The trek from Maar Gan, traveling the treacherous Foyada Bani-Dad up to the northern ashlands of Vvardenfell, was long and arduous, and cliff racers hounded Ku-vastei like flies. Some she could swat away; others, the truly hungry, she had to impale on her spear. She found that a quick swipe, her hands on the far end of the haft for extra reach, could rip open one of their wings. From there, finishing off the creature was a simple task, albeit annoying. She ended up covered in their black blood, staining her robes.
Once she found a gap in the Foyada’s eastern peaks, she found herself in a wide grey expanse of ash and dust. It was different from the ashlands near Ald’ruhn, and the hell-pits of Molag Amur. The air was calm, the atmosphere tranquil. Her scaled feet sank comfortably into the bed of ash, squeezing in between her clawed toes like sand. It seemed like the northern winds from the Sea of Ghosts kept away the ashstorms, and for this, she was immensely glad.
Ku-vastei could see nearby along the coast the distinctive shapes and spires of a Daedric ruin. None of the guides she consulted in Maar Gan mentioned this; she hadn’t thought to prepare for fighting Daedra. She gave it a wide berth as she traveled parallel to the shore, seeking the Urshilaku camp.
She caught the scent of the smoke before she saw it rising into the night sky, obscuring the stars. Tentatively she approached; eventually she saw the source casting warm light on patchwork guar and kagouti hides, silhouettes dancing like a shadowplay against their canvas.
The camp was small. She counted maybe twenty round tents erected around a smoothed plot of ashland, each scarcely adorned with hints of color in small tapestries and hanging rugs. A large silt strider shell, greyed from its many years of disuse, seemed to anchor the little village; a nearby small well surrounded by short black spires of igneous rock centered the huts around it.
Ku-vastei realized she was being watched. A nearby Ashlander had stopped in his tracks, staring at her without expression.
“Hail,” said Ku-vastei, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
The Dunmer only grunted in response, his red eyes still trained on her scales.
Most other times, Ku-vastei might have taken offense. But way out here, in the middle of nowhere, she doubted this Dunmer had ever seen an Argonian in his life – maybe not even heard of such a person. She tried again. “Hail. I wish to speak to your…leader. Ashkhan. And your Wise Woman.”
The Ashlander scoffed. “And who are you,” he said, his voice somehow even more gravelly than the typical Vvardenfeller, “that you should ask for an audience with the great Sul-Matuul?” He spoke Dunmeris well enough, but it was clearly not his first language, judging by his intonation.
“I am Ku-vastei. I wish to learn about the Nerevarine prophecies.”
“You are an outlander,” corrected the Ashlander, “and not of the Velothi, much less our tribe. You will not receive audience.”
Ku-vastei’s tail swept through the ash behind her angrily. The Ashlander noticed, but didn’t seem to understand, his tired gaze unchanging. He began to turn around.
Ku-vastei took a deep breath to calm herself, and thought back to what Hassour had told her in Ald’ruhn about Ashlander customs. “Wait,” she said, calling back to the Ashlander as he started to walk away. He turned back. “Muthsera,” Ku-vastei said, “is there anything I can do for you? Is there something I could give to you, to earn your respect?”
The Ashlander cocked an eyebrow. “Hm. Maybe you do know our ways.” He paused to think for a moment. “Trama root. I need some for brewing Rising Force. I hunt in the foyada to the west for our tribe. It helps me to take flight to chase the racers when they flee.”
Ku-vastei reflected on her inventory, and begged for a moment from the Ashlander. She swung her pack from her shoulders, set it in the ash, and began to dig through her belongings. Eventually she pulled from it a nub of trama root, wrapped in paper to keep it from reacting with her other ingredients, and offered it to the hunter. “This will help you. I offer it freely, as a gift, muthsera.”
The hunter took the parcel and unfolded the paper to inspect the sample. “Yes, this will do. A large root, too. I can make several potions from just this.”
