The Knight of Ald Skar Chapter VI

• Posted by Paws May 16, 2017 - Filed in TSC: Classics - 1,186 views

  

  How I hated the sea. The smell of it stirred in me a deep loathing born of fear - a weakness - and memories of old hopes long since turned to ash. Yet now as the last tendrils of flame from my campfire, starved of fuel after burning all night,  flicker,  die, and give way to the light and warmth of dawn breaking in the east, the sound of the surf is a comfort to me. As the pale light of the rising sun chases away the dark of night, I watch the stars fade away one by one, silver losing the fight to pale gold and pink. The smell of salt in the air right now doesn't fill me with despair, instead, it smells comforting, familiar, a sensation I did not expect to feel. I have never felt so far from home and so utterly alone. So to realise now that I have found the spot upon which I can keep an old promise almost makes me smile. Almost. Here, at the mouth of the river Hjaal, I will build the house we dreamed of. It cannot be made in Redoran style so I cannot fulfil my promise totally, but there is timber here, trees as forlorn and lonely as I am struggle to survive in the swamplands under the distant shadow of Solitude.
  
  
  Will I live here? I have asked myself this over and over as my body became numb with cold and my consciousness slipped away like precious memories during the night. I doubt it. I did not dare look beyond my purpose in coming to Skyrim, but now it is almost fulfilled, I feel the first glimmers of hope blossom within me as if fed by the sun's first rays. Maybe. Maybe once the rites have been completed and The Four Corners appeased, as the first cornerstone is put in place, something will take notice. Perhaps the beauty of this sunrise is a message from Azura that even now there is room in my heart for love. Or perhaps I forfeited that so utterly when I told her I couldn't follow her anymore.

  ...
  
  It started for real that day, the day she prayed beneath the statue of Vivec, her lips moving to the song of a silent psalm and her hair blowing in the breeze. I stood and watched, as quiet as I could be, but her eyes opened to the sound of my armour as I adjusted my position. She raised her left hand towards the statue, her palm out in a quick gesture, before getting to her feet as graceful as a nix hound. With a flourish known only to Buoyant Armigers, she sheathed her sword and flashed me her dazzling smile.
  
  
  "Lord Vivec says you are to accompany us to the Ghost Fence" she stated, her eyes twinkling like coals in a forge's furnace. "An ordinator among the Armigers - a Scuttler among the Netch"
  
  
  I felt stunned, and could only blink at her while my tongue seemed glued to the roof of my mouth and I felt my jaw hanging open for the second time that day. A childhood dream, long-since passed from daily thought or desire, became once more alive in my mind. To fight amongst the Knights of Vivec! How the child me would have delighted, dashing around the ash-strewn ground of Ald'ruhn, enacting an imaginary battle with monsters using an imaginary sword, mounted upon an imaginary war-guar. I saw her smile start to become a laugh, so I quickly clamped my teeth together and affected a demeanor more befitting a Temple Ordinator.
  
  
  "Why me?" I managed to ask, the amount of saliva I had previously generated would have been welcome then, for my mouth felt excessively dry.
  
  
  "Well, sir knight of the Temple, our Lord has been interested in you for a long time, and we were frequently sent to try and lighten you up. I don't speak for the Three, but I gather your devotion in particular to Mother Morrowind has moved the Poet. It could be that should we succeed in cracking that chitin", she punched my bonemould chestplate and here in the present I imagine I can still feel that gentle smack, "we could reveal the bubbly ichor of a delightful Shroom Beetle beneath." She poked her tongue out, gently mocking me. "come on, let's find the others." She said, as she sauntered passed me towards the Temple.
  
  
  I risked a joke as I trailed behind her. "I'll have you know that this Shroom is not all doom and gloom, there is yet room for a bubbly bloom beneath this bone costume." I can't remember now, but I think I smiled...? Maybe. I do remember feeling slight satisfaction in seeing her step waver for a moment, her turn to look at me slightly stunned. She regained her composure with a snort and a chuckle.
  
  
  "We'll see." She said, her smile lighting up her face.

  ...
  
  A cold wind blowing from the Sea of Ghosts snaps me from my reverie with a shiver. To build this house I must first see if I can buy the land, not an easy feat for I am not exactly a rich mer. However, I find the uplifting glimmer of hope adds an urgency to my mood. Perhaps, if by some miracle the connection we once shared still exists in some form, my Esha Idrassi, wherever she now roams, is thinking of me while I think of her...
  
  
  Ha!
  
  
  Hope, like light, always gives way to darkness.