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ehlnofay · 22 days ago

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One day – as far-off as a century, as near as tomorrow – it will all be a grand old story.

The stories will speak of a handful of champions, rushing headlong against time and logic to save the world; the last Blades, the last Septim, and his hanger-on Hero, carving a bloody path to the Temple doors. The stories will tell of skies like burned blood, of fire and ash and uncountable legions of monsters – hundreds, thousands, millions, the quantity rising with each telling – the city streets cracked and quaking, every civilian locked up in their homes and businesses and praying for deliverance. The stories will tell of the appearance of Dagon, red-hot and roiling, a gory perversion of the sun; they’ll tell that when all seemed lost, Martin Septim sacrificed himself in a blaze of glory, calling down the avatar of Akatosh and casting Dagon and his ilk back whence he came. They’ll tell that the golden dragon threw back its head and roared, and the sky cleared and brightened at its word; they’ll tell how it petrified in place, a magnificent pillar of stone, a sacrosanct statue. A site of pilgrimage. A shrine, to the grace and glory of the gods, and the bravery and benevolence of the last Emperor, the best of men.

It will be a good story. All splendour and triumph, a bittersweet victory right out of the epics; the pages closed, the crisis done, the world saved in as golden a resolution as could be asked for. It doesn’t get better than this, a perfect saviour, a hallowed end.

What the stories won’t tell is how, under clear skies and sunlight, the Hero of Kvatch falls at the statue’s marbled feet and howls like the world is still ending.

“You fucking coward,” Pax is screaming, as best as she can. Her mouth tastes like smoke. Her voice is hoarse. “Stupid worm, fucking – selfish bastard – what’s wrong with you?”

His head is swimming, a bit; he shouldn’t have tried to stand, but he – but – he’s dragged himself up to the dais, just about, and managed to sprawl himself over the edge, a snail’s trail of blood smeared along the floor behind him. The copper tang of it is strong in his nostrils. The statue stands, proud and silent, one marble claw dug into the cracked stone of the rostrum. His whole body is beginning to ache – just because of a stupid stab wound in his side, he’d swear he’s had worse, it’s not that bad, it’s not that bad. His throat burns. He isn’t crying. He isn’t.

The sky is so fucking blue.

“What’s wrong with you?” he demands, again, and brings the heel of his hand thudding against the clawed foot hard enough that he feels the impact down his arm, through his blurry head. “Why would you – piece of shit – sorry spit-gill – I thought –”

None of their thoughts will go through to the end. “I thought,” Pax says again, and she’s not crying, and it hurts so much it’s looped back around to not hurting, and it’s all getting fuzzy at the edges, all the world narrowed down to this and this and this and all fucking hell she’d rather be anywhere, anything else. The statue is cold. Her throat is scraped raw. “Come back,” she’s begging without quite meaning to, “come back,” and she drives her palm into the stone again, and the pain sets her reeling.

And all hell, the sky is so blue; the statue enormous; and here they are, at its feet, vision blurring, staring up at its cold marble face. It’s so fucking tall, so proud, face tipped up towards the new-appeared sun, away from them.

“How could you?” Pax says, and then they can’t even see it anymore, blood unspooling from them like skeins of madder-dyed thread. Red has never been their favourite colour. The shape of the dragon, glowing like the sun, is fixed forever on the backs of their eyelids; gold, they think, is worse. The world is detached and floating about them. They taste smoke and then bile. Stone digs fierce into their spine.

It burned like the sun, the dragon; like all the divine light of Aetherius come to earth just to sear the moisture from her eyes. Where it clawed Mehrunes Dagon, his blood boiled; when it screamed, the world moulded itself to its call. Pax hadn’t known what was happening, while it happened; sure as shit doesn’t know now. What they do know is that he’s gone. What they do know is that the dragon didn’t look at them once. They don’t taste ash on their breath, now; just fear, stagnant, sour, blood jangling bitter in their veins and seeping out to soak their gambeson.

It doesn’t hurt, anymore, there’s just this spreading, vague numbness. It doesn’t feel like their body. It’s just a thing they’re putting on. Their ears are still ringing from the crashing-in of the Temple, but there’s a faint buzzing of noise outside. They might be dying. They can’t be assed to get up.

