don't put stock in trying to tell the future. Can't abide the idea, if I'm honest. Except, sometimes I do. They're hunches, earnest guesses, loose plans. Take yourself, for example. I've been waiting for you, or someone like you, or someone other than you, for some time. I need a champion, and you've got the job. Time to save the Realm! Rescue the damsel! Slay the beast! Or die trying. Your help is required. A change is coming. Everything changes. Even Daedric Princes. Especially Daedric Princes."
She feels like she does. Or she might. Or something between the two of them that is not yet settled. Untethered - and for a moment, she turns away back to the water, checking to see whose face she is wearing. It should be her own, but something squirms up and fills her with doubt.
"You've known a surprising amount so far, mortal! Perhaps you should be the one telling me what it is I'm going to have you do."
As far as she can tell, it's her own face, though perhaps there is the shadow of someone else behind it. It's hard to tell in the ripples, whose perception of the world may be distorted and mad.
"I know some things, and I also know that I don't know a great many others. I know that I do not know what you will ask of me, and I also know that it takes quite the fool indeed to tell the Madgod what to do in the first place."
It's unclear, and somehow this soothes her. A definite answer wouldn't have felt right at all, not in this place. Not where things may and may not be what they seem to be.
"Well, then, let's get you knowing a few more things. Daedra are the embodiment of change. Change and permanency. I'm no different, except in the ways that I am. Now, one of those changes is nearly upon us. The Greymarch is coming. And you're going to stop it."
This is not her story. This is the ripple across someone else's reflection. This is the story she put in her mouth and swallowed and said be part of me. Worm to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly.
"The details aren't important. At least not right now. Eternity is on a rather tight deadline. We'll get back to that later. For now? You run an errand for me. An important one. Of course, anything I tell you to do is important. My Realm, my rules. You're going to Xedilian, one of my favorite spots in the Isles. It's a little place I use to take care of unwanted visitors. And some are more unwanted than others. The Gatekeeper takes care of most of the unwanted, but he's dead. We'll have to remedy that soon, as well.... Anyway... there are those that have other ways into my Realm, and they're on the move. We don't want them here. Trust me. So, you're going to get Xedilian up and running."
He scowls, then beams. There's a book in his hands where there wasn't one a moment ago.
"Here's a little book to walk you through it. And the Attenuator of Judgement. You'll need that, too. Of course, if you need it said in someone else's words, you can always get more details from Haskill. He's a detail-oriented type of person. A big help. And a snappy dresser. Now, get going. Before I change my mind. Or my mind changes me." And he gives her a gesture to run along, thoughts seemingly already elsewhere.
She steps back from the throne, cracking open the book as she does. Scanning the pages is a little more illuminating, but not enough to make her think she won't have to simply learn by doing instead, and instead she looks to Haskill.
"Which way is Xedillian, when I depart?"
Summarizing a lot because at this point you've watched a let's play
And, with only some level of dry snark, he directs her to Xedilian.
From there, Fever is led from task to task on the Madgod's behalf. She slays and/or drives intruders to the realm mad through Xedilian's mechanisms. She encounters the first stirring of Jyggalag's Knights of Order. She experiences the crippling experience of Felldew addiction. She foils a plot against Duchess Syl's life. She carries a sacred, heatless flame inside her own body, to light the beacon in New Sheoth. She takes Syl's life herself and assumes her station. She battles back an incursion of Knights in the Fringe of Madness. She meets with Relmyna once again, and helps her construct a new Gatekeeper.
It's when she returns from liberating the Wellspring of the Aureal from Order's clutches that she's met with the sight of Sheogorath sitting in the middle of the throne room floor, looking exhausted and despondent.
Things pass as if in a long dream, and perhaps she dreams off and on, her mind and her soul at odds with themselves. So much passes, so much happens, and she allows it, feeling as though she's wearing someone else's skin the entire time. But it does happen, and the Isles in all their maddening, beautiful glory must endure, she knows. Even this short time spent with them is enough for her to love them. They cannot be overcome and destroyed again.
To see him in such a state raises alarm.
"My lord?"
After all of this, she has no fear in approaching, in crouching down to be more on his level instead of hovering above.
"Time,” he mutters, voice hoarse, “Time is an artificial construct. An arbitrary system based on the idea that events occur in a linear direction at all times. Always forward, never back. Is the concept of time correct? Is time relevant? It matters not. One way or another, I fear that our time has run out. As I feared it would, My plan has failed. The Greymarch is upon us, and I must go. I thought we had more time. I thought we had a chance. My plan has failed. And we were so close...."
"How can you say that, my lord? We still are here - we have not failed yet. Not as long as we still live and breathe. There is still time, regardless of how the Greymarch advances."
She speaks the words with such conviction that it sparks in her, sets something to burning. Respect she has, but her passion outstrips it, to speak so plainly.
"I had intended to give you My staff, the symbol of My office. But life has gone from it, as it goes from Me. It is now dead wood. A useless twig. With the staff, there was hope. But now, hope is dead. I am dead."
There's none of the usual growl or jauntiness in his voice. He sounds hollow.
"What happens now is what always has happened -- what always will happen. I crumble, I fade, the Realm dies. And you with it. Flee while you can, mortal. When we next meet I will not know you, and I will slay you like the others."
"There's a flaw in your planning, my lord. You cannot kill me. And you will not. Hope lives while I live, and since I will not die, it cannot die either."
He sounds hollow, and she sounds ever more certain.
"I will bring you back. I will pull you back from the oblivion you fade into, and restore you upon the throne of the Isles. That is not a promise, it is my oath. The Greymarch will not win again."
How she's supposed to do this, she has no idea. Honestly, she's terrified, but showcasing that when he's in such despair isn't the right call. So she'll have to improvise, and pray a path opens up.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Obligatory Bolwing Cameo
"Frem! Frem is callycack, and whipple in strom. Drose you craff the findoo?"
