An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
It had been a long day— by Azura, it had been a long week! Erra sighed to himself as he weaved through the bustling streets of Maar Gan. The second Turdas of every month was always a little chaotic in the market square as vendors set up their stalls for the Monthly Night Markets. He did not mind; it is just that so many people in one spot still left him a little overwhelmed at times. Even after fifteen years of living with the settled Dunmer, the crowds were something he just could not get used to. Especially when he had been on the road for days.
He supposed that was why he chose to settle in Maar Gan, rather than Ald’ruhn or Vivec City. The outpost, with its sizable Velothi population situated on the edge of the Redoran-Ashlands, made him feel less homesick. Yes, business in Ald’ruhn was more lucrative, and it would have been smarter to try to set up in the heart of Redoran lands. Those would have been smarter decisions, yes.
But he would have been miserable.
Tagged by a whole bunch of folks, and tagging a whole bunch of folks in return as well! Honestly I have no idea when this becomes too much or if I'm breaking Tumblr-Etiquette 😅but I love seeing what everyone is up to and reblogging your work too!!
@thequeenofthewinter @truth-01001001-liar @pocket-vvardvark @illumiera @unknownhomosapien @kat-tail @nyarevar @changelingsandothernonsense @bougainvillea-and-saltwater @oblivions-dawn @scorchedcandy @saltymaplesyrup @dirty-bosmer @ladytanithia @thenotebookwizard
@sulphuricgrin @umbracirrus @skyrim-forever @hircines-hunter @friend-of-giants @labskeever @heavy-metal-dick @sanzas-reverie @theoneandonlysemla @yansurnummu @scholarlyhermit @linwelinwrites @sylvienerevarine @kookaburra1701 @elavoria @wispstalk @stormbeyondreality
@ansu-gurleht @madam-whim @gilgamish @ggghoulish @graveofcalaxes @nuwanders @captain-of-silvenar @pyre-of-pages @guardianlizard @lobu-inu @fangsandsoftgrass @rustyram035 @lathez @babyblueetbaemonster @unironicallytes
If you want to get on or off Ms. Moriche’s Wild Ride, please tag me or DM me and I’ll make a note and add or remove you!
And also tagged are YOU! YES! YOU!
▲ ▼ ▲
I got some more work done on Veryn's outfits - this time it's the Telvanni Armour / Dust Adept look to travel the Ashlands, featuring a Dreugh Skull.
I also did some writing, which you can see below the cut! Can't believe it's almost a year since I last updated my fic, but I've had a hard time getting words on paper. Real Life and Miniche get in the way, and I've arrived at a series of chapters that are going to be this Big Centerpoint of the fic - and I want to really do them well. (and I ran into someone bookmarking my fic, only to see multiple occasions of really similar sentences to mine in their work, which was kinda demotivating too ;.;).
But. Hopefully.
We're back, baby.
Veryn remained with the guar, the animals loosely tethered and grazing on what dried grasses had survived the cold. Leaning against Sharn, he squinted at Caius setting up a tripod, topped with a gleaming brass instrument. Even from a distance, the man looked intimidating, cloaked in red, clad in decorated Legionnaire’s plate.
“Do you hate him?”
His spine stiffened at Sharn’s question, vertebrae locking together like a Skyrim shield wall. “It’s that obvious, huh?” Nerves crawled like spiders through his mouth, desperate for a release, and he laughed wryly. “I don’t know if I hate him. What he did, what he’s doing? How can I forget that the Blades are using me as their sacrificial pawn? How can I forgive Caius for lying to me about my own death? And yet if I don’t do anything, if the Empire doesn’t — what if Dagoth Ur wins? What if the voice in my head — ” He broke off abrubtly and gestured around him. “What if all of Morrowind becomes like this or worse? Endless rock and ash, choked by poison weeds. What if Cyrodiil becomes his twisted garden? All of Tamriel?”
His answer was a gaze of worry, of uncertainty - a gaze that told him Sharn did not know what the future held either. “And must you carry that weight on your own?”
