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Little dragon Peryite, stirs his plagues and plans
Little dragon Peryite, a mock of time's own hands
But little dragon Peryite, he hides his grin from view,
For little dragon Peryite shall make the void anew
~ poetry found in a Peryite enclave
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It wanted to call her back, but she tried desperately to wrench her thoughts to something, anything helpful.
Lorkhan. His artifacts. His power. Help me. HELP ME!
She saw darkness. She saw the void. Then a series of explosions, light, fire...and a lighter grey, formless and bloody, squirming beneath a shadow's notice, everything at once. The shadow cut its hand and from that hand came a blood more black than any she had yet seen, flowing from the shadow and into the body. And the formless body began to grow features, and breathe, and scream when its mouth opened.
In its gaping chest beat the only spot of color here that wasn't a shadow. Red, deep and rich, the color of blood, the color of life.
Beside the body was another, who saw the dragon forming from the man, or mer, or whatever it had been when the shadow made it. The shadow made to eliminate it, calling it words she didn't understand directly, but could tell were terms of disgust and revulsion.
What is this?
A by-product of the creation she'd just seen? A lump that had fallen from the formless body before? Whatever it was, it stumbled, barely moving, and followed the larger dragon.
Ages passed in an instant. The smaller dragon following first that one and then another, growing and watching from the shadows.
What is it?
Weak, a voice called it. Useless, another said. A copy of the true and grand dragon!
It hid behind the red-hearted dragon, who spoke to it in low tones. It left to do...something, she did not know what.
But she knew this: it was waiting for something.
Or someone.
She forgot what she had heard about it, and her last thought before the fog trying to pull her back claimed her entirely was: maybe I was supposed to.
--------------------------
Someone was shaking her.
Sadrith blinked, and shook herself free of the confusion. Her vision had dimmed, but was recovering even as she shook her head free.
It was Voryn.
"Well?" he asked. "Did you see anything?"
"I saw...Lorkhan saying the heart was necessary...he looked right at me," Sadrith said, "I was sure it was him. But then...then I saw...I don't know, the void using its blood to make something..."
An impulse struck her. She put the scroll away neatly, gathered up the artifacts, and rushed off to the Archmage's quarters.
"What are you doing?" he asked, "What--"
"If I tell you, you'll stop me," she said. Or she'd stop herself. Her impulses didn't always lead to bad things, sometimes good things, and right now she had nothing more to go on anyway. She knew she had to take some kind of a chance.
She arranged the items around her in a circle, clumsily drawing circles around them with a stick of chalk she found on one of the tables.
Now. Now, or never.
"What are you doing?" Voryn asked again.
"I don't know. I just--I saw something and I'm going to try it. We're out of options. Are you going to tell me it's stupid and I shouldn't do it?"
She waited, for scolding she was sure was coming. Why can you not plan like someone reasonable? Why can you not do things that make sense.
The admonishments did not come.
"I was going to say this was mad," he said quietly, "But these are mad times. I worry you will destroy yourself."
Sadrith took a shaky breath, and reached into one of her bags for the White Phial.
"What would you say if I told you I considered that an upside?"
"You're shezarrine," he said then, in a voice she found unusually soft. Why did he speak like this? "The world needs you."
"They need the Heart of Lorkhan," Sadrith said quietly, uncorking the bottle, staring into its inky depths, "They don't need me. I'm just...the necessary host. The shell. It should have chosen you a second time."
Silence.
Stop. Before you make a mistake.
Was it her own mind?
You are playing with forces you have no knowledge of.
But I don't know how else to do this, she thought back, tipping up the bottle.
Put the bottle down, child, or someone will get hurt.
When the thick, unpleasant liquid crossed her lips the voice grew angry.
You disobedient fool! Remember, when you look upon the body of the one next to fall, it will be all your fault.
Sadrith's immediate feeling was nausea, her stomach did not at all care for the bitter fluid and wanted to eject it. But she kept drinking, forcing it down like an unpleasant medicine, until the White Phial was completely empty.
"What was that?" Voryn, still close by but outside the circle, asked.
"The blood of Sithis."
No sooner had she said the words than she felt an explosion in her chest. Sadrith fell to her knees, clutching her chest as her heart burned...and burned...pounded against her ribs, seemed to stop--and then began to beat fast, and then faster still.
