Chapter Text
It was Lucia who finally broke the silence. "Then what?"
"'Then what?' Pfft." Sero's acid-etched tones resurfaced in his voice. "Nothing more to it. That's where the story ends."
"Nuh-uh," Talen interjected, eternally precocious and tone-deaf. "Because later the Nerevarine -- "
"Oh, yes. The Incarnate appears from behind a bush, the Devil Dagoth Ur and the Sixth House are redeemed through death, and with them, the Tribunal." Teldryn's affect was now suffused with the deliberate theatricality of the cynic; his voice the same as ever. "And then the world goes to hell, or to paraphrase the Thalmor, continues to be hell."
"A hard thing for the Ordinator," Ghorbash said unexpectedly, gruff demeanor betraying no emotion. "If he survived those years, anyway."
"Pity him if he did. It would be a hard thing to outlive one's gods." The masked face turned towards the fire, its light reflecting off the goggles and giving Sero an otherworldly look, as though the sun shone behind his eyes. "Then again, pity those gods. I suspect sainthood's only worth aspiring to if you were only ever mortal."
Sadri found his lips oddly dry, and quickly wetted them with flin.
"Besides," the spellsword continued, "Indoril fallen, Oblivion loosed, the slaves revenged, the Mountain broken -- can't think anyone would bother to go on living after all that; I wouldn't. Better if our brave Ordinator died doing something doomed and noble, don't you think? Or better that we don't know. Stories are interesting -- histories, well." He jerked his head in Sonir's direction. "Who'd be a historian when you could be a bard?"
"I'm going to be a bard," declared Runa. "I can sing really loud!"
"That's most of it," Teldryn said drily, rising from his seat by the fire. "That, and knowing how to treat venereal diseases. Well, I'm turning in. Good night, Muthserai. The ending of the words is ALMSIVI."
"It was a story," Revyn repeated. "Just that. A bit of nonsense to keep the children from accusing him of being the Nerevarine."
Vanthis -- half-asleep -- turned from the wall to face him in bed. "Just what I said. A story. He loves keeping people on their toes; he fitted what we knew of him to a joke. A good gift to puzzle over, anyway."
"Because -- "
"It couldn't be." She yawned. "Trust me, I've heard him swear on the Good Daedra every time he draws sword; it's no more likely than him being the Nerevarine after all."
"Not an Ordinator. Never." He shifted under the covers. "I mean, a Buoyant Armiger, if anything; he has the look -- actually, now that I think about it -- Vanthis, what if -- "
"It's nothing." Silence prevailed for a time, and then he heard her laugh quietly. "Just remembered something he said, years ago. Barmaid was throwing herself at him; he turned her down. Said he was doomed to pine after a married woman who already had a lover." Her familiar cackle subsided. "Silly wench thought he was talking about me."
Revyn followed the sound of his mother's voice back out to the waking world, aware of a bright shaft of light falling across their bed. He lay there for a long moment, letting his dreams settle back into ash before glancing over at Vanthis, still asleep. This was a rare enough sight that he remained where he was for some time longer, until he heard someone moving downstairs.
Valdimar was still snoring in the hall chair, and Ghorbash was building the morning fire. "Thought I might start on dishes," he explained, gesturing to the remnants of the previous night's meal. "He left, by the way. Lucia saw him out."
"Really?" Sadri glanced about, hit by the suspicion that something else was missing.
Ghorbash nodded. "Told her to turn back before Ustengrav." He disappeared into the back room.
There were staves in the entryway that were just as useful for walking as for personal defense, and Revyn grabbed the one imbued with ice magic that was light and sat well in the hand. The day outside was bright, with a promise of warmer days in the air. Unhurriedly, he followed the path that led through the woods, noting how mud still remained in broad patches of the trail and how two sets of footprints -- and a series of other strange marks -- dotted their surface. Green shoots pushed up through the last remnants of snow, and little birds sang fiercely at each other while flitting between the budding trees.
Morrowind had never been like this, he reflected, nor had Windhelm. Worlds apart from anything he would have imagined, and yet somehow, home. He fell into deep thought, roused only by the faint emergence of a different kind of song.
"Luhn-silvar, hortator, Azura'm gah'amer . . ." the voice warbled, light and childlike, though perhaps on the cusp of something else. Lucia came into sight around a bend in the road, her face made bright by the sun, and thoughtful.
"Osuhn almese sut ohm yalif sul devahr . . . hello, little love." Revyn shifted the staff to his other hand so that she could walk beside him more easily. "Where's the Damned Contraption?"
Lucia shrugged. "I sent it off with Uncle Sero so he wouldn't have to walk alone. He says he'll leave it in the shop, for the next time you're in Windhelm?" She was toying with something around her neck, which her father recognized after a moment of scrutiny.
"There aren't many of those left, anymore," he said of the ghartok pendant.
"I know."
"You should take good care of it."
"I will."