“I don’t know, alright?” He raised his voice, the aching pulse in his temples overriding clarity of thought, frustration and anger threatening to spill out in a torrent of tears and rage. Stomach roiling, Veryn clenched his teeth and eyes, clawing at his mind to gain back a semblance of control. Not here, not now, not in Mamaea, where he couldn’t tell whether the heartbeat in his ears was his own. Sharns hands found his shoulders, her voice found his ears; but he couldn’t quite tell what she was saying over the ring of anxiety until her tone changed and her words stilled.
“Ryn,” she said, her voice full of alarm. “I’m fairly sure I’m sensing some magic out here, and it’s not yours.”
His stomach stopped squirming and dropped down like lead as a screaming sense of warning jolted through his veins and dragged him back to the present. He cast out his magic hyperagonally, reaching out to the ambient magicka that surrounded them, searching it without rhyme or reason, trying to find patterns in that sea of near-primordial chaos. Usually he was good at this. Usually, he saw patterns where there might be none at all. Today though —
“I sense nothing. But if you do, then — ”
A corpse from an era long-gone.
“Necromancy.” Sharn realised it at the same time he did, wide, panicked eyes meeting the lenses of his dust-mask. “Run!”
A creak escaped from the ground, a grinding, grating sound, as if some long-shut door had been opened, some rusty, stilled joint started moving again.
Little clouds of dust began to leap towards the sky, growing larger with groan from below. His boots dragged through the ashen dust, solid ground becoming looser and looser with each step he took. Sharn cursed, sinking in to her ankles, the earth caving in below her steps. He stumbled next, their footing disintegrating faster than they could run.
Out of the depths echoed a snap, sharp and sudden, followed by another; by a third one, the squealing movement of ancient bones beneath their feet, splintering and fracturing from the pressure of soil and dust. Mamaea awakened, a giant unable to bear its own weight, a skeleton collapsing into itself, a gaping mouth to the abyss, jagged ribs jutting out like teeth.
“Hold on!” Veryn yelled, barely audible through the dust blasting his mask. Grasping Sharn’s arm, he drew on his magic without care, lifting up the both of them in flight. A brief distance was all he needed, a few more paces, and they’d make it to more solid rock. Caius must be out there somewhere, obscured by the same storm that proved his undoing.
The wind screeched and howled and hummed, resonating with the beat of a thousand scarab wings. It ripped at his clothes and armour and tore at Sharns limbs, wresting them off balance. His magic fizzled, unable to keep two people airborne for long, leaving him only one way.
Down.
Is anyone actually interested in reading my fic, and if so, should I post some WIP previews of if?
Yes I'm interested in reading it, and you should post previews of it.
No I'm not interested in reading it, but you should post previews of it.
Yes I'm interested in reading it, but you shouldn't post previews of it.
No I'm not interested in reading it, and you shouldn't post any previews of it.
Results / I'm bald
Voting ended onMar 26
Premise below:
When Twin Lamps member Ayleth Neribael falls into the hands of the most notorious slaver on Vvardenfell, Orvas Dren, she makes a deal with him to save the life of a friend. A deal that shifts her life irrevocably from abolitionist to the top of the very insitution that she has sworn to oppose. A deal that forces her to confront her past whilst building her future alongside a man she is supposed to hate—but soon finds herself unable to do so.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
It didn't take long at all for Nerevar's throat to start working properly.
His next words all seemed to be Chimeri curses - words her father (Voryn, Voryn, she kept trying to remember) scolded him for speaking in front of Haj-deek - and he didn't quite stop fussing until he had a robe on.
"I'm going out to--"
"You're not going anywhere," Voryn said, having to support Nerevar when the man stumbled over his own feet. "You won't be fit to walk anywhere for some time."
"And we have to talk to Vivec, about...about, you know..."
"I do not CARE," Nerevar huffed, "What Vivec has to say. Blast him. Blast him to Oblivion and back."
"Well the Dagoths can't be a house again without him, so we've got to play along." Haj-deek quieted down after that outburst. There was a certain discomfort she felt on looking directly at Nerevar, at meeting those blue eyes. Something about the process of looking that felt...wrong.