Skeeving asshole. They’re getting blood on the dragon’s immaculate feet. The hollow sounds of voices feels distant. Could well be worse.

Then, “… a healer, here!” they hear, much closer than anything else had been before, paired with the faraway thudding of the door, and “Pax. Pax! It’s – where’s –” and there’s hands on him, a cautious manipulation of his neck, a shifting of his legs. Pressure on his sternum, and then his stomach, and a pained grunt slips out of his mouth, bound up with a slurred curse.

“Stay calm,” says an unfamiliar voice, soft and steady. “I’m just accessing the wound.”

“Go away,” Pax says, or tries to say, but his voice is whispering-hoarse and the dragon looms in the dark even still. He could open his eyes, but what would be the point?

The hands stay on him even when he bucks, holding him steady; they whisper over the stab in her gut, pulling at the drying blood, mumbling words that she can’t be fucking bothered to listen to, one voice known to her already, one voice not; pressure again on the injury, and they try, half-heartedly, to breathe out a swear – and then light, copper-bright, behind their eyelids, and burning heat, and pain pain pain eclipsing all else as something inside them wrenches back into working order, and then their eyes are open and the sky is blue and they are very fucking aware, thank you.

Pax sits up, fast enough to send the world dizzily whirling, and shoves the mage-medic away from them.

“Piss off,” he says – and it’s still hoarse, smoke-throated and scraped raw, but there’s more bite to it this time, more sound. The strange hands fall away from his side, and he looks down. His gambeson is hanging open, cords untied, the emblem of the wolf split clean down the middle. His undershirt is rucked up around his chest, too, so much of his skin is bared to the clear, bright air; all to get to the wound tucked just under their ribs. It’s an underwhelming thing – smaller than they would’ve thought, a thin short slash like a very red mouth has opened itself up in their gut. It’s stopped dribbling quite so much blood, gone scabby with rough healing, though the stuff is still smeared all over their skin, damn near enough to bathe in. It’s barely anything, really. They’re barely even hurt.

“I’m not done,” says the mage-medic, all stern. The wound itches, the taste of hasty magic gone sour in the back of their throat with all the rest of it. “I might have to find my suturing needle. It isn’t too bad, but it can’t be healed all at once.”

“Piss off,” Pax repeats – and all fucking hell it hurts, and he’s sitting up against the statue, legs lolling. He’s dizzy. He ignores it.

Ocato – his fine clothes sooty, face tight as a wound-up spring – says, “Calm down, please – he’s a skilled healer, he knows what he’s doing.” His eyes keep skipping around the room like he’s searching for another enemy lurking hidden in the shadows. “What happened? Where’s the Emperor?”

Ah – not an enemy, then.

Pax tastes bile.

“Not very quick on the uptake, are you?” she says, elbow braced against the statue’s massive marble claws (she hates touching it, she hates it, she hates it, she wants to set it crumbling apart, she doesn’t want to let anyone else touch it ever again). She can’t stop leaning because then she might topple back down again. Fuck, she needs to keep her head on straight – or lose it altogether, whichever happens faster. Her fingers feel cold. “How’re you going to run an Empire when you’re this fucking clueless?”

Ocato looks them in the face; his brow, high and slanted in that way elves have, furrows. “You’re hurt,” he says, in a tone like he expects Pax to argue with him. “Martin Septim–”

“Can’t you see him?” Pax demands, tone torn in half and uglier than they’ve ever heard it before, and they slam the back of their hand against the stone for echoing emphasis. (They want to shatter all the bones in their knuckles, break every piece in their hand one by one, like wishbones. They want it bloody and bruising. They want to scratch its polished-smooth surface until their fingernails tear. They want – they want – they want –)

Ocato, the Empire’s de facto leader, says, “Ah.”

In his plummy robes, all fruit-rich and stained with ash, he looks very stark against the Temple’s cracked marble floors.

“The Avatar,” he says. “If – the Amulet – joined blood of kings and gods –”

“Ocato,” says Pax, leaning heavy against the statue’s hateful foot, “shut up.” Their voice is bowstring-taut; he looks at them, his eyes too golden to meet. His mouth twists. They tip their head back against the stone, glaring up at the chips of blue sky shown in the crater where the roof once was, and try hard to ignore the tugging ache hooked behind their ribs.