You are nothing but a collection of parts!
You are not even real!
You only exist because I created you!
Lorkhan's spark, his madness, his order, his warrior spirit, his divinity, his shell and countpart...so many parts...am I here?
The world dimmed.
No. No. I EXIST. I EXIST!
In Sadrith's mind she screamed it. Silence, there was silence all around, inside and outside her. How could she still be fading? What had she done wrong?
You are nothing but a collection of parts!
I AM! she screamed back, And so are they! I AM AND THEY ARE AND--
A fire lit once more, in her chest, in her her blood and bone, in her very mind.
I AM AND WE ARE, BOTH!
The dimming stopped. The light returned to the world, and she saw once more the Archmage's quarters. She scrambled out of the circle, out of the items which seemed suddenly to have crumbled into ash.
Outside. She had to be OUTSIDE.
"Stop!" Voryn called out as he followed her. "Where are you GOING?"
Door, stairs, door. Snow, and chill on the skin.
And far, far above, not a bloody dark sun as she expected (had she?) but an eclipse.
Though not a complete one.
Masser and Secunda...but then, also, the Necromancer's moon, set in place to block the light of Aetherius, and yet one small sliver remained.
One little light amidst the darkness, one shade greyer than the void around it.
A debt repaid by not just a necromancer, but the necromancer, the reason magic, the reason life, was still able to go on in this void-rain.
Dagoth Ur but he's less Sharmat and more like that hermit from Quest for Camelot who wants everyone to piss off so he can live in the No One Should Live in This Place place
I imagine it like the Heart of Lorkhan is what made everything so inhospitable and he's keeping it company or some shit. He talks to the rocks and lava like someone's listening
to add to this the Nerevarine shows up and the rocks and water and shit keep shoving Dagoth Ur in certain ways and he's just like "No. I want them to go away. NO."
Dagoth Ur but he's less Sharmat and more like that hermit from Quest for Camelot who wants everyone to piss off so he can live in the No One Should Live in This Place place
I imagine it like the Heart of Lorkhan is what made everything so inhospitable and he's keeping it company or some shit. He talks to the rocks and lava like someone's listening
Venom: Let there be carnage but it's TES and the dragonborn with Alduin souping around in their blood interviewing a captured rather than killed Dagoth Ur
"I know Dunmer blood, and that is not Dunmer blood."
#i like to think data took him all the way to the brig tossed him in and left#and then came back 60 seconds later and was like ‘i believe i have successfully played a ‘practical joke’ on you :)’#riker loses it & claps him on the back like ‘wow. good job u rly had me going. dont ever fucking do that again’
Perfect.
Actually it’s 73 seconds. Data, knowing something of how human minds work, estimates that Riker will give him 60 seconds to come back (because humans prefer “round numbers”, however arbitrary the units). After 60 seconds it will take 4 seconds for Riker to fully process the conclusion that Data is, in fact, not coming back after all, and an additional 9 seconds to build to the optimum level of anxiety.
Nerevarine gets told to leave by Dagoth Ur because they're not prepared. They move in with one of the other ash vampires who immediately defects because it's the first action he's gotten in centuries
someone in the UK threw eggs at Charles and was arrested and has been banned from openly carrying eggs in public and has since been sent death threats but their statement on the matter was so fucking good
"So my bail conditions were, between my arrest and my trial, were that I wasn't allowed to carry eggs in public."
host laughs
"Yeah, I know, and so that is in itself like so absurd that it's like right"
Host: "I gotta know, is there like a provision for if you're going home from the store? Or are you just, are you just egg-less?"
"So the copper who was literally just like making this up at the station says like 'Ok, so your bail condition is: you're not allowed within 500 meters of the king; you're not allowed to carry eggs in public' and then he goes like 'ah actually, like, what 'appens if he wants to buy some eggs?' Ok, so they changed it so it's like, 'You're allowed to carry eggs as long as you're going home from the shops and you've got the receipt"
host laughs
"And I think, that was more viral than me actually doing it, you know what I mean like, people were like, that's Britain for you, have you got a license for those eggs"
-"The Man Who Egged King Charles", It Could Happen Here, May 18 2023
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