The camp was silent for a moment, its other denizens asleep, as the hunter quietly pocketed the trama root. Ku-vastei was unsure it had worked, and nearly spoke again, but the hunter cut her off. “Zabamund. You will speak with him, with my blessing. He is gulakhan, and the closest to Sul-Matuul. You can try to convince him to give you his blessing to speak with the ashkhan. Make sure to tell Zabamund that Shabinbael sent you. That is my name, and he will know it.”
“Where can I find Zabamund?”
“The ashkhan and gulakhan yurts are five yurts under one canopy, with Sul-Matuul’s at the center. The yurt to the right of his is Zabamund’s.”
Ku-vastei nodded, and said, “Thank you, muthsera.” Begrudgingly, she decided to add, “Blessings of Azura upon you.”
Never in the entire exchange did Shabinbael’s expression change, and it did not now. “Hmph,” he grumbled, before disappearing into a nearby tent.
Ku-vastei clasped her pack and returned it to her back, taking note of the nearby tents – “yurts,” Shabinbael called them – as she did. She took her small journal from a pocket in her robes, and jotted something down with her charcoal pencil about the layout of the camp before closing the book and pocketing it again. Then she headed for the largest complex of yurts, which housed the ashkhan and his gulakhans. Following Shabinbael’s directions, she cautiously entered the yurt right-of-center.
It was clearly the abode of a warrior. Chitin weapons and beast trophies hung from the kagouti-skin walls, leaning inwards towards the fire like individual threats. It put Ku-vastei’s tail on edge, as if she were personally under attack.
Zabamund sat behind the fire, every inch of his body covered with chitin armor, his war-axe laying by his side inches from his resting hands. His eyes burned like burning coals, piercing the hearth’s flame, and Ku-vastei’s face.
“Outlander,” he spoke, his voice low and threatening. “Why do you think it proper to enter my home, during my time of rest?”
Ku-vastei set her jaw tight, the words barely passing through her teeth: “I am Ku-vastei, sent by Shabinbael. I wish to learn of the Nerevarine prophecies from your ashkhan and wise woman.”
Zabamund did not move; only the dancing of the flame, and the fluttering of the shadows of weapons and trophies on the walls. “And why should Sul-Matuul or Nibani Maesa speak with you on these things? Who are you, that they should trust you?”
Ku-vastei nearly rolled her eyes before catching herself. This old song and dance, again. She considered digging out her coinpurse, but she changed her mind with a glance at Zabamund’s war-axe, the only weapon in the room not flickering in the light. “I will fight you for the honor of Sul-Matuul’s ear. To the death, if need be, but I see you are an honorable man, of great accomplishment, and it would be a pity for your tribe to lose you.”
All was silent save the crackling of flame for a scant moment. But then a surprising thing happened, which caught Ku-vastei off-guard: Zabamund smiled, his teeth shining through the rising fire. “You are not an unworthy opponent,” he said. “I hear honor in your words, and courage in your heart. I would regret killing you. But regret even more should you kill me.” He paused a moment, considering carefully. “Very well. Perhaps Sul-Matuul will be angry with me. But I think I can bear that. Go to the ashkhan's yurt and speak with Sul-Matuul. Ask him your questions, and tell him I have sent you.”
Ku-vastei bowed, and ducked out of the tent. The warm light from the gulakhan’s hearthfire flickered away to nothing with each rhythmic shutter of the door-flap until it fell closed completely.
She turned one yurt to the left, towards Sul-Matuul’s tent. She took a deep breath of the cold night air before pushing the door-flap aside to enter.
The ashkhan’s walls were not covered with weapons, nor hunting- and war-trophies. They seemed bare at first, but then Ku-vastei slowly noticed they were lined with hanging scrolls, their strange lettering faint in the dim candlelight. The space was warm despite the lack of a true fire. Sul-Matuul stood stoic facing one such scroll, his eyes racing down its lines of script.