It really fucking hurts. Worse than it did before, maybe, like some gauzy veil has been ripped from it. A veil has been ripped from the world. All the colours are too-bright, hideous. Pax breathes, because there’s no alternative, and waits for the pain to ebb.

(It doesn’t, really.)

“The Gates are sealed,” Ocato says, slowly, and he’s looking at her again, she can see out of the edge of her eye. “We will speak later. I’ll have you put up in the Palace until you’re healed. Ah – Quintus, does –”

“As long as she doesn’t go back into shock,” says the mage-medic, busily flipping through some kind of supply bag at his belt, “her odds are good. Lost blood, but I don’t think anything important was too damaged – get a proper examination, all I did was give her a second wind. Stitches, rest, fluids should do it, with luck.”

“Can she stand?”

“Can or should are –”

“Shut the fuck up,” Pax snaps, “I’m right here.” Her back pressed against the cold marble of the statue, her plait half-loose and knotted, filled with ash. The sky is so fucking blue. It hurts like hell – if the healer took her out of shock, then shit, she wishes he’d put her back in. She can see in too much detail. She can feel the skin, damp and ragged and angry. She presses the heel of her hand to the injury; her palm is crusted with dust, tacky with the same half-dried blood streaked over the floors.

Ocato, in the edges of her vision, shifts, all a blur of rich clothes and sympathetic eyes and solemn voice turned soft like he’s talking to an easily spooked horse. “I know.”

The mage-medic clucks his tongue. “Let me take another look first,” he says, and takes a step forward –

Pax kicks out at him before he even gets close. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

“Pax,” says Ocato – and why, why the fuck is the Empire’s de facto leader here, now, babying them like a whimpering little puppy instead of anywhere fucking else, why is he bothering to talk to them all patronising soft, why does he care? They’ve barely fucking met – talked twice, if you can call either of those times talking. Is it because they’re the Hero of Kvatch? Is this what they’ve earned – a bit of leeway as they throw a tantrum, bleeding out at the marble feet of that stupid bloody statue? Ocato looks so fucking tired; Pax wants to hit him in the nose. “You need care.”

“I need –” and Pax chokes it off in a puff of air. The statue looms behind them. There’s blood on the floors. (Traitor liar coward come back come back I hate you come down I’ll knock your fucking teeth in stupid selfish fraud come BACK. LOOK AT ME.)

Pax closes his eyes.

“My gratitude,” Ocato says, “ – our gratitude for what you’ve done cannot be overstated. The Crisis if over. The gates are sealed. Mehrunes Dagon and his ilk can never threaten Tamriel again.”

The knobs of Pax’s braid are pressing uncomfortably against their scalp. They can hear footsteps, coming closer. They don’t respond.

“It’s a great shame we had to pay such a price,” Ocato says, and Pax would fucking love to know who’s we here, “but it’s done. Dagon is defeated. We’ve won.” He’s much too close, now; his voice pitches softer. “Martin – is dead. But he died an Emperor – and a hero to rival Tiber Septim.”

Pax shoves him.

It’s a good fucking shove – knocks him right to the ground, his elbow hitting the marble with a painfully audible crack, Pax standing over him, shirt rucked up, their handprint on his shoulder marked in blood. “You useless, prattling jackass!” they spit, hoarse, and deal a swift, savage kick to his side. “How dare you act like this is a victory! It should have been me!”

Then their head swims, and they’re sitting again on the edge of the dais, palm pressed to their side, the sweaty cloth of their gambeson pushed half off their shoulder and its cord biting into their hand. The mage-medic is kneeling over Ocato, who still lies, stunned; Pax can’t see his eyes, now, but they remember them, brassy with shocked fear. Their bow is off by the wall where they left it. Pax’s palms are sticky with blood. The sky is so fucking blue. No matter how hard she rages the dragon won’t look down at them.

By the time the mage-medic has helped Ocato up, they’re gone. The Kvatch guard gambeson remains, smoke-smelling and crusted with blood, left like an offering at the statue’s feet. The Hero of Kvatch is never seen again.