Nerevar, still struggling to stand on his own two feet, accepted both her help and her father's to get back up the ramp to the previous chamber. "If I had my way, that two faced bastard would be split literally down the middle...I have things to DO, and I don't want to waste time with..."
"We just have to play the game for a bit, and then you can...what were you going to do?"
"Look for my--your mother. Or go after her, I know where she is."
"You--how do you know?" Voryn burst out.
"Because I've spent the last...I don't know how long, time tends to run together when you don't talk to anyone else or even leave the cave..." Nerevar shook his head. "Months, I'll say, with her."
"How?" Haj-deek asked, "What's she like?"
"Lonely, and because as a ghost I had to be attached to an incarnate...the point is, is that I don't have time to waste pissing around with whatever it is Vivec has cooked up, not when one of the last things Dara," Nerevar corrected himself, "Sadara said was that she still wasn't sure I was real but she was glad I was there even if I wasn't. She thinks herself mad, because she can't account for company any other way. She needs to be found, and soon."
"I could go after her," Haj-deek said.
"I don't think you'd do," Nerevar replied, "Not that she'd harm you, but I don't think she'd believe you were real either. It has to be me."
"Or me. Where is she?" Voryn asked.
They were standing in front of the door now, and Haj-deek went to turn the crank to open it.
"Mausur Caverns, it's near Vemynal, old ebony mine that was too dangerous. There's going to be ice everywhere - she blocked up the door with it."
"Why would she block up the door if she was lonely?" Haj-deek asked.
At that point, the door opened. Vivec and Nerevar made eye contact.
In an instant Nerevar was on Vivec, looping one around around his shoulders to stay steady as his opposite fist repeatedly struck Vivec's nose to bloody itself over and over again.
For a few seconds everyone was either too stunned to react or (in Voryn's case) too satisfied to interfere.
"You want to rewrite history, you scum-sucking son of a mudcrab?" Nerevar shouted, not letting up for an instant. "Huh? I suppose next you want me to get down on my knees and suck your--"
"Nerevar!" Voryn burst out. He finally pulled Nerevar off Vivec, who hadn't put up much of a fight, and was currently healing the nose that looked like it had broken.
"Are you done?" Vivec asked, after he wiped away yet more blood, while Martin came forward to give him a cloth to do it with. "I will let you do that again later, but we've got a lot of work to do and less time to do it in. Your wife's body to get out of here, for example."
"Til death do us part, and now we've both died once." Nerevar crossed his arms. "Give me any reason I should go along with this plan you've clearly concocted to take advantage of everything."
"Because if you don't, I lose my power, Baar Dau falls, and Morrowind undergoes destruction that would impress even the Sload at the height of the Thrassian Plague. House Indoril, House Hlaalu, House Dres, all gone, attainted beyond repair. Red Mountain erupts, and--"
"That's a fine story. I suppose next you're going to tell me this guy's secretly Akatosh?" Nerevar gestured in Martin's direction.
"Can we PLEASE get back on track?"
Nerevar's brow only seemed to furrow further.
"How do we explain me AND Nerevar, though, if you're saying I'm the Hortator reborn that...whatever you were saying? It's a lie."
"Everything he says is--"
"As I was trying to say." Vivec tucked the bloodied cloth away, "We all knowing I'm lying, the point is to make the rest of Morrowind believe it. 'The Nerevarine could be born only from the greatest of wounds, and that is why we chastised the false incarnates, for we knew their claims to be the opposite of truth, whose claims would not come loud but gentle as a newborn guar. From darkness the Hortator Incarnate came, bearing sins of...'"
He trailed off.
"You get the idea, I'm certain, but the plan is to end it with your coming from the void-wound to 'witness the penance of the Tribunal failing the Hortator's people, saved only by the Incarnate who banished the stain from the dreamsleeve.'"
"People really believe this tripe?"
"They believe it and come back for more," Haj-deek said. "He could tell them anything."
"Fine," Nerevar somewhat unexpectedly seemed to calm down. "I'll play along, for now. I suppose we'll need each other, considering Azura..."