Ku-vastei made to speak, but Sul-Matuul spoke first. “My champion Zabamund has sent you. This is good. You wish to speak with me about the Nerevarine prophecies.” He turned his head towards Ku-vastei, still standing in the open door-flap. “Come in…Argonian. We may discuss this only in private.”
Ku-vastei couldn’t tell through his Velothi accent whether the tone of “Argonian” betrayed bigotry, or merely neutral surprise. Nevertheless she finished entering, letting the flap fall closed behind her. “Sul-Matuul,” she said, “I am Ku-vastei. I come to you and your people to learn of these prophecies.” She hesitated a moment before adding, “I believe I may fulfill them.”
Sul-Matuul scoffed. “You are an outlander. You are not Urshilaku; you are not Velothi; you are not even Dunmer. You are a fool for believing this, and anyone would be a fool to believe you.”
Ku-vastei’s tail swung viciously, audibly hitting the yurt’s door-flap with a slap. Her jaw barely opening, she hissed, “Test me against the prophecies. Test me by truth, not by assumption. By my claws, not by my scales.”
A flash in Sul-Matuul’s eyes suggested both fury and laughter at the same time. “You are a bold fool, then. No outlander can join the Nerevarine cult.” He scratched under his chin. “But if one were adopted to the tribe as Clanfriend…”
“How must I do this?”
Sul-Matuul finally turned to face Ku-vastei directly. “I have an initiation rite in mind. A harrowing. In a harrowing, you will be judged by the spirits and ancestors to see if you are worthy.” He stepped towards Ku-vastei. “Go to the Urshilaku Burial Caverns. Fetch me Sul-Senipul’s Bonebiter Bow. Sul-Senipul was my father, and his spirit yet defends the caverns, and his bow. Enter deep within the caverns and seek out this artifact. Do not return to me without it.”
“How may I find this place?”
“Ask one of our hunters. Seek Shabinbael. He knows the region well.”
Ku-vastei nodded, and with nothing left to say, she left.
- - -
By the same time the next evening, Ku-vastei had returned. Exhausted, she barged into Sul-Matuul’s yurt without caution. “Sul-Matuul,” she said. “I bring you your father’s bow.” She grasped its taut chitin length tightly in her claws.
(Sul-Senipul’s bow was not the only thing Ku-vastei claimed from the Burial Caverns to make the adventure worth all the trouble. Among the honored dead she found a staff she knew would prove beneficial to her career with the Mage’s Guild, an enchanted helm of the Telvanni Dust Adepts, a magical glass greatsword, and a poison-tipped silver spear. These she concealed in the ash nearby the Urshilaku camp to retrieve later; another item, a Dreugh-shell cuirass, she wore concealed under her robes.)
Sul-Matuul was sitting against one of the walls, his head lowered either in repose or meditation, she could not tell. He raised his bright red eyes to see. “You return, covered in bone dust and ectoplasm. Interesting. And with the Bonebiter. Bring it here.”
Ku-vastei did as bidden, stepping forward to offer the bow. As she extended her hands towards Sul-Matuul, she noticed some kind of resistance or friction, as if her arms were unwilling to give it away. A curse on the bow, as some kind of final challenge? No, she thought, as she focused her eyes. Sul-Matuul had a vague violet aura about him. Some kind of Shield, either freshly applied in suspicion of her intent, or else a paranoid perpetual one on his person.
Regardless, she forced the bow into Sul-Matuul’s hands and quickly retracted her arms from the Shield. The Ashkhan inspected the bow, his hands tenderly running down its length, fingers testing the tautness of the string. “Yes,” he said. “It is dusty, but in good shape. Sul-Senipul has maintained it, all these years, even in death.” He held it back out to Ku-vastei. “Here. Take it. I have no need for it.”
Ku-vastei struggled against the Shield again to retrieve the bow. “And as for your promise?”
“Yes. Somehow you completed the initiation rite.” He rose to his feet. “I name you Clanfriend of the Velothi. Respect fellow members of the Urshilaku, their health, safety, and property, and they shall respect you also.”