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She gives them the most apologetic face she can.
"I'm sorry, I only speak this language."
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There's some interesting-looking shops along the way. A taphouse... a couple of general stores... a blacksmith... and of course, there's the road ahead, leading up to the Palace.
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But the path calls, calls, tugs on her collar and has her not losing track of time. The Palace waits, growing ever larger as she draws near. Up and up, up and up. She stops about halfway, both to give herself a small break and to simply gaze at it all. Really grand. The sort of place to get lost in, if there was enough time for it.
Later. This place might decide to reject her at any minute. The butterfly might wear off or she might fall through the wrong part of the ground.
Up, until she faces two doors with two guards, and picks the left simply because she took the right the last time. If none will block her path, she's headed in.
no subject
And seated in that tree-bound throne is a figure that is both a stranger and so very, very familiar.
Lord Sheogorath seems so small against such a grand backdrop, even dressed in the extravagant finery that he is. He’s a little old man, wrinkled and skinny and smiling like a dotty fool. Fever knows better, though. That being said, something is amiss- there is the shadow of another person’s face that is absent in Sheogorath’s countenance.
“Ah! Look who’s here! You! How about that?”
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It's the change in him that sparks her formality, the difference between this one that she knows and the one she speaks to in person. But she knows he is only small because he wishes to be small, and if in an instant he wished to tower and impose he would.
She smiles, and she does not bound over to him as she might in the world she knows, because she has come a long way to find him. Chasing his presence across the Isles, until she's standing right here. Just walks, until they're close enough to speak.
cw: casual threats of dismemberment
His expression seems to change every sentence, from happy, to sad, to furious.
"At least, let's hope you actually have some idea, or we're in trouble. Real trouble... and out come the intestines. And I skip rope with them! But, perhaps now's not the time. You've made it this far. Farther than anyone else. Well done! Now... here," he extends his hand, and from it dangles a golden pendant.
"A little trinket of mine, a gesture of things to come. Might serve you well. Or at least, it'll look lovely on your corpse."
no subject
She'll take the pendant from him, slipping the chain around her neck - why not, she likes it - and feeling the magic in it. It does something, but she'll have to look at it later.
"What things are to come? Or are they already en route?"
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She feels like she does. Or she might. Or something between the two of them that is not yet settled. Untethered - and for a moment, she turns away back to the water, checking to see whose face she is wearing. It should be her own, but something squirms up and fills her with doubt.
no subject
As far as she can tell, it's her own face, though perhaps there is the shadow of someone else behind it. It's hard to tell in the ripples, whose perception of the world may be distorted and mad.
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It's unclear, and somehow this soothes her. A definite answer wouldn't have felt right at all, not in this place. Not where things may and may not be what they seem to be.
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This is not her story. This is the ripple across someone else's reflection. This is the story she put in her mouth and swallowed and said be part of me. Worm to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly.
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Fine. She'll go through it all. Somehow, there has to be time. Or she'll be thrown out in the middle of the process.
"Will it be apparent when I get there what the problem is?"
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"Here's a little book to walk you through it. And the Attenuator of Judgement. You'll need that, too. Of course, if you need it said in someone else's words, you can always get more details from Haskill. He's a detail-oriented type of person. A big help. And a snappy dresser. Now, get going. Before I change my mind. Or my mind changes me." And he gives her a gesture to run along, thoughts seemingly already elsewhere.
no subject
"Which way is Xedillian, when I depart?"
Summarizing a lot because at this point you've watched a let's play
From there, Fever is led from task to task on the Madgod's behalf. She slays and/or drives intruders to the realm mad through Xedilian's mechanisms. She encounters the first stirring of Jyggalag's Knights of Order. She experiences the crippling experience of Felldew addiction. She foils a plot against Duchess Syl's life. She carries a sacred, heatless flame inside her own body, to light the beacon in New Sheoth. She takes Syl's life herself and assumes her station. She battles back an incursion of Knights in the Fringe of Madness. She meets with Relmyna once again, and helps her construct a new Gatekeeper.
It's when she returns from liberating the Wellspring of the Aureal from Order's clutches that she's met with the sight of Sheogorath sitting in the middle of the throne room floor, looking exhausted and despondent.
no subject
To see him in such a state raises alarm.
"My lord?"
After all of this, she has no fear in approaching, in crouching down to be more on his level instead of hovering above.
no subject
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She speaks the words with such conviction that it sparks in her, sets something to burning. Respect she has, but her passion outstrips it, to speak so plainly.
"This is your realm. You need not leave it."
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"I had intended to give you My staff, the symbol of My office. But life has gone from it, as it goes from Me. It is now dead wood. A useless twig. With the staff, there was hope. But now, hope is dead. I am dead."
There's none of the usual growl or jauntiness in his voice. He sounds hollow.
"What happens now is what always has happened -- what always will happen. I crumble, I fade, the Realm dies. And you with it. Flee while you can, mortal. When we next meet I will not know you, and I will slay you like the others."
no subject
He sounds hollow, and she sounds ever more certain.
"I will bring you back. I will pull you back from the oblivion you fade into, and restore you upon the throne of the Isles. That is not a promise, it is my oath. The Greymarch will not win again."
How she's supposed to do this, she has no idea. Honestly, she's terrified, but showcasing that when he's in such despair isn't the right call. So she'll have to improvise, and pray a path opens up.
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Beat.
"I'm lying. That wasn't funny at all."
Another beat, and then he continues, even more subdued.
"Soon you and everyone else will be dead, and I will be left a mad god, ruler of a dead realm. Again."
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cw: body horror (1/2)
(2/2)
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(Cutting Forward)
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