He cleared his throat.
"I want my Dara's ashes."
"You could've saved a lot of trouble if you'd just asked that first," Vivec replied. Then he looked at Haj-deek, "What was it you called that thing they kept her ashes in?"
"Her treasure box," Haj-deek said.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Nerever grumbled. He let himself lean on Voryn now.
"Just wait."
Vivec looked up, mumbled some letters and numbers under his breath--
--and then suddenly, right at his feet, was the same old small wooden chest Haj-deek remembered. False gold corners seeming greener all the time with age.
"There. Now if you will give me a few hours of your time, you can do whatever you want with them."
A pause. Haj-deek bent over the chest, opened it, noted all the little offerings she'd made to the ash.
"It's the right chest. I remember these pearls..."
"So he can just spawn things out of nowhere now?" Nerevar piped up again, "Maybe spawn me some potion to fix my legs."
"That's normal when you're--awakened," Voryn finally spoke. "The body is weak for a period, it's perfectly normal and wears off within a week."
"I am not waiting a week to go after her!" Nerevar barked. "The few hours Vehk wants is bad enough. Voryn, YOU are going after her, and I swear on A--on the Heart itself, if anything happens..."
"Should I write any of this down?" Martin asked quietly.
"You aren't writing any of this down," came Vivec's stern reply.
----------------------------
The game was started.
It was arranged that Vivec and Martin should emerge first, carrying the body of Almalexia, followed soon after by Haj-deek, on whom Nerevar would be leaning. And once the buoyant armigers had the situation sufficiently explained to them - or at least when Vivec had delivered his prepared speech - only then would Voryn appear.
"The Sharmat's reign of terror is ended," Vivec said, "At the cost of Mother Morrowind, and by her mercy, but in the wound of that defeat came forth the Hortator."
And Nerevar, for all his protests before, played his part well.
"I come from the void, with whom I have done battle since the Beginning," he said. That had not been in the prepared script, but it fit in well enough to make the Buoyant Armigers believe the lie utterly. He would not require healing, only rest, in the place which now knew peace.
"But what of the Ghostfence, then?" one bright spark happened to ask.
"It shall be maintained until such point as all the lost souls within are made well. And then - then, you shall all have rest."
The idea of laying down their duties was baffling, but they swallowed that idea as well.
A covered litter was arranged that would carry Almalexia's body to Ald'ruhn, where it would stay for a period to allow worshipers to make offerings in thanks of Almalexia's sacrifice. Vivec would have it moved to Mournhold at some point or the other, as that was where Mother Morrowind had made her home, and thus it was justified that that was where her body should rest for all time.
But before that, he must make a return pilgrimage to Red Mountain.
"What of the mountain?" another armiger asked, casting a doubtful look at Voryn.
"The territory of the newly revived House Dagoth," Vivec replied, "The blight is washed away, but this will ease the transition, if they are not to begin mingling with the rest of Morrowind right away. They must be given time to make themselves appropriate to appear in society, and Nerevar would be there to ground Lord Dagoth in the present, instead of the void-past he lived in for these past centuries."
Voryn finally spoke. "And changed as I am, I am not a spectacle for the masses to be gawked at before my time is ready."
So here, there was a parting. As the buoyant armigers began to move away, Vivec replied that he would reappear in a week's time to renew his and Sotha Sil's links to the Heart's power.
"How are you going to restore his body? He's basically rat food right now."
"Child's play for a god." Vivec replied, "And power I can spare now I know there will be more to replace it."
Vivec smirked. Nerevar, Voryn, and Martin groaned.
The dovahfly would follow Martin then, as he followed Vivec. Nerevar, Haj-deek, and Voryn were left behind.
"Well," Nerevar said, "Now you have to haul my crippled ass all the way back to the volcano, Voryn. And then YOU are going to go after--"
"Yes, yes, I know, Nerevar. Settle down. We'll--it's going to be fine."
It would all be right now, if they could but see it through.
