Applying Exotic Metaphysics (Return, 18.5)

Sheogorath had a champion running through the land, already. Someone that wasn’t Emylee, it turned out. The bosmer’s bags were full, plump with what looked like armor and weapons. He was panting, sweating- face bright red from his labor. I watched as he just kind of stopped for a moment, before making another leap. Then stopped. Then leaped again, making his bag clank.

“... Hello?” I asked.

“Hello!” He responded, a bright grin. Small antlers poked out of his brow, barely visible under his straw-yellow hair. The antlers seemed poorly placed- like they were guiding his hair to grow straight upwards. “Who might you be?”

“Maria Manatsoni,” I said. “You?”

“Dorin. Dorin Fallowhoof!” Dorin beamed. He seemed cheerful, full of boundless energy. So, he fit Mania pretty well. “You’re that lady who dealt with the Oblivion crisis! By Azura, are you a sight for sore eyes. I was hoping you could point me the way to New Sheoth?”

I stared at him for a moment, looking into his shadow. His potential. He had no birthsign. He wasn’t a hero, either, but there was something familiar. I looked him in the eyes again, glanced at his hair-

My gut dropped.

“It’s… just along this road,” I said. “Why are you here?”

“I’m on a quest. The Grey Prince said I had to toughen up first before I can worship the ground he walks on. So I’m training.”

I stared, and the kid started waxing poetic. About the Grey Prince, about how mighty and powerful he was, about how nobody at the arena will face him anymore. He’s become tired of the Arena, and has begun questing for righteous deeds and assert his lordship.

“-so that’s got him down, though, which is obviously madness. He’s the Grand Champion, you know- he’s great! So what, he’s a little vampiric? That’s no big deal. So I’ve come to speak with Sheogorath.”

I stared at him for a long moment. “You defeated the gatekeeper?”

“A friend gave me these handy arrows, and I hid behind a bunch of rocks,” He beamed. “That big ol’ guy doesn’t fight anything like a Grand Champion, and he couldn’t get to me, So I just… you know. Plink plink plink. Then he just fell over. It was a little scary, but I’ve got to get to New Sheoth!”

“... Right,” I said. “Good luck.” Dorin beamed, and nodded at me. Then he turned back toward the road, and did another leap. Then another. His armor clanking in his backpack. I guesstimated the size of the armor, and realized that none of it would actually fit a bosmer that small. It was all heavy metal, fitted- sized- for an orc.

It’s official. Nothing makes sense in Sheogorath’s realm. At least it wasn’t Fargoth.

I sighed, and continued on my way to Milchar. It would be a while before Jyggalag would make his appearance, and so I had time to kill.

---

The Grove of Reflection was quiet. It was calm. There were a few creatures above, but I just slipped by in shadow form. I wasn’t planning on clearing the place out. I just wanted to take a look.

Dyus had said I would find the truth, here. And beyond that, I was curious. From what I recalled, this was where Shadowrend was supposed to be.

I stepped into a large, wet grove. The floor was soft and spongy, the water still and calm. Too still and calm. It was reflective, like quicksilver. A mirror.

There was an obelisk in the center, a glowing rune across its surface. I couldn’t read it at first, the words blurry and twisted. I stepped closer-

And slowly, something raised from the other end of the room.

“Right,” I scoffed. “We’ve done this already.”

I stepped closer, watching as the figure stood from the ground.

She didn’t look anything like me.

She didn’t look anything like anyone. She had a vague shape, a shadowy, vague impression on the world. A hollow thing. A cardboard cutout of a breton woman.

She pulled something out of her. It wasn’t Shadowrend.

-thump thump-

Something slammed into my psyche. Like a hammer to the skull.

-thump thump-

“Miss this?” She asked. Maria of House Dagoth stared at me through the gap in her skull, where Dagoth Ur had ripped out her sight.

-thump thump-

She was holding Lorkhan’s Heart.

-thump thump-

It was an icepick to the mind. Something clawing at my memory. Something forgotten, misplaced intentionally, pushing its way back to me. Trying to be remembered.

“No,” I said. “It has to stay forgotten.”

She let it collapse, back into Shadowrend. This one was keener, sharper. Sharper than the one I’d had this entire time.

“Why?” The shadow responded.

“It drove Voryn mad. Turned the Tribunal into monsters. It’s a twisted, broken thing. Corrupted.”

“It did, didn’t it? But is that a bad thing? Without it… Would you still have fallen in love with Tamriel? As a little girl, sitting at her momma’s computer… if it weren’t for this, for the precious little disaster, for the corpus blight, you never would have fallen in love with Morrowind. You never would have come here.”

I glared.

“You’re just another copy of me,” I snapped. “I’m done with this shit.”

“We’re all copies. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that how the Godhead works? All is one dreaming mind? One giant hyperintelligent space squid, imagining us all up? We’re all copies of the same source.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m from outside it.”

“Are you?” She asked- and for a moment, I doubted.

The doubt speared through my chest the same way- and the same moment- that Dagoth’s Shadowrend does.

---

For a moment, I saw the Wheel on its side. Twisting chains of thoughtstuff and creatia that was Aurbis coiling in place. Spinning. I saw creation. Mundus, the Aedra, the Daedra. The hub that was the firmament. Eternity.

For a moment, I saw myself. The cackling witch. The scheming thing. The coyote, the nyx-hound. The hollow spot in the heart of the moon.

I was a comet.  Falling through Aurbis, obscuring the other stars, the other signs. A serpent, an empty belly. Hollow. I was hollow. I was nothing.

I never was. Like the Dwemer, I’d Rather Not.

But inside me was still Lyg. The souls that had ceased to be, that continued to wish they were. It was only due to them that I didn’t fall apart, that I didn’t stop existing. They continued to wish to live. To pray. And I followed them back from Zero.

I flickered back into reality.

I slammed into the ground. Dust covered my body, and I felt my magicka grow stronger than before. Slowly, carefully, I focused my thoughts.

I had been wrong. From the very start, I’d been wrong. I wasn’t outside the G- wasn’t from Outside.

I stared up at Mundus. Then down, at my surroundings. Grey dust and ash as far as the eye could see. Mountains of it in the distance.

I had returned. But not to Shivering Isles… I was on the fucking moon.

From the soil of Secunda, tall, lanky figures began to stand. Swirling holes in their chest, shadow-pockets where Nothing existed. They stared for a moment, dust falling off of their bone-white figures.

One silently raised a spear. Another, a sword. They began to speed towards me.

A yawning, similar Nothing swirled in my chest. A pocket where I had nothing. A pocket where I had had nothing for a very long time. Maybe even forever.

“Fuck you too, Dagoth.” I snarled. I stood.

From it, the True Shadowrend ripped itself free, a halberd forming in my hand.