Chapter Text
Chapter 7 – The Labyrinth
Two women jogged through Riften’s Central Park beneath a brittle Frostfall sky. The morning was cold, the grass still rimmed with a thin crust of frost, and the air bit at exposed skin like playful knives. Breath plumed visibly in the chill as the pair moved along the winding path.
Serana ran with steady grace, her strides sharp and efficient. Behind her, Mae struggled to keep up, her breath ragged, arms pumping with stubborn determination but faltering rhythm.
“Work, Mae!” Serana called over her shoulder, not bothering to look back. “Living isn’t as easy as lying in a coffin doing nothing. For our kind, if you don’t work, you won’t get fat—you’ll rot.”
Mae came to a halt, doubling over with her hands on her knees as she gasped for breath. Frost curled in the air with each exhale. “Why,” she panted, “did I choose to become a sister to such a cruel and insensitive creature as you, Rannie? Slow down a little… I beg you!”
Serana, barely winded, turned just enough to flash a half-smirk. “You chose it,” she said calmly, “because after hiding for over a thousand years in the woods, sleeping under stinking, withered leaves, you finally figured out that being part of a family ranks highest on your list of values. You found me, realized I had unused feelings—reserves of care I never spent. So you decided to leverage your vulnerability and medical situation to make yourself irreplaceable.”
Mae’s eyes flew open, wide with theatrical outrage. “Rannie! You can turn the purest feelings into math! Have you ever heard of the concept of something unspoken?”
Serana laughed, a dry and unapologetic sound. “Unspoken? That’s Ann’s department, not mine.”
She gestured forward with a flick of her hand. “Now—run.”
Serana slowed her pace, just slightly. For all her sharp edges, she wasn’t truly cruel—or insensitive. Just efficient. Beside her, Mae kept jogging, her breath now more steady, cheeks flushed with exertion and life.
“Rannie…” Mae said quietly, “I’ve been thinking. From a medical standpoint, everything we’re doing—this transformation… does it make me some kind of thin-blood? I mean, the similarities are obvious.”
Serana glanced at her, eyes thoughtful behind her tinted lenses. “No,” she said after a pause. “You’re not. Thin-bloods were born alive. You’re only getting there. You still can’t return to your natural eye color, and you’d burn in the sun without shielding. The amount of Coldharbour-corrupted magicka in our bodies doesn’t decrease. We’re not purifying—we’re just… evolving. Building a body that mimics theirs.”
She gave a faint shrug. “But if simplifying it helps, or comforts you—then sure. You’re becoming some kind of thin-blood.”
Mae jogged in silence for a few strides, processing Serana’s words. The idea of becoming “some kind of thin-blood” was both strange and oddly comforting. Not quite human. Not quite vampire. Something in-between—unfinished, maybe, but not broken.
“That’s… actually kind of nice,” she said at last, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. “To be becoming something, instead of just being the leftover of someone I used to be.”
Mae looked ahead as they ran, the pale winter sun filtering through a veil of gray clouds. “Even if I’m just a mimic,” she murmured, “it still feels real.”
Serana finally slowed to a walk beside her—maybe, just maybe, even she could get tired. Or maybe she was simply listening.
“Sorry, sis,” she said, voice low but sincere. “I used the wrong word. It feels real because it is real. Your body’s on track to become medically identical to a living, mortal human - boringly alive. Not mimicking—copying. There’s a difference.”
Mae let out a short snort, half amused, half stunned. “Boringly alive” she echoed. “That’s… honestly kind of the dream.” She paused, frowning thoughtfully. “But then why aren’t we aging? Why can’t we have children? Why can’t we hibernate anymore? And why do we still go feral if we drink blood?”
Serana sighed through her nose, not annoyed—just honest. “Too many whys, Mae. And I don’t have all the answers.”
She gave Mae a side glance, one brow raised. “But you’re starting biology next year, if you actually prepare. With your informal ‘vampire medical consulting’ resume? You could do real research. Real science. You wanted purpose in your life?”
Serana extended her hand in a casual underhand toss, as if offering an invisible object. “Catch.”
Mae blinked, then laughed, catching nothing—and everything.
* * *
The light inside the Nocturnal Pub was real—Zee had dragged an electrical cable all the way from Mundus through what she described as “a creatively illegal interdimensional socket.” Now there were working ceiling lamps, soft warm LEDs above the bar, and—miraculously—reliable Wi-Fi.
Everyone was seated somewhere.
JD leaned back in an overstuffed chair near the window, scrolling lazily through a historical analysis on his tablet. He frowned occasionally, not at the text, but at how little of it lined up with what he remembered. Auri was half-asleep across a booth, one socked foot on the table, stirring her cereal with the same spoon she’d just used to threaten an uncooperative toaster. Ann sat cross-legged on the bar counter, silently watching a floating orb of coffee spin above her untouched mug.
Serana, as usual, had claimed the small dining table by the wall. She was eating something suspiciously healthy—avocado toast with radish slices arranged like flowers, a touch of lemon, and a perfectly symmetrical cup of black tea.
Mae slumped into the chair across from her, damp hair tucked behind one ear, wearing Serana’s oversized hoodie and a tank top that said Coffee First, Then Eternal Suffering.
She grabbed the giant one-liter beer mug—currently filled to the brim with orange juice—and took a dramatic, choking gulp.
“You squished me,” she croaked. “Morning jog. You squished me.”
Serana didn’t look up. “You kept falling behind. I was keeping you vertical.”
Mae coughed into her sleeve and set the mug down with a thud. “Finish this one,” she muttered. “Then I’m getting another.”