--------------------------------
On the way back, Nerevar would give the story he hadn't had time to fully do so up til this point: that he had spoken to Sadara just as she was about to walk into the Ghostfence, had managed to manifest in a ghostly fashion to speak to her. To give her the only approximation of touch that they could both manage. And then...something had happened.
Locked away in that cave, with naught but one another to speak to, and only despair waiting outside, he had found such beauty in the struggling strength she had managed to carry on for so long. Had seen it bolstered by his presence, had managed to prompt a litany of smiles that lit up even that hopeless, icy darkness.
He hadn't felt that bloom in his chest since long before he died.
Voryn was quiet when Nerevar spoke of this, yet seemed to understand how it had happened. Haj-deek saw - something like grief, that disappeared behind a genial mask as he congratulated Nerevar for managing what he could not, and that it would be his again, once both spirit and body were reunited. The ashes would not knit without a soul present - there had been a severing that Azura had managed, that required Sadara's presence to mend.
And so Voryn went off, out of Dagoth Ur, past Vemynal, down a dismal looking canyon that was miserable even in the sunlight, to say nothing of the cliffracers with no brains that attacked him. The rickety mine door that came ahead was just as he'd been told - covered in and blocked by ice, which took a solid minute's worth of a fire spell to melt away.
He entered the cave. As Nerevar had said, there was ice nearly everywhere - and where there was not ice, there was water, and life springing up around it. Luminous mushrooms, rats drinking from puddles...
...and far ahead, the sound of laughter. He trudged onward, trying not to slip, until he found, near the lava, a shimmering presence. In its arms, a rat.
"You have no mind at all, do you, little one?"
The voice was soft, warm, and yet...somehow empty, too.
"You cannot simply jump mindlessly around lava, it will devour you."
Squeaking. Wriggling, from that wretched creature in the half-invisible arms.
"Sadara?" he finally spoke.
Voryn expected nearly anything except what she actually said.
"You aren't real."
She went back to cooing over the rat.
"I AM real."
"Dagoth Ur does not leave his cavern," she said, still not looking at him directly. "Even Nerevar knew that."
"Nerevar is awake now," he said, a little firmer now, "You can see him again, too."
"He'll be along at some point, I'm sure. When my mind needs company again. I've never seen you before, which is only proof that..."
"Sadara, please."
A stop.
"Turn around and look at me, if nothing else."
"If--if I do, you'll vanish. Everything does here, except my rats." She sounded - hopeful, but fearful. Too afraid to look. "Even Azura abandoned mocking me, if she was ever speaking to me to begin with."
"I am not going anywhere."
He swallowed. The weight of - all of it, seemed nothing to this in comparison. The rest of it was well, the rest of it was fixed, but this...her...
"Please."
When she looked, he extended a hand, and looked her in the eye.
"Come back with me, if for no other reason than to see our daughter."
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Nerevarine & Vivec (Elder Scrolls), Nerevarine & Almalexia, Dagoth Ur & Nerevarine
Characters: Nerevarine (Elder Scrolls)
Additional Tags: Reincarnation, New Starts, Questions, Ambiguity, Morrowind Main Quest, Canonical Character Death, POV Second Person, gender-ambiguous Nerevarine
Summary:
Driven to learn who Nerevar was - not only what he did - the Nerevarine asks a lot of questions. Answers are difficult to find.
---
Wrote this for the 2026 Spring Renewal Prompt Fest. Kind of also turned into a commentary on trying to characterize Nerevar from the sources we have as I wrote it.
It Does Not Do To Dwell on That Which Can No Longer Be Overwritten
https://archiveofourown.org/works/64371652
A prompt from Jinumon, which has taken me months, because it is so weird. (:
Thank you, as always, for the shenanigans.
The Prompt:
First person, weirdly omniscient as if the PC is still playing the game all these years, and the Nerevarine (Teldryn Sero) is their character.