He walked towards the opposite wall, littered with scrolls. “Now that you are Clanfriend, I will speak plainly. I find your claim hard to believe. You are an outlander. The Nerevarine is to drive the outlanders from Morrowind. How could an outlander be the incarnate?” He turned his head back swiftly. “The Great Houses have stolen everything from us, the true Velothi, and mock us with false gods. They steal our land, and our dignity. The Nerevarine is the last hope of the Velothi to survive. No outlander will steal this hope from us.”
Ku-vastei didn’t know what to say. She knew little of the ashlanders, but what Sul-Matuul said sounded familiar. “My own people have had everything stolen from them by the Houses,” she said. “The Saxhleel have had our lands stolen, our Hist trees burned, our bodies enslaved and beaten.” She sighed. “Once, I raised an army to take back what was ours, many years ago.”
“You live,” Sul-Matuul observed, “yet clearly you failed.”
Her grip tightened on the Bonebiter, her tail straightening rigid. “I have learned much in the last twenty years. I will not fail again.”
Sul-Matuul said nothing, but nodded after a moment. “Perhaps. Go. Speak with Nibani Maesa. She will put you to the true tests.”
- - -
The wise woman's hair was intricately braided and decorated with racer plumes and glass beads. Not just glass beads, Ku-vastei realized, but glass beads, the volcanic material smoothed into small milky-green pebbles. This valuable stuff, which could have been wrought into an axe or spear for a gulakhan, was instead lovingly crafted to beautify the wise woman. This reverence humbled Ku-vastei, who remembered bringing useless but pretty stones found at the bottom of saltrice paddies to her naheesh long ago. She would sit and listen to more stories from the Marsh as her elder drilled quiet holes into them.
The sharp click of a snap stole Ku from her reverie, and she came back to the wise woman’s yurt. Nibani Maesa studied her guest’s face. “Did you hear me, outlander? You are not the Nerevarine.”
Ku-vastei blinked away surprise and grounded herself by listening to the windchimes outside. “Okay,” she said.
Nibani frowned. “‘Okay’?”
“Am I supposed to feel like the Nerevarine?” Ku’s tail swished restlessly behind her in the ash as she sat on her knees atop the rug the wise woman had laid out for her.
“Ku-vastei. You come to us, to the great Urshilaku, to our great ashkhan Sul-Matuul, and claim to be the Nerevarine.” Nibani closed her eyes and shook her head. “You even go on his suicide-quest, and return triumphant.”
Ku-vastei’s eyes widened. “Suicide-quest?”
Nibani opened her eyes again. “Never mind that. You do all this, then you meet the slightest resistance from me, of all people, and you decide you have done enough? You will forfeit your claim so easily?”
“But I’m only doing what I was told.” Ku realized how this must sound, so quickly elaborated. “I mean, I’ve been told I might be the Nerevarine. But I don’t feel like it.”
“A hero never feels like a hero,” said Nibani Maesa, pointing at Ku-vastei’s heart.
“I thought you said I wasn’t the Nerevarine?” Ku asked, her mouth not closing after the last syllable.
“Yes, I said you are not the Nerevarine. But you could yet become the Nerevarine.”
Ku-vastei clenched her jaw shut. “That makes no sense. I either am or I’m not.”
“Such is the way of prophecy. Azura rarely makes her intentions fully known all at once.”
“Azura,” Ku-vastei breathed, “Azura, Azura. I’ve had enough of Azura.”
Nibani either didn’t hear or pretended not to. “There are conditions you haven’t met. Some you have. You were born under the Steed, which is auspicious. So was Nerevar. Your parents are unknown. So were Nerevar’s.” Nibani took a sip of her trama root tea. “But as for the conditions you haven’t met, perhaps you still may. In time.”
Ku-vastei gulped down some of her own tea. Maybe this won’t have been a wasted effort after all. “What must I do to meet them?”