Serana didn’t even look up. “Eat something. Long trip ahead.”
Mae pulled a slice of toast from Serana’s plate without asking. “Valenwood’s fine. Just… can someone finally explain what Green-Sap actually does?”
That got Ann’s attention.
She slid off the bar in one liquid motion and walked over, like she was giving a lecture on a cloud. She leaned her elbows on the table between them and said, “Glad you asked.”
The room quieted instinctively.
“Green-Sap,” Ann began, “is the Tower of nature—not the romanticized kind, but nature in its true, terrifying complexity. It governs life not as stasis, but as constant change. Growth and death. Roots and rot. Evolution. Mutation. Decay. Repair. The molecular dance of birth, consumption, transformation.”
She plucked a radish slice off Serana’s toast and twirled it between two fingers as she spoke.
“In pure metaphysical terms, Green-Sap was the engine that kept Nirn biologically reactive. The Valenwood of the Merethic Era wasn’t just a forest—it was a neural network of living logic. Every leaf and lichen processed reality. Every root was a cable. It was responsive, aware, and self-regulating.”
Mae blinked. “So it was a… thinking forest?”
“No,” Ann said. “Thinking is too linear. It was more like… dreaming in chlorophyll. Its magic kept mortality adaptive. Without it, ecosystems still run, but less efficiently. Time wears out bodies faster. Mutation falters. Birth defects increase. Species stagnate or collapse.”
JD looked up from his tablet. “Entropy accelerates.”
Ann smiled. “Exactly.”
Mae’s brow furrowed. “So… Green-Sap is like a world-sized immune system?”
“Close. It’s a memory and repair system. Life runs wild without it, but it fractures more. Subtle, but serious. That’s why I want to see what’s left. Even if it’s just a root… it might tell us how to heal some of this.”
She waved vaguely upward, as if referencing the tangled mess of reality above them.
Serana finally finished her tea. “And we leave in an hour.”
Everyone turned at the sudden sound of quiet sobbing.
Zee sat at the edge of the room, knees pulled to her chest on a velvet ottoman, eyes wide and glittering with tears. Her lips trembled as she stared at nothing in particular, breath catching.
Serana stood. “Zee? What happened?”
Zee didn’t answer at first. She just shook her head slowly, tears sliding down her cheeks like she didn’t even notice them. Her voice cracked when she finally spoke.
“I couldn’t see it!” she whispered. “It was so close… right behind the corner…”
She sobbed again, curling her fingers into the fabric of her robe.
“Now—I see it now. I see it…”
Serana’s voice was low, urgent. “See what, Zee? What’s going to happen?”
Zee looked up, her expression shifting from awe to devastation. Her voice came like a breath ripped from her ribs.
“Too late,” Zee said. “It already happened.”
The room fell silent.
JD slowly scrolled through his tablet, his brows tightening. “I think we’re not going to Valenwood anymore,” he said quietly.
He paused, reading. The color drained from his face.
“Disturbing… Cyrodiil’s stock exchange collapsed overnight. Unemployment’s spiking. Mass suicides reported across Tamriel. Eastern Hammerfell’s under martial law.”
Ann didn’t even look up. She flicked a finger through the air, lazily dismissing some invisible thought.
“What did I tell you? If the universe can’t collect its debt in one place, it’ll just split the bill and charge everyone else.”
Zee’s voice broke. “It’s not fair. Thousands—millions—of mortals lost their lives. Or their futures. Just because a few fanatics decided one goddess needed to come back.”
She wiped at her eyes, shaking her head. “Not that I wanted to die, but it’s… it’s ugly. Even Mephala’s return wouldn’t have done this much damage.”
Auri raised a hand. “I’m still here, you know. Listening.”
Ann waved her off. “Which is why I use the tram instead of teleporting. No ripples. No fallout. Good thing is old Azura wouldn’t give a damn if half of Tamriel died.”
She looked straight at Zee, meeting her damp, furious gaze with a dry calm.
“You’re paid up, honey. World saved itsel.”
But Zee didn’t smile.
She just looked away, voice flat. “I’m not looking to the Labyrinth. Not anymore. Prophecies only make this world worse. If someone needs them—let them find another Azura.”
Ann’s expression didn’t change, but her tone softened, just a touch.
“No thank you,” she said. “One Zee is enough.”
Then she turned to the shelves behind the bar and began rummaging with a muttered: “Zee, maybe it’s time you stop pretending alcohol can damage a Daedric Prince and drink with your twin?”
Zee blinked, her lashes wet but slowly lifting into something that might have been relief. Her lips curled into a fragile smile.
“Okay,” she said softly. “Just… something light. Make it look like the night sky. With stars.”
Epilogue
Snow fell silently on the upper observation deck at the summit of the Throat of the World.
Winter had claimed the mountaintop in full—windless, cold, perfect. The rails of the funicular were locked for the season, its last riders long gone. The small wooden sign reading “Closed Until Spring – Thank You for Visiting the Highest Point in Nirn!” flapped once in a rare breeze, then stilled.
Nothing moved. Nothing spoke.
Only the dragon remained.
Bronze. Weathered. Majestic.
A dragon, frozen mid-roar, wings half-spread. Its surface had darkened over centuries, dulled by wind and ice, oxidized into quiet dignity. Tourists used to crowd around it for photos. Children once climbed its tail. Someone had scratched initials into its base long ago—L.M. + A.J.
Now, it just stood there. Waiting. Watching nothing.
Something hummed.
And for the first time in many thousands of years…
It hummed differently.
P.S.
Sincere apologies.
Has anyone seen my cheese?
I’m quite certain I left it somewhere around here…