Solstheim isn’t the place I’d have willingly chosen to stick around for all this time, but it is run down enough for my purposes. I can lay low—though as the years drag on, I am more inclined to move my feet than I used to. Not that I couldn’t just leave— glitch out of the world and into some dark spaces between this realm and the next, unknown to most. Wouldn’t that be neat? It has happened before. Part of me wants to, to be sure, but by my path and schedule I am bound for now. That was the agreement, if I wanted to stay—and stay I did. There’s an itch, however, that I can’t explain—a weird nostalgia for places I’d visited long ago or events that have become scant footnotes of history in the lives of people around me these days. Such is the way of things, I suppose, waiting between one entry in the series and the next—and the next and the next. I doubt if that itch will ever leave me.
The town declines as shipments become affected by the Civil War. Patrons—only the townsfolk now—complain of the weather or similar pains after working the ebony mines or their merchant stalls. Tourists are few and far between, and have been for time out of mind. Here in the dusty foyer of the Retching Netch, the paper lanterns burn dim in the ashen darkness. As they sway in the wind of customers entering and exiting this…fine establishment…reflected light skids across polished and lacquered tabletops. I hear the sound of the innkeep pouring sujamma after sujamma, clay vessels clinking together in unseen faux-revelry I am not a part of. Whenever the door opens, chill air and the echo of a forlorn silt strider creep in. Each day is the same, and each day I sit with my back against the wall, face turned toward the front door. -> Read the rest on Ao3!
Or me wanting to make a render themed for a fic. Also promoting it again...because I can....and then song inspo um.... extra shite under a cut and all that.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
You guys remember Falura, the slave girl who the Nerevarine has to find as a bride for an Ashlander chieftain? I love her and have decided she and my Nerevarine, Sylvie, are besties. So I have written about them.
(Tagging @bravelittlescrib for being foolish enough to encourage me)
--
Life in the Ashlander camp was far from luxurious, but Falura had grown to love it. She loved the warm, cozy interior of her yurt; loved the children tossing their guar-hide balls back and forth on sunny days; even loved her new husband the chieftain, who was rather pompous but at heart a very kind man. It wasn't the easiest of lives, but it was far better than slavery.
The Zainab camp was remote, without much excitement save for wild animals and storms, and Falura was prepared to spend the rest of her life settling village disputes, raising children, and never being surprised.
Until Sylvie came back.
It had been months since Falura had seen the red-haired wood-elf- and back then, Sylvie hadn't yet been the legendary Nerevarine, the hero of the province. She'd been a scruffy adventurer desperate to prove herself as the fulfillment of all those ancient prophecies.
Still, she had delivered Falura out of slavery and into her peaceful new life, and in doing so had established herself in Falura's mind as the greatest hero of the era. Since then, Sylvie had slain the evil Dagoth Ur and become beloved by all... and yet here she was, back in Kaushan and Falura's yurt, behaving as though nothing had changed at all.
"Falura, Kaushan, darlings," Sylvie said, plopping down on one of the bedrolls. "It's been too long, hasn't it? You have no idea how much I've missed you. I can see things are going well here- I always knew you two would be a wonderful couple."
"Always an honor, Nerevarine," Kaushad said, with gruff fondness. "Can't say I thought we would see you again."
"After all the help you gave me? Why, they couldn't keep me away. And Falura and I grew so close on our journey that I simply had to check on her."
"So... what have you been up to since your great adventure?" Falura asked hesitantly. Great adventure was putting it mildly, but Falura didn't quite feel up to saying since you killed the devil.
"Oh, I've been here and there," Sylvie replied. "Traveling, exploring. Been spending quite a bit of time in Mournhold lately."
"And what's in Mournhold?"
"Shopping, mainly. And doing a bit of work for the royals," Sylvie said vaguely. "But mainly the shopping. The clothiers there are fabulous."
She dragged out the a in the last word: f-aaa-bulous. Falura was never quite sure if Sylvie's posh accent was real or affected. She'd asked once, to which the Nerevarine had responded: "Darling, you think I know? I have no memory of my education."
(Sometimes, Falura wondered if Sylvie's amnesia was somewhat affected as well. Being a polite lady, she had never asked.)
(Nor did she ask about Sylvie's new scars, none of which could have come from shopping.)