“Not all is known to me. Many things we Wise Women once knew have been lost. But surely, somewhere, they were written. Find the Lost Prophecies, if you can. Then I can be your guide. Until then, go. Reflect on what you have learned. And take these to study.” Nibani handed Ku-vastei the two scrolls of riddle-like prophecies she had been consulting.
Ku-vastei carefully tucked the scrolls into her bag and stood to leave. “Thank you, naheesh.”
“Nibani.”
“Yes. Sorry.” Ku-vastei didn’t realize she’d called her “naheesh.” She felt an old sense of peace and comfort around this old woman that reminded her of the matronly elder on the plantation where she was born.
“Go. Come back when you are ready.”
Ku-vastei left Nibani Maesa’s yurt, and looked up at the moons and stars above her as she stood on the intricate rug outside. She hoped this would be enough for Caius, for now.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Happy birthday, @changelingsandothernonsense!! We're BELATED but it's so worth it. Thank you for letting me write fanfic of your fanfic 😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂
This one is directly inspired by Arkanis: Teldryn and the upcoming Arkanis: Erra and ... a secret third Arkanis entry. :>
So. Morrow-fic. Sorta. Pre-Morrowind Morrowfic.
It's a little off the rails, featuring Nibani Maesa, and her Aro/Ace QPR relationship (and eventual betrothal and bonding) with Sul-Matuul, her visions, and how Peakstar came to be recognized as one of the incarnates (though, unfortunately, failed.) Also features some easter eggs for Ceth's fic universe <3
Without further ado:
Lean Into the Storm and Hope To Weather It
When earth is sundered, and skies choked black, and sleepers serve the seven curses…
Nibani Maesa shook her head, trying and failing to clear the voice of her grandmother from her ears. It had been long enough since her passing that her family’s grieving was done—yet the pitch and timbre of the raspy, ashen, elderly voice never had faded from her. It was another Sign, one she had withheld from her mother now for months. The less that was spoken on that front, the more likely her sister, Diyanna, would be considered for the sacred position of Wise Woman. This was, of course, folly to wish for. But she would let the wisest of the Urshilaku talk, and pretend they might decide otherwise. Keeping their gaze from her face brought her a semblance of peace—though Nibani knew deep down all would be uncovered eventually. She would need to step into her power sooner rather than later.
She had, after all, foreseen her mother’s death. That, too, was another Sign. It was the heaviest of them, and she had trusted it to only one other—Sul-Matuul. He was her best friend—and perhaps the only true friend she had. When one was marked by the stars as she was, there were few who would look past the perception of power bestowed by her eventual title. But Sul had known the shape of her soul since they were children. Azura knew he’d likely known her across every lifetime. She felt their connection to be a foundational truth of the universe, and had told him as much. Despite her current worries, she smiled at the memory of his response. He’d woven his fingers through hers and sighed in exasperation, only to laugh his agreement at the sentiment. He’d insisted he’d never been one for poetry, or he’d have said it himself.
Nibani was positive that in every lifetime, she’d have to be the one to proclaim such truths—and would do so again, and again.
She set down the basket she had been carrying and smoothed the stray strands of her thick, auburn braids, pulling them back over her shoulders. Sul was there across the plains, sparring with Zabamund—though she wished he wouldn’t. There was a reason Grandmother’s voice would not empty from her mind this day. It was imperative to talk about it. He would try to understand, and would remind her of her strength all the while. For now, he was preoccupied. He had a role to fill, too—he would be named Ashkhan, though the Gods only knew when. It didn’t stop his father from insisting he act as if the title was already his.
To the hearth there comes a stranger, journeyed far 'neath moon and star…
Nibani sighed and looked toward where the sun would be setting, if they were lucky enough to see such things. That there was not an ash storm and she could breathe the air was blessing enough. Sometimes—though rarely—the winds blew favorably. It was a shame for such a day to be tinged by the beginnings of what would surely become a full vision. She needed her friend for this. -> Read the rest on AO3.