"But never mind me," said Sylvie, after a brief pause. "In fact, I came here to see if you'd like to go to the theater."
"The theater," Falura repeated slowly.
"In Vivec, specifically. Apparently Crassius Curio- he's a Hlaalu lord, you won't know him- has written a play about little old me," said Sylvie, as though all of this was perfectly normal. "He's an old friend, sort of, and I felt I simply had to support him. The play's called Saint Sylvie Moon-and-Star, which apparently some people find sacrilegious, but knowing Crassius it'll simply be ridiculous."
"It does sound like fun," said Falura hesitantly. "But it's quite a long journey, and I hate to leave my husband..." She cast a questioning glance at Kaushad, who looked highly amused.
"Oh, go on, old girl," he said. "No harm in your having an adventure now and again. Go show those Vivec snobs we've got style in the Ashlands as well."
Sylvie clapped her hands together delightedly. "It's settled, then," she declared. "This is going to be such fun!"
--
Saint Sylvie Moon-and-Star was to be performed in Vivec's newly-constructed theater, established in the Hlaalu canton by Lord Curio himself. It was by far the grandest building Falura had ever been in, and as she and Sylvie settled into their plush red seats, she was torn between awe and homesickness.
The curtain rose on a mock prison cell, where the heroine languished on a bed waiting to be freed. The actress playing Sylvie was rather shorter and plumper than the Nerevarine herself, but she'd managed the iconic hairstyle: short, red, dramatically flipped up at the ends.
"That's got to be a wig," Sylvie murmured. "Still, it's a nice one, so I'm not offended."
All seemed well for the first hour of the play, as Player-Sylvie fought ancestral ghosts and charmed ancient wizards. The mood changed abruptly, though, when Player-Sylvie encountered Adamantius Hlasko, a licentious nobleman whose vote was necessary for Sylvie to become Hortator.
"And how, my sweet blossom, do I know you're worthy of being our Hortator?" Adamantius asked Player-Sylvie, who seemed smitten with him. "Such a delicate creature as yourself may not be up for such a hard task."
"Why, sir, you underestimate me," said Player-Sylvie. "Just on the way here I slew ten ghosts and six bone-lords!"
"You know," said Adamantius, "some call me the bone-lord."
Player-Sylvie giggled and blushed. "And why do they call you that, sir?"
"Ah, my little duckling," Adamantius replied with a leer, running a finger down player-Sylvie's cheek. "If you wish to become Hortator, I would be more than happy to show you."
Falura let out a shocked laugh, which she cut short at the sound of an irritated huff next to her.
"I am going to kill that man," Sylvie growled, her accent suddenly sounding much less posh.
"I assume that's not what really happened?" Falura asked cautiously.
"Of course not! That son of a blighted rat, doesn't he know I have a reputation to uphold? It was bad enough that Crassius insisted I kiss him in exchange for his vote. If people thought I seduced my way into becoming Hortator..." Noticing annoyed looks coming from nearby spectators, Sylvie let out a quiet noise of frustration and shook her head. "Never fear, Falura, I will be avenged."
--
The play came to a close an hour later, the curtain closing to thunderous applause. Sylvie seemed to have perked up by the play's ending, which depicted her slaying the villainous Dagoth Ur after cheerfully saying "So long, darling! No one's going to miss that hideous mask."
"I don't think I did say that in real life- I was much too frightened," she'd confessed in a whisper. "But I would have if I'd had my wits about me."
As the curtain fell, Falura wondered if Sylvie had forgotten her vow of revenge. She received her answer when a man, barrel-chested and brown-bearded, raced up to the two women in the theater's lobby.
"Crassius," Sylvie said with a tight smile. "Well, well. How very nice."
"Sylvie, dumpling!" Crassius exclaimed. "How delightful that you could come to our little play. I did try to stay as true to your marvelous story as possible..." He was cut off with a loud thwack, as Sylvie's Wraithguard-gloved fist met his cheek.
"Splendid writing as always, Crassius dear," Sylvie said with a bright smile, while Crassius was still groaning in pain. "Care to get dinner, Falura?"
